Schedules get a bad wrap.
When people think schedules, they usually think of something restrictive, tedious and
boring.
We want fun, freedom and the ability to do whatever we want.
Don't schedules work directly against that?
Not exactly.
In fact, I argue that creating and sticking to your schedule will add more freedom to
your life not less.
Yeah, you heard that right.
Stay tuned and I'll show you how.
What's going on guys,
Dr. Jubbal, MedSchoolInsiders.com.
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And without further ado, let's get to it.
The foundation of this video is that every system is perfectly designed to produce the
results it gets.
Therefore, we must follow a process to create a system that incentivizes us to behave in
a way that we want and makes it difficult for us to deviate from that path.
As Jocko Willink says, discipline equals freedom.
And I agree with him.
In this context, we’re referring to self-discipline, which means “the ability to control one’s
feelings and overcome one’s weaknesses; the ability to pursue what one thinks is right
despite temptations to abandon it.”
You see, our default state is to be wildly distractible and impulsive, doing things that
make us feel good in the moment, while avoiding those things that make us feel bad.
Seems to make sense, right?
But this is not an effective way to live one’s life.
By practicing self-discipline and creating a schedule that you stick to, you can create
the day, and ultimately the life, that you want.
This empowers you to actually choose whether spending three hours of watching TV or browsing
Facebook is actually aligned with your life goals, or whether it’s a distraction that
numbs you in the moment, but pulls you further away from becoming an effective doctor.
I've gone over this in countless other videos.
It’s most effective to focus on one of two things at any moment: intentionally maximizing
work, or intentionally maximizing relaxation, fun or rejuvenation.
This is why I advise against having the TV on in the background while you try to work.
Rather, focus on deep work and getting into a flow state for two hours.
Crank through your homework or studying or whatever it is.
Then spend the next hour, or whatever you designate in your schedule, to relax with
friends, play a sport, or meditate.
This intentional dichotomy of time allocation allows us to maximize the rewards from being
productive and the enjoyment and pleasure from relaxation and free time.
Mixing the two simply doesn’t work.
So, why is it so hard to stick to our schedules?
People generally avoid specifying their goals and creating a schedule for three main reasons.
First, it takes upfront effort and planning.
It’s much easier to simply not put in the effort to list out your long term goals and
then put in the work to create a schedule to help us achieve those goals.
It just feels like work.
Second, people do not like to specify goals because then they are drawing the boundaries
and the definitions as to when they have failed.
And no one likes to admit they failed.
So, instead, we keep ourselves blind.
Jordan Peterson calls this "willful blindness."
But by setting goals and knowing when we fail, we will ultimately come out ahead.
By not setting goals and therefore not knowing when we have failed, we end up just failing
all the time.
Third, many of us succumb to the phenomenon of learned helplessness and assigning identity
to our failed actions.
I will spare you the psychology derivatives in the theory of depression, what you need
to know is that learned helplessness is essentially when we believe that we have no control over
what happens to us.
We learn to believe that we are helpless.
We practice a form of this when we assign our identities to our failures.
For example, you get a C in math, and then you tell yourself that you’re just not the
kind of person that is good at math.
And this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where you will continue to do poorly in math.
If instead you remove your identity from the equation and instead say, “I did poorly
this semester in math, which means my study habits were not effective and require tweaking,”
you now have now empowered yourself to make the changes in the future that will secure
the grade you want.
I get it.
This may seem subtle, nuanced, and even a little woo-woo, but believe me when I say
this is tremendously powerful and you’re almost certainly not using it to your advantage.
Okay, so how do I stick to my schedule?
First, remove the idea or thought that you’re a failure from your vocabulary.
This is key.
If you start this process and resort to calling yourself a failure, you will quickly get discouraged
and return to your old ways.
Here’s the thing – you will not 100% stick to your schedule.
I guarantee it.
I consider myself a very disciplined and structured person, but even I don’t get anywhere near
100% in sticking to my schedule.
Rather, we want to work towards achieving as much as possible in the schedule, and strive
to increase the accuracy week after week.
And sometimes that doesn't happen.
But it’s better to his 50% accuracy for an entire year than it is to hit 90% for one
week but then give up because you focus on falling short by 10%.
Consistency is the key.
Next, it’s important to be cognizant of how you spend your time.
For me, I only tracked my time for a couple weeks, after which I was much more aware and
didn’t feel the need to track my time as closely.
My tool of choice was RescueTimer on my computer, and now Android and iOS offer features to
show you how you’re allocating screen time on your phone.
By understanding how you’re currently spending your time and energy, you’ll be better equipped
to figure out what could be sapping more time than you expected.
You can then determine how to reallocate that time and energy more effectively.
Number three, choose and use your calendar and planner of choice.
