I approach secondaries like I do everything else concerned with the medical school application process. Give it 100%, know that you have done everything you can to maximize your chances.
I made sure to have my primary submitted within 2 minutes of AMCAS accepting them on June 2.
For my #1 school, I had my secondary essay perfected and ready to go and the day after I recieved the invite I overnighted my secondary, (had I not recieved the invitation after the post office had closed I would have overnighted it the same day).
Every secondary I get I get out the same day or the next. If a secondary arrives as I am sitting down for dinner, the food gets put away because the secondary always comes first and food is for those who have no secondaries waiting in their inbox.
The key is to be a really good, fast writer, and or, have your essays pre-written, or write many fantastic essays that can be re-used for other schools.
In this way, an online secondary can be sent out within a few hours of it arriving in my mail box.
Am I a bit extreme, well perhaps. But at least I can honestly say there is nothing more I could have done to maximize my chances.
Well, I suppose I could have parked outside my first choice school's admissions office starting June 24th with my pre-completed secondary and programmed my Iphone to chime evertime an email came in. Then within 1 minute of getting the invite I could put the secondary in the hands of the admissions officer. It would have set a record for quickest turnaround time and shown just how much that school meant to me. But then again it would have been truely bat **** crazy, even for me