so you're a few months back into your
first term of university the pace is
picking up pretty quick and now you're
starting to fall behind we've all been
there but what can you do to make sure
that you get back on track thanks to
wanderim for sponsoring a portion of
this video more on that later what is up
guys karma medic here and welcome back
to another dose it's about that time of
the year where content at uni feels
relentless and you start to feel like
you're falling behind with the endless
amount of work we've all been there and
it can sometimes feel impossible to
catch up in this video i'm going to walk
you through how i've been able to catch
up in the past when i felt like i've
been falling behind on my work or other
commitments in my life please don't beat
yourself up there are lots of reasons
why people fall behind so it's important
for you to understand why you have ended
up in this situation it could be due to
not managing your time very well which
is fair enough and something that can be
worked on in the future but it could
also be for family reasons it could be
your health or it could be anything that
at that time was prioritized over your
studies i think it's important not to be
yourself up about it because the only
thing you can do at this point is move
forward the worst thing you can do is
spend more time feeling rubbish about
being behind because it's only going to
set you further back the first step to
my plan of getting back on track if i
was behind would be to assess the damage
you need to know exactly how far behind
you are how much you need to catch up on
and how long it's going to take you to
do so you should write this down with a
pen and paper or on any app that you
want just write it down somewhere and
this should ideally be a comprehensive
list now you might be tempted to write
down something like study for exam but
this is not going to be helpful breaking
it down into smaller steps like watch
lectures 1 and 2 read chapter 3 and
review notes on lecture 10 is going to
give you a clearer understanding of the
work that's in front of you and how much
time you need to put into that task now
this time component is essential if you
write down a rough estimate of how long
you think it's going to take you to
catch up on or complete each task then
you can tally up those hours and you can
see just how much work is ahead of you
and it can put it into perspective and
make it easier to tackle moving forward
this means that you can tally up all the
hours that it's going to take for you to
catch up and then you can divide them
over a manageable period of time moving
forward once you've got the list of all
the things you need to complete with an
estimate of the time it'll take you to
do it it's now time to prioritize those
tasks it doesn't make any sense for you
to watch that lecture on psychiatry when
you know that you have a huge
rheumatology exam the next day the tasks
that have been left on our list for the
longest aren't necessarily the ones that
we need to do first our priorities
change over time for a variety of
reasons the reasons that you might
choose to do one piece of work over
another could be because you want to
review something it could be because you
have an upcoming exam it could be
because you just really don't want to
forget this important thing it's up to
you depending on your situation and you
will know this best prioritizing your
tasks is really important because you
want to make sure that you do the right
things first the most important things
first i think it's important that you're
good at prioritizing for any university
course you want to take the list of
tasks that you've written down and you
want to rearrange it with the most
important task at the top and the least
important task at the bottom splitting
your time evenly between all the tasks
is probably not going to be the best
idea treat your time as one of your most
valuable assets and you have to remember
that it's essentially a non-renewable
resource once you've spent that time
you're never going to get it back and so
this means that we should value our time
and make sure that any investment of our
time into work gives us the highest
return what this means is that it's a
relatively good use of your time to
spend two hours really understanding a
concept that underpins the whole module
that you're currently learning because
the result of that is gonna mean that
you can apply that understanding to a
ton of questions that you might have in
your exams and your future learning for
the module and hopefully this means that
you'll get a good grade in the end but
spending two hours making flashcards for
a subject that you already know quite
well or that you know has pre-made
flashcards already on the internet or
maybe by one of your friends isn't going
to be the best use of your time one
caveat to all of this which i think is a
pretty valid argument and something that
i do all the time is that if you have a
couple of smaller or shorter tasks that
you can just do quickly and bang them
out and get them out of the way i
usually tend to do that because i can
find it really motivating when i start
to take things off my to-do list i can
see it growing shorter and i feel
accomplished and like i'm already doing
something and it can sort of help me
tackle and feel better about the bigger