For some people, like me, it’s Google Calendar and Things 3.
I like digital.
For others, it’s an old fashioned physical calendar or planner.
It doesn’t really matter what you choose.
Choose whichever option you prefer but just stick to it.
Get in the habit of using your calendar and planner every day.
And not just for boring work things, but even planning out fun and activities with your
friends.
Number four, schedule inflexible items first.
If you’re in school, make sure you mark off all the class time in your calendar.
This is something that is not negotiable.
If you have a work schedule, mark that off as well, because that too is non-negotiable.
If you’re in medical school and classes are optional however, intentionally decide
whether or not classes are a good use of time, and reflect that in your schedule accordingly.
I personally, attended lecture during my first year of med school, but stopped attending
lecture in my second year.
If you’re not sure, run an experiment for yourself and then decide.
Which brings us to point number five, run self-experiments.
Figure out what you want to test.
For example, does attending lectures in medical school help you, or are you better off studying
alone?
We can sit here and describe the pros and cons of each.
The group setting enforces focus and reduces the temptation to fall behind, therefore attending
class is great for students who are prone to procrastination.
Skipping lecture and opting for the solo-studying method allows flexibility with your time,
the ability to speed up your lectures, and the opportunity to pause and look up concepts
if you are lost in the middle of lecture.
It’s hard to know exactly what works for you unless you put it to the test.
For a week, change only that single variable, being whether or not you attend lecture.
Every day, keep a journal as to your thoughts of how you’re doing.
Do you feel that it is working for you?
Are you staying on top of each lecture or are you falling behind?
How’s your retention?
Do you feel more or less tired?
Do you feel lonely from not seeing your friends in class?
After you have run this experiment on yourself, you’ll be better equipped to make a decision.
Number six, schedule flexible items, but be realistic.
Once the non-negotiables are set, it’s time to fill in the rest of your schedule with
whatever you want.
As a student, I recommend two hour blocks of studying utilizing the Pomodoro Technique.
At longer breaks, schedule gym time, dinner, running errands, or other breaks that are
rejuvenating – not just thirty minutes of Facebook.
Now, there are two traps people often fall into when creating their schedules, and I
am intimately familiar with both.
The first is not allocating enough buffer time for things like time in transit, packing
and unpacking, and things of the sort.
For example, I used to give myself only one and a half hours for the gym without factoring
in transportation and other buffers.
That meant I needed to spend 15 minutes going to the gym, 5-10 minutes unpacking, putting
my things in the locker etcetera, another 10 minutes for warm up, then at the end of
my work out another 5-10 minutes to pack things up and another 15 minutes to get back from
the gym.
In the end, that one and a half hours allocated for gym time only gave me 30 minutes to actually
work out!
I now block out 2 hours of gym time in my schedule.
The second trap is being too ambitious with how much significant work you can get done
each day without burning out.
This is an insidious trap that is difficult to escape, especially if you’re in medical
school or residency, where you feel like you’re perpetually behind and playing catch up.
After a certain point, the more you work, the more your efficiency will drop.
That decreased efficiency slows down your rate of progress, which makes you feel like
you need to work more to make up for it.
It’s a dangerous cycle.
So instead, focus on quality of studying time, not the quantity, and allow sufficient time
to unwind, relax, and recover.
It’s tough to do, but you’ll find that scheduling shorter blocks of intense studying
and longer blocks of relaxation is actually more fruitful than depriving yourself of adequate
relaxation and simply pounding on the books for hours on end.
And number seven, review and adjust daily.
Remember that all plans, even the best, require regular adjustments.
Day of, remember you can change your schedule as needed.
It’s not set in stone, but at the same time do your best to stick with it, otherwise you
defeat the purpose of scheduling in the first place.
The key isn’t to create one schedule and stick with it indefinitely.
Rather, consistency is key.
Review your schedule for the day – what worked and what didn’t work?
It’s a series of experiments where you develop a hypothesis, test and collect data, analyze,
readjust and repeat.
Using that knowledge, make tweaks to your schedule moving forward.
Soon, you’ll have a schedule dialed in that maximizes your productivity and your fun.
Now, I invite you to enjoying the process.
There are no shortcuts to magically sticking to your schedule.
It’s simply a matter of implementing a series of steps and creating a structure in place
that incentivizes you to live the life that you want to live.
Run your own self-experiments, watch yourself improve, and appreciate the process and the
results you achieve.
Let us know down in the comments some of your own scheduling tips that we did not cover
in this video.
I've consistently been impressed by the comments you all leave and I would love to learn more
from you.
Thank you all so much for watching.
If you like this video make sure you subscribe so you too can vote for upcoming videos.
And I'll see you guys in that next one you.