Effective Four-Hour Study Blocks for Medical Students

Nasir maximizes productivity by studying in focused four-hour blocks, minimizing distractions and maximizing free time.

### Mastering Study Efficiency: The Four-Hour Block Method
* 📚 Hi, I'm Nasir, a third-year medical student at King's College, and I study in **four-hour blocks** for maximum productivity and focus.
* ⏰ While many doubt the feasibility of studying for four consecutive hours, I find it essential to **maintain my concentration and minimize distractions**.
* 💡 My study schedule typically consists of **two four-hour blocks each day**, allowing me to enter the studying zone just twice, at **9 a.m. and 1 p.m.**
* 📝 To stay focused, I plan my study sessions the night before, ensuring I know **exactly what to tackle** when I sit down to study.
* ☕ I eliminate distractions by preparing everything I need beforehand, including snacks and drinks, so I don’t have to **leave my desk during study time**.
* 📵 I also keep my phone out of sight and reach to avoid the temptation of checking notifications, which can **disrupt my concentration**.
* 🏆 Rewarding myself for completing study milestones helps maintain my motivation, as I only allow **breaks or treats after achieving specific goals**.
* 🔝 Lastly, I set a high standard for myself, knowing I can achieve **four-hour blocks**, which encourages me to **push my limits and remain productive**.

What is up guys, Karma Medic here, and welcome back to another dose we need to the channel. Hi, my name is Nasir, and I'm now a third-year medical student studying at King's College, London. Today's video is all about why I study in four-hour blocks, and I'm not talking about four hours of half-studying, a little bit of procrastinating, and chillin' here and there. I'm talking about four hours of productive, efficient studying in a row. Now, usually when people find out that I study in four-hour blocks as opposed to 25 minutes or one hour, two-hour, even three-hour blocks, most of them tell me, That's not possible. There's no way you can stay focused for that long. You probably aren't efficient. You're probably wondering in your mind and things like that, but honestly, I genuinely study for four hours in a row, and I'm motivated, and I'm productive, and I'm efficient, and I'm gonna explain all of that in today's video. I'm gonna explain two things: one, why I study in four-hour blocks, and two, how I study in four-hour blocks.

So let's tackle the why first. When I sit down at my desk over here or in the library in order to study, what is my goal? My goal is to complete as much work as possible, to be as productive and as efficient as possible. Now, me personally, when I get into the zone for studying, I don't want to leave that zone. I don't want to get up, I don't want to procrastinate, I don't want to change what it is that I'm doing because I've already done the most difficult part of sitting down to study, which is to get into the studying mood and zone. And the more breaks that I take or reasons I give myself to get up and off of my desk, that's another opportunity for me to have to get back into the studying zone, which I don't want to do. So generally speaking, when I'm studying for exams, I do two four-hour blocks in my day, from 9 to 1 and from 3 to 7. And that way, I only have to enter the studying mood two times, once at 9 a.m. and once at 1 p.m.

Now this is the main reason that I personally don't use the Pomodoro timer. Because every 25 minutes, it's basically giving me an excuse and encouraging me to check my phone or to chill or to get up off my desk or whatever, which is inevitably gonna lead to me procrastinating and doing something for longer than just 5 minutes. One thing that I really like about my method of doing 4-hour blocks in my day is that I've done pretty much all the work that I need to do by 7 p.m. Now, I imagine doing eight hours of productive and useful work and also being done by 7 p.m. That leaves so much free time in order for you to do anything else that you want. That can be exercising, socializing with friends, playing video games, making YouTube videos, or basically anything. You just give yourself a lot of free time and still do lots and lots of work during the day. Now, I understand obviously different studying techniques and timetables and schedules and whatever work for different people. I'm just saying as far as maximizing efficiency.