tasks that are still to come but
generally prioritizing your time and
making sure that you do the most
important things earliest on is probably
the right way to go it's important that
you don't continue to fall behind with
your current content whilst making up
for the previous content that you've
missed don't take off a whole day of uni
to catch up with the previous day's work
because you'll continue to just fall
further and further behind over time
it's better to stick with the schedule
that the university has given you and
then carve out extra time in your
evenings or on your weekends for that
catching up work that way you're slowly
chipping away at both so you don't have
this huge anxiety about the work that
you need to catch up on and you're still
on track of what's going on now and
hopefully eventually you'll be caught up
again but at the end of the day when you
choose to catch up and how you choose to
catch up depends on you do what feels
right for you make a realistic calendar
please please please make a calendar you
can actually manage and you can actually
follow moving forward let's say for
example you know that you have 10 hours
worth of work to catch up on you can
slot in one hour blocks of catching up
on that work each day for the next 10
days and that's pretty manageable that's
pretty doable with everything else
you've got going on and it gives you
this good visual representation of the
work to come over the coming week now
please don't do that thing that i see so
many people do where they put on their
calendar tomorrow i'm gonna do 10 days
of work and catch up on everything it's
unrealistic it doesn't happen the vast
majority of the time and it just puts
you in a worse position than you started
off with i personally think it's really
important to be realistic so you don't
overwhelm yourself with being
unrealistic and telling yourself you're
going to do all these things that most
people just can't do i find that setting
these huge goals and promising yourself
you're going to be caught up and
complete with everything in a short
period of time kind of set yourself up
for failure and makes you more likely to
burn out because you feel like oh i'm
still behind i couldn't do what i told
myself i was going to do on the calendar
it's never ending blah blah blah i think
if from the beginning you're as
realistic as possible as reasonable as
possible and you spread out that work
over a period of time where you know
you're going to be capable of doing it
then you're more likely to do and you're
more likely to feel good about having
done it when it's done now if you're 10
lectures behind and your exam is in a
couple of days then yeah you need to
cover those 10 lectures in the next
couple of days you don't really have a
choice but hopefully you're not in that
position and you've watched this video
before you get to that point and you can
plan out your studying properly one
thing you can do to try and figure out
where you might have some extra time to
do this catch-up work is look at where
you currently spend your free time and
how much you're happy to eat into this
in order to catch up so for example if
you know you want to catch up over the
next week you might not mind doing one
hour of netflix instead of two hours of
netflix per evening and just spend that
extra hour doing the catch-up work but
at the same time try not to let this
catch up eat into your time of just
having fun and enjoying life and being
with your friends i think doing those
things is equally as important as
working and you can't have one with the
other and so manage your time wisely and
do it smartly so that you can still do
the catch-up that you need to do but
also live a normal life and hang out and
have fun to prevent yourself from
burning out in the long term finding
that balance is difficult but really
important for creating this
sustainability over a long period of
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back to the video the next thing that i
would suggest is to just speak to your
friends this is really important some of
them are probably in the exact same boat
as you and knowing that can help you
feel a lot less alone when you're
folding behind now very crucially you
can also help each other and share
resources you might have all the
flashcards on a particular topic that
they were just about to spend two hours
making and they might be able to send
you a youtube video that can explain a
concept really well which you just
happen to be struggling with talking to
your friends and being open about your
work and your resources and your
workload is incredibly powerful it's
something that i've done throughout my
time at university and i can safely say
i could not have done as well as i have
without the help of my friends you need
to make sure that you're using all the
resources available to you and this
includes your friends and their
knowledge it might even be worth setting
up a group study session for an upcoming
exam and working on topics that you all
find difficult together it just takes
one person in the friend group to
suggest something like this and in the
end most people want to do it and most
people will benefit from it so be that
person suggest studying with your
friends and sharing resources and
working together i promise you're not
