Failed the "Productive Lifestyle"

Average reading time : 8 - 10 mins 

Assalamualaikum and hi yalls,

It's been quite a while and I don't have any excuses, but life since my last post has been very eventful. Here's a brief summary : 

Got myself back to Malaysia during the global pandemic in a flight with only 14 passengers. Lots of empty seats. Celebrated Hari Raya Eid al-Fitr quarantined in a hotel. Survived Year 1 of med school. Bought myself a new laptop and iPad. Moved into a condo/apartment house with the fam. Spent a LOT of my time with my family due to lockdowns, which I hardly ever get. Tried out some online business, but I don't think it felt right with me. Readdicted to buying books and struggling to find time to read. Adulting really hard because I was so excited buying these : Vacuum, mop, air-fryer, bed vacuum, sheets, covers, dainty jewelries and the best part, I got my medical insurance covered yeay!

So there's that, and today I'll be writing something that I struggled a lot with. Time management, study techniques and apps. And me being a YouTube addict, I was easily influenced and felt attacked by all those productive guru flaunting and sharing all their interesting methods of studying and time management tips. Some days I felt really inspired and some other days I felt like I was a worthless human being not using my time properly like how these successful people have. Those that I watched were Ali Abdaal, KharmaMedic, TheStriveToFit, Rachel Southard, Kinza Hussain, Elizabeth Filips and Soony Sun. 

Honestly, these were all amazing Youtubers with highly beneficial plus informational and entertaining contents. They took a lot of time and effort to share their study methods and tips mainly on how to survive the med school. Me being a typical potato, managed to scroll through their YouTube comments and wow they definitely did helped a lot of students all throughout the world. Doing all these while managing to survive in med school? 🤯 However, I don't think I'm among the lucky ones (yes I'm a couch potato) that were able to do better with that. I tried a lot of their methods but some worked, some not really. Worst part is that I felt really bad, and hopeless because I couldn't do it. 

But now that I began reflecting upon myself, all that is completely OKAY! People aren't born the same, what works for them doesn't mean it'll work for you. We all have our own ways of doing things, and at the end of the day it all depends on ourselves. But still, how are we supposed to know if it works or not? You would never know. Unless you try it for yourself of course. Is it worth it to give it a try? Definitely. (but please don't try experimenting with new methods when you exam is on the next day okay?) Go ahead and try out any methods that you want, at the end of the day, you'll find one that would be worth it, or come up with an entirely new method that is completely unique to you. I definitely agree that we need something, that would allow us to utilize time efficiently. There's an Arabic proverb that says, time is like a sword, if you don't cut it, it'll cut you. So, regardless whether you're in middle school, college, working, or even a housewife, I do think that managing your time is something very important.

So if you scroll down further later, I'll be simplifiying some of the study methods or productivity hacks for students, but if some of it you can still apply even if you're working. All of these are the methods I learnt mostly from YouTube and even if you don't feel like trying any of these out, at least now you know about the existence of these methods. 

1. Anki Flashcard

This is one of the things that I was so excited to try out. If you have never heard of it, it is basically an app for you to make flashcards and allow you to retain the information through active recalling and space repetition method. This method seems very promising to me, as it is backed up with evidence from researchers that you'll able to keep information longer and faster through this method. If you dived deep into this anki-pit, you'll know that going through 1000+ flashcards a day is nothing to them. I've tried this one during my final block of Year 1 and I can vouch that it really does do it's job. I probably gone through at most 600+ flashcards a day, and for me, it took around 2-3 hours to complete. 

The only drawback for me is that, I had to spend a lot of time to make those cards and didn't manage to find time to do my notes. Yes, the point of doing this flashcard system is so that you won't need to make your own notes anymore, but well, I'm still attached to it and I can't help it. Probably my method of making the cards is wrong but yeah, that was my problem with it so far. But regardless, it really does work, especially for anyone who's not fond of making their own notes. Here are some vids from YouTube if you want to know more.

2. Study With Me videos

I really love this method and use it religiously. When I first discovered this method, I would always play the videos every chance I get whenever I'm trying to complete stuff, be it studying or just doing any work in general. If you don't know what I'm babbling about, there are basically videos in YouTube where they record themselves studying, with or without a Pomodoro timer (I'll explain about this next), some with lo-fi background music videos or some doesn't have any background music (just ASMR). So you just play the video, put your phone away, and start studying or complete whatever work you have. They'll usually provide a 5-15 mins break in between. So for a person with zero self control like myself, it really helped me a lot to avoid any distractions. It's basically an online study-buddy. It helped me a lot, especially whenever I'm too tired or have zero motivation. Trust me, whenever you feel that way too, the key is just START. Trick yourself and say that "I'll do this just for 10 minutes". Once you start to do something, then only would you have the mood to continue. Or else, you'll end up wasting 2 hours scrolling through TikTok, speaking from experience. 

and I recently secretly saw my sister use this method too. But with a different video, I'll just leave that video here.

