The Best Time Management Tips for Medical School Students

Without a question, getting a medical degree can get really tough. Especially when you analyze the number of books you have to read in just a handful of years. Above all, not just read them but to even retain that massive amount of information can become a real daunting task. Even when you’re putting a lot of effort and hard work in accomplishing your daily tasks, you’re always running short on time. To manage it effectively, you juggle through a list of different activities just to meet your set deadlines. 

Sadly, all of it sums down to a breakdown of your physical and mental health. 

At times as such, you (as a medical student) only wish if you were good at managing your time. Things could’ve been more effective and in your favour, so you could organize tasks ahead of time.  

When you learn to manage your time, it not only contributes to enhancing your academic performance but it equally helps you get a better life outside the campus. When you have enough time on your clock, you can engage yourself in different activities where some of them can help you vent off steam. 

Today, I am going to give you 6 tips on how to effectively manage your time as a medical student. 

So without further ado, let’s get down to business. 

Tip # 1: Start by Organizing a Daily Schedule for Yourself

Have you ever heard of a planner? Well, now you have. It is time you keep one so you can organize your schedule. When you’re completing a medical degree, there are tasks where time is of the essence. If you fail to complete them in set deadlines, you can often find yourself lagging behind in your career. When you plan your days ahead of time and schedule your tasks accordingly, you can take out enough time to not only just prepare for your academic activities but also for personal leisure. Create a planner in your notebook or smartphone, the choice is yours. Organize all your important tasks in one place and prioritize them accordingly. Not only will you be able to accomplish your daily routine tasks in time, but you will also be able to find enough time to even go out and watch a movie. 

Tip # 2: Maintain Consistency in Tasks and Make it a Habit

When you are studying at a medical school, you may find yourself following a fixed routine. A healthy routine is all that it takes to keep you consistent and on track, so you can achieve more and better. Once, your body sets into the routine rhythm of sleeping, eating, learning, reading, exercising and whatnot, things start getting better as it contributes to enhancing your focus and upscaling your motivation. These habits may sound like unimportant to you in the beginning but they really work out in your favour especially during the exam seasons. A consistent routine can help you conserve your energy so you can maintain your focus. It helps you get rid of unnecessary distractions. And with each adaptation, you can eventually see a 10x increase in your daily performance saving you enough time. 

Tip # 3: Keep Distractions to a Bare Minimum

As a medical student, you need to have a sound mind to read a book and absorb all that useful information. Think more if as a responsibility as you will be tasked with saving human lives in the future. So when you start studying, it is best that you put away everything which can create possible distractions in your learning progress. Sign out from your social media accounts just in case if you’re using a laptop or a desktop to study. By signing out from your social accounts, you confirm to yourself that you will avoid all unnecessary emails, text messages, notifications, social media distractions, etc. Because believe it or not, constant distractions can have a detrimental effect on your education. Tasks that only used to take a couple of hours to complete can elongate and take up an entire day. 

Tip # 4: Pay Attention to the Lectures During the Class

There’s a common habit among medical students to record their class sessions so they can watch it during the later hours of the day and grasp the information better. However, they fail to understand that this particular step often causes them precious time. And, the time which they could’ve spent to read something else, they often spend it watching these videos. It is better to organize your video watching time accordingly in your planner. Depending on how you find it suitable, watch the videos at your own preferences. For example, some students love to watch all the videos in a single go, while other students just want to watch chunks of it throughout the semester and absorb the knowledge in bits. Scheduling a specific time for your video watching can help you save up time so you can explore. 

Tip # 5: Put Together a Pre-Exam Study Strategy

When you plan on studying or going through your course material, there will be multiple concepts and ideas that you will encounter. The best thing to keep them stored in your memory is to keep a highlighter with you. When you come across such important information, all you’ve to do is just highlight them. This is what the medical students normally term as their pre-exam studying strategy. When the time to appear in your exams gets near, you have to simply open up your books and go through the stuff which you’ve already highlighted. So instead of going through the whole context all over again and getting easily overwhelmed, you can simply study the highlighted bit and pass exams. Not only will it save you precious time, but it will also give you enough to learn some new things too. 

Tip # 6: The Best Way to Conserve Time is to Take Time Off

You’re not a super-human so don’t expect yourself to give 100% to all your important tasks by investing every day and night in studying medical science. If you are unable to take time off from your busy schedule, you will eventually find yourself mentally exhausted and as a result, your focus will diminish. Your mind will only absorb enough information which it is capable to do and that too, over a long time period. You don’t wish to experience something similar now, do you? Whenever you feel as if you’ve studied enough, you can try going out for a change. Meet a friend if you like or go watch a movie. If you keep a pet, take it for a walk and play with it. Unwind your mind so you can perform later. 

A fresh mind can always do more and produce better results in a relatively short period of time, especially when they are enrolled in the best medical school. 

So these are my top 6 tips for students studying in medical college as it will help them organize their time better. Are you someone who desires to optimize time so they can do better out in the world?

If that’s the case then you have definitely come to the right place.