M1 struggling with workflow

[atomhollow]

Hi Everyone,

I am an M1 really struggling with getting everything done. Most students in my class don't go to in-house lectures and instead opt to use outside resources (mostly BnB and Pathoma) and then doing the associated Anki cards. I study by watching the BnB videos on 2x speed while pausing to annotate First Aid. However, afterwards when I try to do the associated Anki cards, I get almost all of them wrong and feel like I haven't learned anything. This is incredibly frustrating and it takes SO long to get through everything. It usually takes me 4x the length of the video to get through the video and associated Anki cards. For example, if a BnB video is 15 minutes long, it will take me 1 hr to get thru the video while annotating FA and then do the Anki cards (I use lightyear). I feel like I am going to slow b/c my memory is terrible. This is giving me so much anxiety and I feel completely burnt out. I am not sure if I am doing something wrong or am just not smart enough/ have a bad memory.

Does anyone have any advice?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Captain_Falcon]

Stop annotating, watch the video and only do the cards. Most videos you can probably watch at least at 1.25x speed

 

[Dr. Anonymouss]

Just realize that everyone is different, so don't compare yourself to other students. I was one of those students who you described that only used outside resources. I found this to be the most helpful and I still managed to stay slightly above average on all the school exams even though I never watched any school lectures. I think it really helped prepare me for step I though, so keep doing it. I think I was in a similar situation to you though. If you just watch the B&B video once then it will be hard to retain everything and be prepared to do the anki afterwards, I mean it's a lot of information. What I did was watch the B&B video and then I would go through the anki cards to see which ones I wanted to keep and which one's I didn't for that particular video. A lot of anki cards have 3-4 closed captions and I never liked this, I would only keep 1 closed caption for each card. So I would go through the edit menu and read the card and take a quick glance at the answer before I actually started my anki. In this sense I not only decreased the total anki cards (because 3-4 for the same one is excessive in my opinion), but I also did two passes on the new anki cards in a single day and then I would see them immediately the next day for a review. This is just how I approached it and it worked for me. Just keep trying different things and asking others how they approached it. Its all trial and error to see what works best for you.

Edit - And as falcon said, I would not annotate. I think it's too time consuming and you will receive little benefit from it as much of what you are annotating is probably not retained. Just focus on spaced repetition with anki.

 

[ChymeofPassion]

Didnt use first aid till my dedicated final week. Stop annotating, not efficient. Watch the BnB/Pathoma at 1.5, dont stop, and do the cards. Getting them wrong first is the entire point of anki. Stop overthinking and let anki do its magic. If you think youre going to be able to memorize everything and go into every exam/quiz,knowing you'll get a 100 like in undergrad, I'd get used to the uneasiness

 

[atomhollow]

Didnt use first aid till my dedicated final week. Stop annotating, not efficient. Watch the BnB/Pathoma at 1.5, dont stop, and do the cards. Getting them wrong first is the entire point of anki. Stop overthinking and let anki do its magic. If you think youre going to be able to memorize everything and go into every exam/quiz,knowing you'll get a 100 like in undergrad, I'd get used to the uneasiness

I've tried doing this, but I still get almost all of the cards wrong. Do you "preview" the cards by looking through them and the answers before you actually do them? If I don't do that I feel completely lost and feel like I am just memorizing the answer to the card without understanding the big picture. I feel like I need to watch the BnB lectures like 2-3x to actually grasp some of the concepts.

Also, what are your Anki interval settings? Mine are [5 20 1440 5760]

 

[atomhollow]

Just realize that everyone is different, so don't compare yourself to other students. I was one of those students who you described that only used outside resources. I found this to be the most helpful and I still managed to stay slightly above average on all the school exams even though I never watched any school lectures. I think it really helped prepare me for step I though, so keep doing it. I think I was in a similar situation to you though. If you just watch the B&B video once then it will be hard to retain everything and be prepared to do the anki afterwards, I mean it's a lot of information. What I did was watch the B&B video and then I would go through the anki cards to see which ones I wanted to keep and which one's I didn't for that particular video. A lot of anki cards have 3-4 closed captions and I never liked this, I would only keep 1 closed caption for each card. So I would go through the edit menu and read the card and take a quick glance at the answer before I actually started my anki. In this sense I not only decreased the total anki cards (because 3-4 for the same one is excessive in my opinion), but I also did two passes on the new anki cards in a single day and then I would see them immediately the next day for a review. This is just how I approached it and it worked for me. Just keep trying different things and asking others how they approached it. Its all trial and error to see what works best for you.

Edit - And as falcon said, I would not annotate. I think it's too time consuming and you will receive little benefit from it as much of what you are annotating is probably not retained. Just focus on spaced repetition with anki.

Yeah I think I will stop annotating. I mainly use it as a way to keep me focused as I feel like I don't retain much after listening to the video. How many videos should I be going through in a day, bc the max I seem to get through is like 3, which I feel is super slow.