3. Pomodoro Method

This is a study method created by Italian Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. The method is designed with a core of a 25-30 mins work sprint and a 3-5 mins break. Then after 4 Pomodoro sessions, take a longer break, for around 15-30 mins. This could be easily applied for both work and studying. Keeps you sane for a little bit longer. I was a bit curious as of why it is called "Pomodoro Method" so I went ahead and Googled it. It was named after a tomato-shaped timer that Cirillo has used to track his work when he was a university student. So cute. If you're interested to learn more in depth about it, here's the link for his book.

4.  Notion note taking app

This looks very promising when when I first found out about it. I'm not too knowledgeable regarding this app, but this app isn't limited to just note taking, people actually use this as a digital journal, planner, keeping track of their expenses, businesses, and you can actually do mostly anything with it, because it's entirely up to you. It's extremely customizable, you can personalize it with your own creativity and use it however you want. A lot of medical YouTubers are using this app too because you can link it to your class notes and to a lot of different subject. I'll insert a few screenshots on how other people use this and look how pretty they are ! It's available on Windows, Mac, Apple Store and even Google PlayStore. 

I tried out Notion for around a month, but still haven't gotten really familiar with it. It's really interesting and extremely customizable. But dear me find it a bit terrifying because there's a lot of different settings and buttons. A bit too complex for your girl here. But yeah I feel like if I learn about it a bit more I would definitely get hooked. I'll insert here a Twitter thread that I found really helpful if you want to learn about it a bit more. Click here ! And here's a simple introduction vid on YouTube because I am actually a YouTube addict (if you didn't already know from these excessive YouTube links)

5. Listing down simple tasks

I learnt this one from a youtuber TheStrivetoFit, she gave some tips on how to utilize and manage our free time. You just make a list of stuff that you can complete within 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and 15 minutes, and whenever you have those short breaks, you can complete whatever stuff you need to do. Here's an example

5 mins : check emails, take out the trash, make bed, mengaji one page

10 mins : sweep floor, do laundry, do dishes, organize notes, plan to do list, 

15 mins : 10 min walk, do dishes, cook lunch, read through class materials, 

By listing these stuff down, you'll more likely to do simple stuff that you tend to procrastinate. Trust me once you do this, you'll never look at your free time the same way. It is a very easy and simple tip, but extremely useful to me.  

So CONCLUSION ! What I learned by trying out these methods are, 

Whatever tips and methods given, are just suggestions, and sharing from people that finds that way useful to them. It does not mean that it would guarantee to work for you but there's no way of knowing that it won't. Not unless you try. I was a bit too overwhelmed with all this methods that I felt that I was doing everything wrong. How I used to study is, I would ALWAYS do my own notes, read them, understand and memorize, and try to recall it by explaining it out loud or writing it down. This would be an endless cycle of repeats. Classic, but works well to me. But when I found out that this method wasn't as effective as active recalling, I started to doubt myself. Maybe I'm doing it all wrong. 

But guess what, I've been doing my own method for the past, what, almost 10 years? It's so hard to let go and it's embedded in my muscle memory. Why would I listen to people that tell me that 'hey, stop writing notes, I found out this new method and I didn't even write a single note!' I feel and I know it's the best for me, and in no way am I saying that other methods is bad. Did I regret trying out Anki? Did I regret trying out active recalling method or maybe spending hours understanding the mechanism of the Notion app? Definitely no. It was a great experience. I would love to try it again, and figure it out and maybe make it suit my study method. But the next time I'm trying it out, I won't stop writing down my own notes, because that was my first mistake. Don't stop what you've been doing just for the sake of trying out new things. When I started trying out Anki, I completely stopped writing notes, my source of reference was all over the place, and when I wanted to get back to check the information, I already forgot where it was. 

To end this post, my advice is to keep yourself open to other methods. If you feel like the way you're studying right now doesn't satisfy you, go ahead and explore. There are tons of study method out there, this post barely touched the surface. Be brave to try, be brave to fail. Even if you're comfortable with how you study right now, try to explore other study methods that you find interesting. If it works then kudos to you but if it doesn't, trust me the experience is definitely worth it. 

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