Time management + study routines.

[La Doctora]

Hello everyone,
My study routine has been up and down. My fresh and soph years in college were: study for at least 6 hours straight before you can get up and do something else. I didn't allow myself to have breaks for long periods of time. This habit paid off but it took a massive amount of time because I did everything I could to remember very tiny details, and would take one hour breaks and continue for another 5+ hours on redoing problems, over and over and testing my memorization skills (I had no life, I know).
Knowing/hearing of the volume of information thrown at you in med school, I was curious as to how all of your study routines work for you, and what exactly you do to study (do you study for two hours, take a break, then another two hours, etc, or what do you do..?) I'm asking because I can't spend all my time focusing on 1 or 2 classes when I have a lot of things to know once I get to med school. I've known I needed to change up my study habits for a while now but I guess I am looking for examples to try to be more efficient with time instead of dedicating it all to a few select classes.

Also, I currently work part time at least 25 hours a week, I go to school full time as a junior, and any comments on time management would be nice.


I did search by the way and found a decent post but it left some of my questions unanswered.


Thanks everyone.

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[RySerr21]

one of the problems i have had is just figuring out what to do. there is often so much, that ill spend 5-10 min just debating with myself what i should study b/c you can make an argument for any of the subjects really. the one thing you CAN NOT do is this: say you have a test a week from today on biochemistry, so for that whole week you do nothing but biochemistry and you ignore everything else. I did this my first test and it SUCKED. Its just too much info and like you said you cant be studying just one subject 7 hours straight. Youll fall behind to quickly. Instead, I tend to dedicate the first half of my study day to the material that was coered THAT DAY, no matter if i have a test on it in a week or a month. Im not trying to memorize the details but just make sure i am familiar with the subjecct. Then the latter half of the day ill spend studying for the upcoming exam. I find that that studying is a lot easier too because ive already gone through it once or twice from the previous weeks when it was first introduced. does that make sense? Another thing you can try and do is set a timer for a set time, say half an hour. For that half an hour you do nothing but study. no phone, no computer, no anything that will distract you. When it goes off, take a 5-10 min break and then repeat the cycle. You might find that you are way more productive in those short half hour study sessions than you were in your marathon 6 hour sessions.

 

[La Doctora]

one of the problems i have had is just figuring out what to do. there is often so much, that ill spend 5-10 min just debating with myself what i should study b/c you can make an argument for any of the subjects really......... Instead, I tend to dedicate the first half of my study day to the material that was coered THAT DAY, no matter if i have a test on it in a week or a month. Im not trying to memorize the details but just make sure i am familiar with the subjecct. Then the latter half of the day ill spend studying for the upcoming exam........For that half an hour you do nothing but study. no phone, no computer, no anything that will distract you. When it goes off, take a 5-10 min break and then repeat the cycle. You might find that you are way more productive in those short half hour study sessions than you were in your marathon 6 hour sessions.

Thanks so much for your response, especially the part in bold, I will definitely start doing this, and try the half an hour deal.

 

[MexicanDr]

Great advise bro!

 

[YouNeverKnow22]

read this blog http://calnewport.com/blog/

 

[orthomyxo]

there is often so much, that ill spend 5-10 min just debating with myself what i should study b/c you can make an argument for any of the subjects really.

I do this too, and I HATE IT!!!!!!!!! I feel like there's so much **** to do and not enough time in the day to do it.