 

[ChymeofPassion]

I've tried doing this, but I still get almost all of the cards wrong. Do you "preview" the cards by looking through them and the answers before you actually do them? If I don't do that I feel completely lost and feel like I am just memorizing the answer to the card without understanding the big picture. I feel like I need to watch the BnB lectures like 2-3x to actually grasp some of the concepts.

Also, what are your Anki interval settings? Mine are [5 20 1440 5760]

The big picture is oftentimes a limiting factor of anki tbh; for things where I needed extra help learning the material I would go down to 1x speed. But you'll get better with time. What topics are you struggling with right now? You can pm me if you want.

 

[Goro]

Hi Everyone,

I am an M1 really struggling with getting everything done. Most students in my class don't go to in-house lectures and instead opt to use outside resources (mostly BnB and Pathoma) and then doing the associated Anki cards. I study by watching the BnB videos on 2x speed while pausing to annotate First Aid. However, afterwards when I try to do the associated Anki cards, I get almost all of them wrong and feel like I haven't learned anything. This is incredibly frustrating and it takes SO long to get through everything. It usually takes me 4x the length of the video to get through the video and associated Anki cards. For example, if a BnB video is 15 minutes long, it will take me 1 hr to get thru the video while annotating FA and then do the Anki cards (I use lightyear). I feel like I am going to slow b/c my memory is terrible. This is giving me so much anxiety and I feel completely burnt out. I am not sure if I am doing something wrong or am just not smart enough/ have a bad memory.

Does anyone have any advice?

At this point in, you have learned how to handle med school.

Read my post on guide to success in med school.

 

[djiboutiman]

There are some tricks you can use that might help. I’d start with 1.25 speed which for me is just quick enough to not fall asleep to Dr. Ryan’s sultry voice, but also not too fast where I’m not understanding the concepts. If a video is longer, you can watch half the video, do the relevant cards, then watch the next half of the video, and finish the remaining cards. That way you aren’t so lost. Theres a ton of repeats in the Lightyear deck so suspend the repeat concepts to cutdown your card count. As the above users said don’t annotate First Aid.

I also used these settings and tweaked them for my personal use. My intervals are 15 1440. When I go through cards I either hit good or again. I also paired one of those PowerPoint clickers to those answer choices to really help me power through cards.

You’ll get better with the speed of learning, concepts, and Anki with time. I think a lot of us started out M1 struggling, but adapted quickly. Just remember you deserve to be there and you are smart and capable. Good luck with everything!

 

[deleted1079620]

I do something kinda similar to djiboutiman when it comes to my cards.

My anki is set at 1min 1 day and 4 days. The first time I go through cards I hit good on every card and push it forward one day, whether I know it or not. I’m really just using the first pass through the cards to read them after watching the video and making sure I understand the words on the card.

The next day (2nd pass) I sort the cards by the ones I know and don’t know. I hit good on the ones I know and push them forward 3 days, and 1 min on the ones I don’t know. The reason I use 1 min instead of 15 like the default is I can get through 10 cards a min…15 min is 150 cards, too many for me to learn at one time. 1 min means I’m only seeing 10 missed cards and I’m more likely to remember them.

On the 3rd day I go through the cards again, and if I’m still missing cards over and over and sending them back to 1min, I either need to rewatch that video because I didn’t get it the first time, or I need to write something down or go read about it to make it stick better. By the time I’ve seen cards 3 days in a row they pretty much all stick except maybe 1%, so this helps me narrow down what I still don’t know fairly quickly.

I know this isn’t the “right” way to use anki, but this has made anki actually enjoyable for me, I get through cards much faster, and I retain the information long term. Hope this helps you OP!

 

[DarkBluMage]

I've tried doing this, but I still get almost all of the cards wrong. Do you "preview" the cards by looking through them and the answers before you actually do them? If I don't do that I feel completely lost and feel like I am just memorizing the answer to the card without understanding the big picture. I feel like I need to watch the BnB lectures like 2-3x to actually grasp some of the concepts.

Also, what are your Anki interval settings? Mine are [5 20 1440 5760]

Try doing the practice questions with each BNB video. It’ll help you test/retain knowledge from the video

 

[Osteosaur]

You're going to get anki cards wrong. And do you know what happens when you get them wrong? You do them again in a minute and get them right.

Anki is a long game. Its about retaining that minutia in a year when you need it for step.

 

[meow1985]

This is a bit off topic but this sort of post makes me wonder what even is the point of being in Med school for the preclinical years and paying 50,000 a year. Why not just just study the open source material and pass the Step…

 

[ujsc]

Go ahead and do that and let us know how it works...

 

[deleted1132405]

At this point in, you have learned how to handle med school.

Read my post on guide to success in med school.

where is this post?

 

[Goro]

where is this post?

• Goro's Guide to Success in Medical School (2019 edition)