I talk about study strategies and productivity for medical students | Helped medical students with struggles in med school | Med school teacher | Internist
Over the past 10 years, I ranked 7th in the Nurse Licensure Examination, 3rd in the Physician Licensure Examination, and 1st in the Philippine Specialty Board of Internal Medicine.
What most people don’t know?
I use the same 3 study strategies every time.
🧵👇
Another good productivity tip:
Do caffeine naps.
Wait till you're tired, drink caffeine, then take a 15-minute nap.
Your brain clears adenosine during the nap so as you wake up, the caffeine has just kicked in resulting in better cognitive performance.
Works like a charm.
Feeling stuck? Get a 20-min nap
Set an alarm and don't snooze it
Do the Military Sleep method to fall asleep in 2 min
Wake up feeling recharged
It works every time.
5 “hacks” for studying even when you're tired:
• Take a cold shower
• Don't eat a high-carb meal
• 15-20 min nap (do not exceed)
• Study outside in coworking spaces or coffeeshops
• Stand up while studying (gives you a second burst of energy)
Works every time.
I started med school when I was 21 years old.
Since then, I've:
• Graduated valedictorian
• Ranked 3rd in the Physician Licensure Exam
• Placed 1st in the Philippine Specialty Board of Internal Medicine
If I had to do it all over again, here are 5 things I'd do differently.
Another effective study tip:
Interleaving.
Here’s why:
Mixing the study of one subject among multiple other subjects helps in remembering more information for longer than if you had studied one subject at a time in sequence.
To do this:
Origin story: when I was in high school, I was stuck:
• Ranked bottom of my class
• Tired all the time
• Always sleep-deprived
More than 18 years later, I’m here now.
I learn faster, 10x'd my energy, have better sleep
Here’s what this taught me about studying smarter
🧵👇
Benefits of getting 7-8 hours of sleep every night:
• Study for long hours the next day
• Feel less tired first thing in the morning
• Remember more and transform short-term to long-term memory
• Have a lower rate of study burnout
Which is why quality sleep is so valuable.
My perfect morning routine:
• Wake up at 5AM
• Go for a 30-min early-morning run
• Meditate for 10-15 min
• Get a cold shower
• Accomplish the hardest task first
Do these 5 things every day, and you will create momentum into the week!
I am an education junkie.
For example, I have spent over 100 hours watching nearly every TED Talk on the Internet.
Many are interesting. But only a few are worth your time.
Here is a list of my 3 favorites—that will help you gamify studying, develop grit, and study smarter:
Strategy
#1
: Active Recall
What’s the fastest way to remember a lot of new information?
Do a lot of practice tests.
Success here 100% comes down to:
• Doing pretests
• Answering posttests
• Studying the explanations
• Exploring why the other options were wrong
Another good study tip:
Use premade flashcards instead of creating your own.
Here’s why:
It saves you time and energy that can be better used to for the actual studying of the flashcards.
Especially when you need to study a ton of information in a short amount of time.
Stop trying to:
• Summarize everything from your textbook
• Reread notes you took down from the lecture 3x
• Highlight every bit of text in your handout
Instead, do tons of practice tests to find your weak areas and just focus on that.
The rest will take care of itself.
Jaz Togonon ranked 1st in the recently held October 2022 PLE.
I asked him what are the resources he used to equip himself for one of the biggest exams of his life
These 10 resources will change the way you prepare for your PLE
Here’s a breakdown of each one: 🧵👇
Study Tip: Use Your Study Time Wisely
Don’t make your own flashcards and practice tests.
Instead, look for premade flashcard decks and get past exams from your upperclassmen.
This ensures you spend more time and energy actively engaging with the study material.
In 2017, I was preparing for my Physician Licensure Examination but I didn't know where to start
Then, I used the 80/20 rule
Here's the 3-Step framework I used to rank 3rd in that exam
🧵👇
A lot of med students ask me where they can get practice tests to prepare as early as they can for the PLE.
