Full Day Studying: Tips & Tricks

Firstly and most importantly, you have to decide if you actually NEED to do “full day studying” – many times, the answer will be that you don’t. Shorter, more focused study sessions are certainly better than drawn-out full-day study sessions. Quality is much more important than quantity, and most people do well if they study for quick bursts over a shorter amount of time rather than ‘all day.’

However, there are indeed times when I feel like I have so much material to cover that I really do need to study for full days. These are usually in the weeks leading up to a final (like in exam period; I discuss how many hours I studied in medical school in this blog post here) or during my preparation for the USMLE Step 1 exam. During these periods of my life, I study about 8-10 hours a day, depending, and it can be exhausting, but with a few tips and lifestyle changes, you’ll see that it’s not all that impossible. .

If you know you have to study for long hours, then here are some tips and tricks I use to get through my 8-10 hour study days.

Table of Contents

Full day studying: Tips & Tricks

• Sleep Routine
• Pomodoro & Breaks
• Anti-procrastination & Timer Apps
• To Do Lists
• Time Blocking
• Study Music
• Exercise
• Switching It Up
• Food & Drink

Keep reading for details for each!

Sleep Routine

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’d like to reiterate once again how important a healthy sleep schedule is. Studying is a marathon and you have to stay healthy in all aspects of your life, especially your sleep habits. You might be tempted to ‘study longer and sacrifice sleep,’ but the truth is that by not sleeping enough you are sacrificing your concentration ability, your memory skills, your mood and so much more.

To give you an idea of how I manage my sleep: I sleep at 10pm and wake up around 6am most days, and I aim for 7.5 hours to 8 hours a day, each day. Yes, I wake up early on weekends too – otherwise I would be disrupting my hard-earned sleep schedule (for example, if I woke up at 6am on weekdays but then slept til 10am on a weekend, I would have trouble sleeping on time Sunday to wake up on Monday morning).

Beware of oversleeping: I’ve found that oversleeping (sleeping 9+ hours) regularly actually negatively affects not just my productivity, but also my mood. Use trial and error to find your sleep ‘sweet spot’ until you figure out what’s ideal for you.

Pomodoro & Breaks: Paradoxical Musts

You might be tempted to study for long time periods, foregoing breaks to be ‘as productive as possible.’ It’s a common (albeit false) mentality, and I recommend healthier habits.

The Pomodoro Method is an old concept, but since it might be new, I’ll link this introductory article. The idea is simple: you focus for x minutes and then break for y. The classic Pomodoro session is 25 minutes of work and a 5 minute break.

Personally, I do longer study sessions in the morning when I’m fresh (90 min focus with 15min breaks), then later 1 hour sessions with 10 min breaks. I prefer sessions longer than 25 minutes because I think it can be distracting to have to stop my workflow so frequently, and generally I have no trouble working for 45-50-60 minutes. If I am finding myself unable to concentrate (and I had just had a break), I will often do shorter sessions (revert back to the classic timing).

Some people find it helpful to set a goal for each session – sometimes I will do this too; I’ll tell myself that I plan to review 15 questions in the next session, and then at the end, I see how well I did.

ACTIVE BREAKS:

Taking an ‘active’ break helps recharge you for the next session. These might mean something different in your book than mine, but for me, these are some things that help:

1. Moving around the apartment: picking up dishes, throwing in a load of laundry, vacuuming around my desk
2. Blasting some music and dancing around
3. A quick walk (fresh air galore!) or even just opening the windows
4. Brushing my teeth, washing my face or taking a quick shower

Anti-Procrastination & Timer Apps

There are lots of (FREE!) timer apps out there that will help you study with the Pomodoro method; a search in your App/Play Store will overwhelm you with options. Choose any and start studying!

Certain apps will also help remove distractions by blocking your enticing phone apps for a set period of time.

I’d like to bring attention to a specific app: Forest. Forest is a very cute app because you can grow your tree/forest with each study session, and if you upgrade to premium, you can actually invite friends and “plant” a tree together virtually. It blocks your distracting apps for the duration of the Pomodoro session, which is an added plus.

To Do Lists

Having an idea of what you want to get done for the day takes away a lot of the uncertainty of ‘what should I work on next?’ and helps you use your time more efficiently. My top tip is to actually make a to do list the night before your study sessions, so when you sit down at your desk for your study session, you already have a plan!

An added plus is that you get to check things off as you go along – this can be very motivational.

Time-blocking?

Not a new concept either, but it might be new to some, so I’d like to mention it. I’ll write more in-depth about time blocking if people are interested, but the gist is that you dedicate a ‘block’ of time to a specific task; for example, every morning, I do one hour of flashcards. Then I move onto my next block (reviewing my notes), and so on.

Time blocking helps because it prevents you from spending too much time on one task. Give it a try, let us know below what you think!

Music Soothes the Mind

I try to study without music because it’s way better for my focus, something that I’ve learned about myself over the years. I would go out on a limb and say that that is true for the majority of people…but even so, sometimes when I’m sleepy, I play some music. This is definitely one of my special “full day studying” tricks.

