What do you use to schedule your daily life in medical school?

[1231nal]

Hello all. I'm an accepted medical student finishing up undergrad this semester. Although I am an organized person, with the abundance of material and scheduled events in medical school (quiz, exam, whatever) I know I will have a somewhat difficult time keeping up with everything. I'm looking for something to help me keep a daily schedule. I know some people like to use apps on their phones/laptops. Others like to use actual paperback planners, but what do you think the best is for maintaining your schedule in medical school?

Let me know your thoughts! Thanks!

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[ortnakas]

Google calendar synced to your phone/laptop/iPad/etc so you can add to it or look at it from any device you use.

 

[Chibucks15]

My school auto-populates an outlook calendar with everything on it so I just add on to that. I can get to it from anywhere. I use a dry erase calendar to keep track of exam spacing and other larger events

 

[getfat]

+1 to Google Calendar but only for Classes. I know some people go farther with this and schedule out "study times" but personally this doesn't work for me. It sets me up for failure when I need longer time to study a specific thing.

I focus on setting up to-do lists on a daily and weekly basis.

 

[getfat]

I thought about it and realized I should've explained my to-do list a little more.

Personally, my classes break down in the following order (every class hour has 3 questions on the test). So I realized I have to able to triage my time. It doesn't matter if you know one aspect very well if you don't spend time on other aspects.
I would break down every test, write down every time I went through the information. More importantly, I asked questions and wrote them down in the relevant lecture. So I knew who to ask (whether it was the professor, or classmate who new a specific subject better than me).
The assigned reading rows are optional as you can tell. I didn't have a lot of time to read alot of them and personally only read them if the concept was really hard or the teacher really didn't teach it well.

 

[Mad Jack]

Hello all. I'm an accepted medical student finishing up undergrad this semester. Although I am an organized person, with the abundance of material and scheduled events in medical school (quiz, exam, whatever) I know I will have a somewhat difficult time keeping up with everything. I'm looking for something to help me keep a daily schedule. I know some people like to use apps on their phones/laptops. Others like to use actual paperback planners, but what do you think the best is for maintaining your schedule in medical school?

Let me know your thoughts! Thanks!

I'm not much of an organizer, but the people who stayed most organized were the ones with traditional paper planners and phone alerts.

 

[1231nal]

I thought about it and realized I should've explained my to-do list a little more.

Personally, my classes break down in the following order (every class hour has 3 questions on the test). So I realized I have to able to triage my time. It doesn't matter if you know one aspect very well if you don't spend time on other aspects.
I would break down every test, write down every time I went through the information. More importantly, I asked questions and wrote them down in the relevant lecture. So I knew who to ask (whether it was the professor, or classmate who new a specific subject better than me).
The assigned reading rows are optional as you can tell. I didn't have a lot of time to read alot of them and personally only read them if the concept was really hard or the teacher really didn't teach it well.
View attachment 229930

Impressive. Not sure I could do that! Are you the only one who does this or is it a common thing?

 

[getfat]

Impressive. Not sure I could do that! Are you the only one who does this or is it a common thing?

Previous classes have a developed a version of this that a lot of people use. It basically just has the specific class session and theres little boxes that allow you to keep tract of how many times you reviewed the lecture.
I liked to add boxes that more importantly organize questions, and give me a to-do list for a specific lecture.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

I make a plan week to week.

 

[sunshinefl]

I refer to the school-provides schedule for when to be at school— I add things, and circle the mandatory things/things I am attending in red. (Picture 1)

I always keep a file with active things to do, organized by class that I can look at in a glance (picture 2) and calendar of daily to do goals by subject, and sometimes pages or files [which I continue to modify] (picture 3)

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

I did and do absolutely nothing. During pre-clinical just had to keep track of when I had to go in for OMM (school calendar) or some other BS thing. During clinical I just know what time I gotta show up to work.

 

[Jojos]

google calendar and wunderlist

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

fear

but more seriously. I made google spread sheets for times when I needed structure.

 

[license43]

I don't... I plan after breakfast... or lunch if I wake up late lol.... I'm pretty self-disciplined so I have no problem getting stuff done.

 

[license43]

I did and do absolutely nothing. During pre-clinical just had to keep track of when I had to go in for OMM (school calendar) or some other BS thing. During clinical I just know what time I gotta show up to work.

me too!

 

[073116]

after couple weeks - you'll memorize your schedule anyway. I always cringe when I see some people spent tons of time just putting that calendar and maintaining it - it was meant to save time, not require extra time to do it every week or month imho. Keep it simple - but you do whatever you want

P.S. i just took a photo of our schedule on my phone lol and I can look at it anytime I want. Took me 5 sec - a lot faster than to create schedules and try fill in different study times etc. You are going to study using all of your free time anyway - what's the point of schedule? It'not like you can choose when to study or not lol.

 

[sunshinefl]

after couple weeks - you'll memorize your schedule anyway. I always cringe when I see some people spent tons of time just putting that calendar and maintaining it - it was meant to save time, not require extra time to do it every week or month imho. Keep it simple - but you do whatever you want

P.S. i just took a photo of our schedule on my phone lol and I can look at it anytime I want. Took me 5 sec - a lot faster than to create schedules and try fill in different study times etc. You are going to study using all of your free time anyway - what's the point of schedule? It'not like you can choose when to study or not lol.

For me it’s not about scheduling study “times”, but goals for the day. I work back from the exam and spread the material out by day. If you didn’t, how would you know you are making enough progress to cover what you need to before the exam? It helps me schedule what subjects to cover and how much each day.

 

[073116]

For me it’s not about scheduling study “times”, but goals for the day. I work back from the exam and spread the material out by day. If you didn’t, how would you know you are making enough progress to cover what you need to before the exam? It helps me schedule what subjects to cover and how much each day.

MS1?

 

[sunshinefl]

1st year?

Yes.

 

[073116]

Yes.

We can tell

No, but seriously, by Spring semester everyone knows exactly how much to study. It's not rocket science - for me I need to read handouts 3 times (and some extra work if I want to get A). I'm keeping it simple: if you have 3 days left before exam - read handouts 1 time each day lol

P.S. I apologize, you do what you want of course. Keep calendars and plan everything if that helps you

 

[sunshinefl]

We can tell

No, but seriously, by Spring semester everyone knows exactly how much to study. It's not rocket science - for me I need to read handouts 3 times (and some extra work if I want to get A). I'm keeping it simple: if you have 3 days left before exam - read handouts 1 time each day lol

P.S. I apologize, you do what you want of course. Keep calendars and plan everything if that helps you

No need to apologize, I was just explaining how I use it. It does help me not suddenly realize I literally don’t have time to finish convering the material for even the first time. I also need 3 passes through material to maximize my learning, but so far in medical school I have never gotten through it 3 times, throw a parade if I get through it twice, breath a huge sigh of relief if I get through all of it once, and just do my best not to get an unrecoverable score if I don’t get through all the material for even the first time. That has happened multiple times (the not even be exposed to all the material for an exam one time part, luckily no unrecoverable scores so far).