So, I'm thinking of creating:
A 1,200-item question bank based off the previous board exams (100 Qs for each of the 12 subjects in the PLE).
Anyone else interested?
Strategy
#2
: Spaced Repetition
People who succeed here space out their studies on longer intervals.
So, here are a few easy ways you can do that.
• Get your list of topics
• Place Topic 1 on Day 1
• Repeat Topic 1 only when you've already gone through all the other topics
Big study mistakes you’re probably making:
• Checking the answer to a practice question but not studying the explanations
• Not exploring why the other options are not the answer
• Not answering enough practice tests
What other mistakes have you seen your friends make?
Daily study routine I used to prepare for my medical board exams (PLE):
• 5 AM wake up
• 30 minutes of jogging
• 7-12 Read handouts and review books
• 12-1 Lunch, 15-min nap
• 1-5 More reading
• 5-6 Dinner
• 6-9 Do timed practice tests
• 9-10 Reflect, prepare to sleep
Studying is hard.
Failing your exam is harder.
Staying focused for long hours is hard.
Falling behind your study schedule is harder.
Doing practice tests is hard.
Not remembering what you’ve just studied is harder.
Another study mistake I used to make:
Skimming (instead of reading) on my first pass of the study material
And it took me a long time to learn the reason why it was wrong:
The Military Sleep Method to fall asleep fast (under 2 min):
• Relax your facial muscles
• Loosen your shoulders, arms, and legs
• Relax your chest and breathe out
• Feel your body sinking into the bed
• Visualize relaxing scenes to clear your mind
Works most of the time.
Another good studying framework:
The 80/20 Rule.
80% of the exam questions will likely come from only 20% of the entire study material.
Prioritize knowing the high-yield 20%, instead of spending equal amounts of time studying everything.
Saves you a lot of time and effort.
Strategy
#3
: 80/20 rule
What are the topics you're going to study more of? Less of?
This is the 80/20 rule.
Only 20% of the:
• Terms
• Concepts
• Topics
Are being asked in 80% of the exams (aka high-yield).
So focus on things that give you the most results
4 “hacks” for studying long hours:
•Get at least 7h of sleep the night before
•Set artificial deadlines to your study goals
•Switch positions from sitting to standing
•Do practice tests to keep you engaged
Turns out, the only real study hacks aren’t really hacks at all.
Daily study routine I’ll be doing starting tomorrow:
•530AM Wake up
•530-7 30-min run, meditate, shower
•7-12 5-hour study block
•12-1 Lunch, 15-min nap
•1-6 5-hour study block
•6-630 Dinner
•630-830 2-hour study block
•830-9 Wind down, reflect
•9-930 Sleep
Most med students focus on rereading and highlighting.
This gets them nowhere.
Instead, the trick is to focus 100% of your attention on doing practice tests:
If Twitter is a free University, then YouTube is a free Graduate Program.
Here are 3 YouTube channels you can follow to become a master of basic medical sciences subjects—that are so valuable they should charge ₱100,000+ for the information & insight they provide:
Another good studying framework:
The 80/20 Rule.
80% of the exam questions will likely come from only 20% of the entire study material.
Prioritize studying the high-yield 20%, instead of spending equal amounts of time studying everything.
Saves you a lot of time and effort.
Don't start studying depending on how you feel.
Start studying *despite* how you feel.
You will never have motivation all the time.
So stop waiting on the "perfect conditions" to start.
Instead, focus on starting now.
How you feel is irrelevant.
TL;DR - 3 study strategies that will help you 10x your learning in med school
• Strategy
#1
- Active Recall
• Strategy
#2
- Spaced Repetition
• Strategy
#3
- Use the 80/20 rule
If you really want to have a productive day, stop screwing around.
Do these 5 things:
• Sleep 7-8 hours every night
• Do an early-morning run
• Meditate for 10-15 minutes
• Turn off phone notifications
• Never multitask
Success isn’t a destination.
It’s a daily habit.
