A Day in the Life of a High-Performance Student

Are you a medical student looking for some tips on how to study effectively and efficiently? Do you want to know how to balance your academic workload with your physical and mental well-being? If so, you might be interested in learning what a perfect medical student study day looks like.

In this blog post, I will share with you how I plan and execute my study sessions, what tools and strategies I use, and how I incorporate inability, nutrition, and relaxation into my daily routine. I am a third-year medical student in the US and one of the affiliates of RemNote, a smart note-taking tool that applies science to your studies. I have my surgery shelf exam coming up next week, so I have a lot of material to cover. Even on busy services like surgery, we still have to make space in our schedules to study, which is why I try to use only the most efficient methods. A little bit goes a long way, and that’s why I use RemNote.

RemNote is a free app. You can make an account and get started today. It allows you to create flashcards, take notes, and review them using spaced repetition and active recall. It also has a built-in Pomodoro feature, a customizable algorithm, and seamless integration with other apps. I will show you how I use RemNote throughout my study day, but first, let me tell you how I start my morning.

Morning Routine

Since today is Sunday and I don’t have to come into work, I can devote the entire day to preparing for my exam. By 6:45 a.m., I’m on my yoga mat. I have a quick routine that helps me start the morning and activate all the major muscle groups of the body. Then I’ll down a glass of water and change into the appropriate study wear for the day.

I’m not a perfect person, and I definitely fall prey to procrastination and distractions. Just visualizing that daunting pile of practice questions and flashcards I have to go through doesn’t sound like that much fun. But as I learned in physics class, an object in motion tends to stay in motion. So I just have to get the ball rolling with very small tasks. So I’m going to do the simplest task possible, just to get my feet wet. I’m going to do one RemNote flashcard. And then I’ll do another one. And then another one. And another one. Hopefully, the goal is to build momentum with very frictionless studying to get in the mood to actually work hard.

By 8 a.m., I’m a little hungry, so I go out to make a bagel, have a banana, and steep some green tea. I continue to do RemNote flashcards while I impatiently wait for my bagel to ripen. Now that I’m refreshed, I begin to tackle my first major study block for the day.

First Study Block

As you may know, the best study strategies are active recall, spaced repetition, and interleaving. For a refresher on these learning strategies, definitely check out our playlist here. So I start off my session with 25 practice questions from UWorld. I randomize the questions to employ interleaving, and since they’re all practice questions by default, I’m also using active recall. I also have a RemNote document pulled up on the side, just to capture any new information onto flashcards. I generally like to follow the one-minute per question rule, so 25 questions roughly take 25 minutes, and change serves as a Pomodoro timer for me. Now I’ll take a five-minute break to catch up on some overdue toilet time while listening to some music.

For those of you that don’t know, my co-founder Mike and I make lo-fi and hip-hop music by our moniker Cajun Coy, and we curate study playlists that you can check out on Spotify. Oh, and if there are any music producers or music aficionados, feel free to send us your tunes. We’d love to check them out and add them to our mix. So send them over.

I’ll struggle through about three more Pomodoro sessions, 25 minutes on, five minutes off, before heading to the kitchen to make a sloppy sandwich for lunch while I listen to a podcast.

Lunch Break

I use Air to stream my podcasts. It’s an incredible app designed to capture notes from podcasts. And what’s better is the seamless integration with RemNote. So all the notes that I capture are imported directly into my database.

It’s 1 p.m. now, and after lunch, I switch up my study environment, and I’ll sit on the couch to tackle more RemNote flashcards. I take great care to sit upright to avoid the looming food coma. And this starts my second study block for the day, where I literally just churn through my flashcard queue. RemNote cards have a customizable spaced repetition algorithm and randomization. So by doing flashcards, I’m employing active recall, spaced repetition, and interleaving all at the same time. RemNote also has a built-in Pomodoro feature, so I’m alerted when I need to stand up, stretch my legs, or grab a handful of almonds.

Afternoon Break

At 3 p.m., I’m starting to lose focus and desperately need a pick-me-up. So I grab my gear and head to the rock climbing gym, where I meet up with the homie Joe for a session and a bro hang. Exercise is such a great way to reset the brain for studying and get some blood flowing to sleepy muscles. After an exhausting and only somewhat disappointing climb, I head home and make a shake with blueberries, hemp seeds, and soy protein. Then I throw some dinner in the oven while I take a shower.

I’ll have dinner while watching YouTube videos and then call Mike to check in on some projects that we’re working on.

Third Study Block

And now I’ll begin my third and final study session for the day. I’ll revisit the RemNote document from my morning session. These were all the topics that I didn’t know well or struggled with earlier. So I’ll take some time now to fill in any gaps in my knowledge using textbooks or online videos. The reason I wait until my last study block to do this is because I want to utilize interleaving again to resurface the information after I’ve forgotten some of it.

After I’ve gone through all of my notes and refreshed on anything I need to, I’ll finish off the day with, you guessed it, more RemNote flashcards. I feel pretty good about the amount of work I accomplished today, so I’ll relax and read or play guitar to wind down. It’s been a hard day’s work, and my bedtime is quickly approaching. Yes, I sleep by 9:30 pm since I have to be up by 4:30 am to make it to the hospital on time to see my patients before rounds.

Conclusion

Sleep is super important, especially on heavy study days like today, since our brains consolidate everything we learn into our long-term memory while we sleep. So if you’ve been procrastinating and reading this blog post instead of studying, now is probably a good time to hit the books. Unless you want to watch me sleep, which might be pretty entertaining. People find a lot of weirder things to watch on YouTube these days.

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