I generally play instrumental/classical music without words. I have a few set “study music” playlists on Spotify that I turn to when I’m feeling drowsy but have already had my breaks. I find ‘epic’ movie soundtracks especially stimulating, and they can jerk me back into focus mode.

Occasionally I do play music with lyrics; these can be distracting but sometimes an uplifting song or two is all you need to get you back in the mood. I have a playlist titled ‘Motivational Songs’ and I’ll play the same 3 songs on repeat until they become comforting background noise.

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Click here for Study Music Collaborative Playlist

Click here for Epic Movie Soundtracks Playlist

Click here for Study Motivation Playlist

Exercise

A lot of people feel that they don’t have the time to exercise regularly because they need the time to study. I see your reasoning, and I’d like to raise you a ‘but what if they’re synergistic?’

We know exercise is healthy – for mind, body and soul. You hear it all the time, and yet it’s hard to make yourself workout. Like most things in life, it requires discipline and studying feels more important. But trust me, the two go hand-in-hand.

A quick list of all the things that regular exercise can do:

• increases blood flow to your body (including your brain)
• releases all kinds of happy hormones (who’s interested in the science behind exercise)
• helps keep you in shape (eating and not moving is a recipe for weight gain, which can negatively affect mood)
• builds strength and prevents posture fatigue (sitting all day can result in all kinds of back, neck, limb ache)
• gives you an excuse to leave the house and breathe some fresh air (for weeks of my life, the only time I left home was to exercise)
• allows you to socialize (if you join a class, you can make workout buddies)

There are different recommendations on what’s the best amount to exercise; for me, the best regime was 3-4-5 per week (depending on the week). Each workout class was 1 hour, and the commute/changing/showering took another hour or so, so exercising was usually a 2-hour block from my day.

It might sound like a lot of time, but in the end, the payoff is enormous. I could study for longer, I wasn’t getting backaches, I didn’t feel unhappy in my skin from sitting and eating all day, and I knew I was making good choices for my future health.

You might feel like you don’t have time to exercise, but if you think about all the other things we make time for (social media, watching movies, etc.), you might discover that investing time into your workout is possible. It’s just a matter of will, and the investment is well worth it.

Switch It Up

No one out there can sit and memorize things for 8 hours, as far as I know. It’s next to impossible – it would be too draining. When I study full days, that includes a lot of different types of studying, some of which I’ll list below. You’ll notice that a lot of it isn’t active recall, which is arguably the most mentally draining.

If I’m feeling unfocused, I’ll switch topics or tasks. Watching videos can be really boring and sometimes I find myself falling asleep, so I pause it, do something else, and come back to it. An example of an “active” thing would be taking notes; it’s more engaging than just sitting and reading or watching, but it’s still not active recall, of which I can do only a few hours a day.

A typical Step 1 study day included:

• flashcards (making & reviewing)
• doing questions & reviewing them
• watching educational videos (Pathoma, Sketchy, YouTube)
• making notes
• Googling things and searching for answers
• reading (and attempting to memorize) First Aid

Water, Coffee & Food

All essentials in my average study day, but not all nutrition habits are created equal, so here are a few words on each.

Coffee: I usually drink one cup in the morning (630-7am), and another at around 1pm. I find that drinking coffee much later than that will make it harder for me to fall asleep at night, thus compromising my sleep schedule. I also find that drinking more than 2 coffees isn’t necessary if I’ve slept enough, so I stick to just two a day.

Water (and tea): staying hydrated is really helpful. I can tell if I’m well-hydrated by the color of the urine (if it’s yellow, it means I’m likely not drinking enough; if it’s pale, then I’m probably all set). The added benefit is that by drinking a lot, you’ll also be peeing a lot – a great excuse to walk around and get your muscles stretching. As for tea, I generally drink decaf in the afternoon.

Food: everyone has very different diets, so I won’t be giving dietary tips, but simply share what I’ve realized about my eating habits: breakfast helps a lot. I eat breakfast most days, and then I have an early-ish lunch. The key here is the LUNCH. I find that on days when I eat a lot, it makes me insanely drowsy in the afternoon. If I eat unhealthy foods, I also feel the effects in my study sessions. When I started to eat smaller meals, I found that I was able to use my afternoon much more productively.

Snacks: snacks give me something to look forward to and I love treating myself to yummy things throughout the day. It also helps keep my meals smaller (especially helpful in avoiding a massive food-coma after lunch).

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All Day Studying: Tips & Tricks

I would like to point out that I’m never fully, 100% concentrated all the time while I study on full days of studying. There are times that I zone out; I twirl my hair, I daydream about what stationery to buy next, I plan what to have for lunch, etc. I get distracted, just like anyone. But the beauty of the Pomodoro method is that it pulls you back. Even if a session goes poorly (meaning that I’m less focused than I would have wanted), I get a fresh start with the next session, and a nice revitalizing break beforehand!

There you have it, my main tips for studying for full days. Remember to be honest with yourself – do you truly have to study full days? If not, why waste your life?