How to cram in less than 24 hours before your exam:
• Identify the 20% of topics that will make up the majority (80%) of the exam content (the 80/20 rule)
• Use high-yield resources (e.g., board review books)
• Sleep for at least 6 hours
3 dead-simple steps anyone can do.
How I used to study in pre-med:
• Trying to remember everything in the textbook
• Studying until 3AM
• Not doing practice tests
How I do now:
• Focusing on high-yield topics first
• Sleeping for 7 hours
• Doing practice tests before and after studying the material
Another great study technique for learning anything quickly:
The Feynman Technique
• Read and understand the topic first
• Pretend to teach it to a 5-year-old
• Look for and fill your knowledge gaps
• Review your understanding and further simplify it
Works every time.
Most med students focus on the number of times they have read the lecture handouts or the textbook.
This gets them nowhere.
Instead, the trick is to focus 100% of your attention on doing what will increase your test scores:
Good sleeping habits
• Sleeping and waking up at the same time each day
• No caffeine past 2PM
• 7 hours of sleep every night
Bad sleeping habits
• Pulling all-nighters
• Energy drinks and coffee late in the afternoon and evening
• Less than 6 hours of sleep every night
Med student burnout starter pack:
• Cramming everything the night before exam
• Doing only a few practice tests or none at all
• Blaming others for your poor grades
• Neglecting self-care and personal relationships
• Attaching self-worth to grades
Avoid these at all costs.
Staying focused while studying is simple.
What you do not need:
•5 different colors of highlighters
•Brand-new iPad
•Starbucks study planner
What you do need:
•7 hours of sleep
•A physical timer
•4 focused hours
•Strong black coffee
Don't overcomplicate it.
Today, on a hot Friday afternoon in Iloilo, I married the love of my life.
I will never know where life will take me, but I have always known who I wanted to take it on with.
Day 1, and forever to go.
I love you, Nei!
Study Tip: Do Pretests
Don’t go straight into reading your lecture handouts.
Instead, answer a few practice questions first prior to studying the material.
This ensures you will pay closer attention to concepts you got wrong in the pretest and have better long-term retention.
Another good productivity tip:
Do caffeine naps.
Wait till you're tired, drink caffeine, then take a 15-minute nap.
Your brain clears adenosine during the nap so as you wake up, the caffeine has just kicked in resulting in better cognitive performance.
Works like a charm.
5 “hacks” for studying even when you're tired:
• Take a cold shower
• Don't eat a high-carb meal
• Take a 15-20 min nap (don't go beyond that)
• Study outside in coworking spaces or coffee shops
• Stand up while studying (gives you a second burst of energy)
If I had never started using active recall in my studies, I wouldn’t have:
• Studied more in less time
• Remembered a lot of what I just read
• More time for my family and friends
• Slept 7-8 hours every night
Start today—you won’t regret it.
Another studying mistake I used to make:
Rereading.
But doing this only makes us familiar with the text.
But not the mastery of its content.
This misleads us to think we have learned the study material and overestimates our ability to score high in an exam.
Studying is hard.
Failing your exam is harder.
Staying focused for long hours is hard.
Falling behind your study schedule is harder.
Doing practice tests is hard.
Not remembering what you’ve just studied is harder.
Study goals you should strive for:
• Explain a topic in simple terms (no jargon)
• Identify your knowledge gaps
• Go back to your study material to reinforce knowledge and understanding
• Review and simplify the topic further
Achieving these puts you in the top 1%.
Study Tip: Don’t passively read the answers and explanations when doing practice tests.
Instead, pretend you're actually taking the exam––time yourself, cover the answers, and actively retrieve what you've learned.
This ensures stronger learning and longer-lasting retention.
Another study mistake I used to make:
Rereading.
Increasing familiarity with the text can lead to a false sense of mastery of the content.
This misleads us to think we have learned the study material and overestimates our ability to do well on the exam.
