Tips on getting back on track with studies🚀

Hey everyone! 🙌

I’m Kasey from @kasey_studies and I am going to be sharing some snippets and advices from my journey as a final year medical student here! I truly love the mission of Voovo — I’m all about making studying an enjoyable and struggle-free process — and it is a pleasure for me to be able to post here.

If you are like me, at some point during the semester you will realize that you really really need to get back in track with your studies. This realization hit me recently. It has been more than a month since I started the second semester of my year and the mid semester exhaustion is starting to kick in for me and everyone around me, regardless of where they are in their med school journey. When I get home after practice at the hospital, I often find myself too mentally exhausted to study for my upcoming exams. So I find myself doing anything but studying. I am sure a lot of you guys feel the same way at times and it is completely normal! But, at some point you absolutely have to get back on track with your productivity levels…

Here are some tips on how to 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬 📖 because it’s super easy to get off track but we can get on track TOGETHER! Voovo is with you throughout every step of your educational journey.

1️⃣ Make a 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐨 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 of all the things you have to study or do / print out needed topic lists for any upcoming exams, download all related PowerPoints and PDFs. Basically gather together all the resources that you’ll need for your studies for the week! This might be a bit time consuming, but it is definitely worth it. Something that also helps is to stick the to for list on your desk so you can see it every day.

2️⃣ Plan out a 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐞, and be realistic about what you can do in a set amount of time… sometimes I make unrealistic expectations for myself and it really goes against my productivity!

3️⃣ 𝐎𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭, it is a lot easier to keep going ~ open your textbook and read a page, you’ll find that it’ll be a lot easier to just continue studying rather than to switch to something else! I’d even suggest you to cozy up on the sofa after class and read a bit of study material on your phone just to get in the flow, I’ve definitely done that many times and it has more often than not led to a productive study sesh.

4️⃣ Refresh your study space and make it a place where you *want* to be in, I always find myself studying so much better when I’m enjoying it. Make yourself a snack corner, coffee stand, anything that brings joy to your space.

5️⃣ Make studying more entertaining! Voovo is definitely a wonderful tool to use for this purpose, flashcards make studying a lot less boring than reading pages and pages of notes over and over again.

6️⃣ Ask yourself… are you drinking enough water and eating enough nutritious food? Not having enough of either can also contribute to mental exhaustion! It’s sometimes hard for me to remember to drink water throughout my days and buying a big water-bottle to drag along with me throughout my day helps a lot. 

7️⃣ Plan something fun to reward yourself every day after you finish your study tasks of your day — I find having something to look forwards to, to be the best source of motivation!

So… these were some things that have consistently helped me in the last years to get back in track with my med school studies. Have you ever tried these things? If so, did it work? Be sure to give this post a like if you want to see more posts like this!

I wish everyone a wonderful week and hope that this helped :) tune in next week for another blog post, this time about a day in the life of a 6th year medical student!