going to regret it another resource that
is often useful is office hours with
your tutors or professors if your profs
do offer office hours that's definitely
a tongue twister you can always go into
them with any questions that you have
about the content even if you don't have
your own questions listening to other
people's questions and then their
answers can often be helpful and asking
the prof or the tutor to spend some time
summarizing a topic that you find
particularly difficult can be useful as
well after all these are experts in
their respective fields and their
teachers for a reason so they're usually
pretty good at explaining concepts at
the right level at your stage of
learning if your tutors don't offer
office hours then please send them an
email don't be nervous or worried about
emailing your profs or your tutors you
know they are there to teach you this is
their job and i'm sure they'll be really
excited to see an email from one of
their students asking them to explain
something that they're already very
familiar with now if you're really
really falling behind and you think that
this might be a serious issue moving
forward you can always reach out to your
personal tutors or your course directors
and ask them for advice they've
definitely been in this situation before
and they've helped other students
through situations like this and so
they're the perfect people to go to
quite often at least here in the uk they
tend to be quite understanding with
mitigating circumstances and making sure
that their students get the help that
they need so if you ever feel like
you're crossing that line and moving
into that territory just remember that
there's always people to talk to and
there's always people who can help you
through it so the next step is future
proofing you want to make sure that this
doesn't happen again and if it does that
you have a system in place to catch up
properly going forward you want to make
sure that you're sticking to the
university timetable as much as you can
that's usually the best way to make sure
that you're not falling behind because
that's what they've set for you and for
all of the other students and so
probably you and all the other students
can follow this timetable within reason
and if you do follow the university
timetable then that way your evenings
can be spent revising content that you
need more help with or supplementing
your lectures with other resources so
you have a better understanding or just
having fun going out and living life
doing things other than academics and
studying being on top of your schedule
and not falling behind means that you
can keep some of this protected time to
one side and you can spend it on seeing
your friends and doing other things that
you enjoy in life this is what i've done
throughout almost all of my university
life i make sure that i get things done
on time and that i'm not falling behind
that much or not falling behind that
often so that i have free time to enjoy
myself outside of university and do the
things that i enjoy hang out with my
friends play sports or whatever i don't
think i'd truly be able to enjoy myself
stress-free and fully relaxed if i knew
that i was so far behind and i had all
this work to catch up on and it was just
going to be hell to do on the weekend or
i'd have a long library session or
something like that and so trying to do
a little bit of work every day would
always save me from this terrible
headache further down the line if you do
end up falling behind though it's
completely understandable you know we
have all been there life happens and we
can't always control being in a
situation so it's probably a good idea
to keep some sort of system in place to
help you catch up if you ever do fall
behind you can do this by following the
steps in this video but also by
developing your own habits that make
catching up quicker and easier for you
this might be something as simple as
having a page dedicated to overdue work
or catch-up work on an app like notion
or on a piece of paper like i have over
here or on your phone or whatever so
that whenever you miss a lecture or you
have a piece of work that needs to be
caught up on you just write it down on
this list and then every time you look
at it you know exactly how much you are
behind and you know exactly how long
it's going to take you to catch up on
that work i also feel that having a list
that you can look at and see how much
work you need to do makes the work so
much more manageable and it stops it
from being this sort of just big enigma
floating in the ether somewhere of oh my
god i have to catch up when you take
that i have to catch up and you break it
down into a to-do list with little tasks
and everything like that it becomes so
much more manageable it's like oh yeah i
can do that task today i can do this one
tomorrow and you can start working on it
slowly slowly the last bit of advice
that i want to give you is to try to
stick to the plan that you make it can
be tough to do that but catching up
later on can be even harder that being
said if you do need to catch up i hope
the tips that i've talked about in this
video help you to do that keep going and
eventually you'll get there see you in
the next one subscribe to my patreon
peace
[Music]
what can you do to help yourself get
back on track
it's a good blooper