The 3 biggest mistakes students make when taking notes:
• Rewriting everything verbatim from the textbook
• Highlighting what's just been written down
• Spending insane amounts of time doing it
Let’s fix them:
The 3 biggest mistakes med students make:
• Rereading handouts 5x
• Highlighting every word
• Not prioritizing high-yield material
Let’s fix them:
• Taking tests before and after learning new information
• Doing a lot of past exams
• Studying high-yield material
My go-to method for overcoming a study slump:
Take a 15-20 min nap.
At first, I get hesitant because it seems like a waste of time.
But after that, I wake up more alert and more energized.
Then I find myself focused for the next 4 hours.
Give it a try!
90% of studying productively is really just:
• Ruthlessly eliminating distractions (e.g. phone notifications)
• Time-blocking 4 hours of focused study
• Saying no to everything else
The little stuff that makes all the difference.
My first 1st year studying med school was overwhelming
I would spend hours trying to memorize everything in the textbook
If I was starting over, the first thing I would do is immediately look at past exams and see which topics are examinable
This makes things less complicated.
You’re gonna question yourself if you’ve studied enough.
You’ll doubt yourself if you’re doing the right thing.
You’ll wonder if you’d remember everything you studied - and you have no way of knowing until after the exam.
But this is what ‘hard’ feels like.
And that’s okay.
A lot of med students ask me where they can get question banks to help them pass the Physician Licensure Exam (PLE).
So, I created:
A 2,400-item question bank that reflects the evolving trends in the actual exam. It's going to be released in 2 days.
Anyone else interested?
Another benefit of not taking notes in medical school:
It prevents us from forgetting important information
Taking notes makes us unconsciously forget the information we've just learned.
Because since it's already written down, the brain assumes there's no need to remember it.
TL;DR: 5 things I'd do differently in my journey to become a doctor.
• Make more friends
• Schedule regular rest periods
• Watch YouTube videos first
• Don't focus on things you can't control
• Always remember ego is the enemy
Remember to focus only on your effort.
Don't think about whether you will pass or fail the exam.
You can never control the outcome.
But, you can always control your own effort.
The score will take care of itself.
Study tip:
Don’t think "How can I ever finish studying everything for this exam?"
Instead say, "I will spend 10 uninterrupted hours a day to study"
This ensures you build momentum by committing to smaller tasks at first.
Then you can work your way up to bigger things.
5 “hacks” for better sleep:
• No screentime 1 hour before going to bed
• No caffeine after lunch
• No meals 2 hours before sleep time
• Decrease room temp to ~19 degrees Celsius
• Invest in blackout curtains
Turns out, the only real sleep hacks aren’t really hacks at all.
The Physician Licensure Exam (PLE) is one of the most difficult and important exams for medical students.
But most med students don’t know where to find high-yield practice tests to help them pass the exam.
So, we created a 1,200-item question bank for the PLE to help you:
You have to switch to another subject before you’ve finished studying the current one.
This will naturally feel slow and frustrating at first, but will result in better understanding and long-term retention.
It works every time.
Quick hack to achieve 10x motivation when studying:
The Goldilocks Rule
To achieve peak motivation, the study material must be of just manageable difficulty.
If it's too easy, you get bored.
If it's too difficult, you become discouraged.
It should be "just right."
1 big realization I wish I had earlier about studying:
My hesitation to do practice tests is 100% an ego problem.
You fear that doing poorly on the test reflects your knowledge level, causing low self-esteem.
How to overcome it:
Study tip:
Don’t think "How can I ever finish studying everything for the exam?"
Instead say, "I will spend 4 uninterrupted hours a day to study"
This ensures you build momentum by committing to smaller tasks at first
Then you can work your way up to bigger things.
Motivation, 101:
Instead of relying on willpower,
Try optimizing your environment to make studying easier.
• Turn off phone notifications
• Place your phone in another room
• Set a timer and study for 4 hours straight
This is always a better path forward.
4 “hacks” for better sleep:
•No caffeine after 2 PM
•No meals 2 hours before sleep
•No phone 1 hour before going to bed
•Going to bed and waking up at the same time everyday (even on weekends)
Turns out, the only real sleep hacks aren’t really hacks at all.
