Brown frill fungus.
Of Pre-Med
Schedules and the Possibility of Finishing Your Work Before Dinner
The Plight of the Pre-Med
Of all Study Hack readers, pre-meds are among the most
skeptical.
They tell me that although they like my philosophy
of doing a small number of things well,
this is impossible for them. Their course load is
too demanding.
Filling most waking hours with work is unavoidable.
Then there’s
Nathan.
Nathan is pre-med at the University of Texas at Austin,
where he’s currently tackling the weed out courses that
give this major it’s bad reputation.
Here’s what makes Nathan interesting to me: he
finishes his work by 5:30 pm every weekday.
In fact, he doesn’t just finish it,
he dominates it.
“On the last chemistry test, the average score was a 57,”
he told me recently.
“I made a 98…My professors are fascinated by me.”
Naturally, I asked him to share a typical day’s schedule:
6:00 to 6:30: Breakfast/Shower
6:30 to 9:30: Study
9:30 to 10:20: Class
10:30 to 11:30: Study
11:30 to 12:30: Lunch
12:30 to 1:30: Class
1:30 to 2:30: Class
2:30 to 5:30: Study
5:30 to 11:00: Chill by meeting girls, explore the
rolling hills and lakes of Austin,
listen to live music, etc.
Here are two
things I noticed about Nathan:
First, he’s not necessarily working less than his peers.
His schedule includes 40 hours of studying
per week, which is about right for his course load. He simply consolidates this work better.
“But he wakes up at 6,” you might complain, “I could
never do that.”
Nathan’s out chasing girls before most students have even
started their work for the day.
Fair trade, if you ask me.
The second thing I noticed is that he’s obsessive
about focus. He doesn’t just “study,”
he works on the 7th floor of the engineering library: one
of the most isolated spots on campus.
He works in 50 minutes chunks, and does 10 minutes of
calisthenics,
right there on the library floor, between every chunk. In
three hours of this focused studying,
he probably accomplishes more work than most pre-meds do
in ten.
I don’t claim that Nathan represents a specific system
that all pre-med students should follow.
To me, he’s just a nice example of a more fundamental
observation: the happiest students are those who take control of their
academic experience, moulding it to fit their own ideal of a life well-lived.
http://calnewport.com/blog/category/tips-time-management-scheduling-productivity/
You can TCR music, poetry or self development
material for internal knowing.
I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times faster and remember what I’ve read.
I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.
A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
How
to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
To
quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will
know.
The
more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”
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