Stop trying to:
• Dwell on the time you wasted in the past
• Think about the many ways you could fail
• Obsess over the possible outcomes
Instead, just focus on your effort today, at this very moment.
The rest will take care of itself.
Thing
#3
: Watch YouTube videos first.
One of my biggest mistakes was trying to dive right into reading the textbook.
I shouldn't have.
If I had to do it all over again, I'd watch YouTube explanation videos first.
Because this unlocks:
Real wins
•5 pages read/hour
•50 practice tests done every day
•5 straight hours of undistracted studying
Fake wins
•Skimmed through the entire handout
•Highlighted everything in the textbook
•Spent 3 hours overthinking how to begin studying something
Ways getting quality sleep makes you study better:
• Helps consolidate memories created during the day
• Gives you the energy to study long hours the next day
• Saves you from potential burnout
Every student should get at least 7 hours of sleep.
Thing
#1
: Make more friends
At the time, I thought spending all my waking hours studying was a good idea.
It wasn't.
It led to burnout, exhaustion, and being miserable.
Instead, I would proactively find the time to make new friends.
What’s in your control:
• Your emotions
• How much time you’re studying
• How much effort you’re putting in everyday
What isn’t:
• How difficult the exam will be
• How much time is left before the exam
• How much study material you still have to cover
Me at 21 years old
• Highlighted every single word
• Crammed at the last minute
• Saw practice tests as a blow to my ego
Me at 31 years old
• Uses the Feynman Technique
• Spaces out studying
• Does practice testing everytime
10 years can change everything.
Don’t give up.
I’m convinced using Parkinson's law is the best advice to avoid procrastination.
By setting self-imposed deadlines, it creates a sense of urgency to get more things done in less time and helps you avoid putting tasks off until the last minute.
Works 100% of the time.
You will never be 100% ready.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the exam.
Taking (and passing) the exam is the only thing that proves you were ready.
Reminder to self:
Every time you say yes to something means saying no to something else
Going to bed late means saying no to a productive day tomorrow
Keeping Twitter up in the background means saying no to a focused study session
The ultimate productivity hack is saying no.
Thing
#5
: Always remember ego is the enemy
It has taken me many years to realize my ego is what's holding me back to learn and grow.
Don't pay attention to the pride of an accomplishment.
Don't feel the need to listen to the applause of a crowd.
Interleaving 101
Don’t study only one topic for a whole day or one subject for a whole week.
Instead:
• Study multiple related topics in a single day or
• Place multiple unrelated topics to study for each day of the week.
This is always a better study strategy.
3 best examples of having a growth mindset:
•"I don’t understand this topic (yet). But I can and I will"
•"I'm not a focused person (yet). But with more effort, I will be"
•"I don’t like studying for long hours (yet). But I'll make it more engaging"
What would you add?
Motivation, 101:
Instead of relying on willpower to push yourself to study,
Try optimizing your environment
• Clean off your desk
• Turn off phone notifications
• Set a timer and commit to an uninterrupted 4-hour study session
This is always a better path forward.
It took me 10 years to figure this out:
You learn something by putting information into your brain (i.e., by reading).
You remember something by actively retrieving information from your brain (i.e., by doing practice tests).
Benefits of limiting your nap to 15-20 minutes only:
• Wake up more focused and alert
• Reduce feelings of mental fatigue
• Avoid waking up with sleep inertia (still feeling tired and groggy after the long nap)
Which is why limiting length of naps is so important.
Remember to focus only on your effort.
Don't think about whether you will pass or fail the exam.
You can never control the outcome.
But, you can always control your own effort.
The score will take care of itself.
Life lesson:
If a medical student asks you for help with a topic or concept they're confused about and you have the power to teach them something valuable, put yourself in their shoes.
How much would it mean to you if you were them, and someone helped you do the same?
If you wait for the “perfect” conditions to start studying, you’re making your success on the exam conditional.
But, if you want unconditional success, you must be *willing* to start in under any situation.
Which includes the one you're currently in.