If you condense all of the work that you have to do into the beginning part of the day, that leaves a lot of hours at the end of the day for you to do whatever you want. All right. I think I've preached long enough now about why I really like my four-hour block method. Now, let me tell you how it is that I can actually stay focused and work for four hours in a row. I'm gonna break this down into five key sections. The first is to plan the night before, and what I mean by this is that when I wake up in the morning and I know that I'm gonna start studying at 9:00 a.m., I've already decided exactly what it is that I'm going to do at 9:00 a.m., which means that there's no friction or no time wasted in trying to figure out what do I need to study, what have I done enough of, what is left for me to do, etc., etc. I've already decided that and planned it the night before, so when I sit down at 8:59

I start exactly at 9:00, and I can get immediately into the studying zone. That is actually really, really key. If you're struggling to get into the study zone, have a predetermined plan of what it is that you're gonna do during that time. So, for example, tomorrow at 9 a.m., I'm going to study for the USMLE exam, which is here. So, tonight before I go to sleep, I'm going to open this book to the page that I'm going to be starting on tomorrow. And I'm gonna put a pen inside of it. That way, tomorrow when I take this book, which is already laying on my desk in a nice and convenient place for me to begin work, I can literally flip open to the page of exactly where I'm going to start. On top of that, you can see on my desktop over here, but I'm already gonna go down to the video that I'm gonna watch tomorrow morning. I'm gonna open it, and it's gonna be ready, just waiting for me to sit down, hit play, and begin work. Section number two.

Don't give yourself a reason to get up and away from your desk before I start work at 9:00 a.m. I've already made my cup of coffee, I've got in a couple of snacks, and I've organized everything around me that I will possibly need in the next four hours so that I can minimize the amount of times that I need to get up and out of my chair. The reason that I do this is because every time you get up and out of your chair, you're giving yourself an opportunity for distraction and a reason for procrastination. For example, if I go to the kitchen, I'll make myself a snack or a drink. I'll knock on my sister's door and ask her what's going on. Let's have a chat. Every time I leave my room and I leave that studying zone and studying environment, I'm giving myself reasons and excuses and opportunities for procrastination. Now, this is gonna be slightly controversial, I'm sure, but I honestly don't allow myself to get up and out of my desk until I've done an hour of studying. The thought

Process that I have in my mind is not if I haven't been able to sit down and do productive solid work for an hour. Do I really deserve to go take a break? Do I really deserve to go for crostini and fill up my drink and get more snacks or take some time off? No, I need to first do a bunch of productive work before I can even think about the idea of getting up and procrastinating, and usually when I push myself to stay that extra 15 minutes, I actually end up studying for another 30 minutes or 45 minutes or whatever before getting out of my chair because I want to finish. For example, the video that I'm doing or the section that I'm doing or the page that I'm writing. I just give myself reasons to continue studying. You know, I'm almost done with this section. I'm almost done with this video. I'm almost done with blah blah blah blah blah, and I just try my best to keep myself situated at my desk. You know what, now that I say all of this out loud, I'm starting to sound a little bit crazy.

but just stay with me here. The point of section number two is to only get up and off of your desk when you really need to. Section number three is, for the love of God, just get rid of your phone. Your phone is your worst enemy when it comes to studying time. If you hear any notification, if you hear a buzzing, if you even look at your phone, or if you even think of your phone, you're so likely to just, without even thinking, reach over and grab it and check it. I'm guilty of doing this all the damn time. And because I'm a human and I'm prone to checking my phone and getting all of these addicting notifications and numbers and messages, I have two ways in order to completely eliminate my phone from my studying environment. Step number one is to put your phone out of sight. If you can't see your phone, you're less likely to think of it, you're less likely to notice it, and you're just less likely to check it overall. Step number two is to put your phone out of

Reach that creates a huge barrier. You have to now get up and move in order to get your phone, which I know sounds kind of stupid. You're probably like, Oh, it's just two steps away over there on the bed. But the truth is, when you're sitting down, any extra effort or friction you give yourself in order to go check your phone, you're gonna do it less often. Wow, I've been talking a lot this video. All right, section number four is about giving yourself rewards while you're studying. Genuinely, no joke, probably what gets me through studying sessions the most is the idea of rewarding myself with either something to drink or something to eat or going out with my friends or playing video games or whatever. Just having these rewards that I make for myself that I can only unlock once I've done a certain amount of studying. It's, for example, like I mentioned before, I literally don't allow myself to go get a refill of my coffee or brew a tea or anything like that until I've done at least an hour of studying. It's just now an ingrained rule in my head like, Dude.

You're not gonna have coffee or more tea unless you do more work. So you better get that done first if that's what you want to do. My mentality when it comes to doing four-hour blocks is very simple. If I work from 0 till 2 hours, well, then all I have to do is do the exact same thing that I just did one more time, and I'll be done with my four-hour block. It's the same thing like when I go for a 10k run. If I run five kilometers in one direction away from my house, well, then I kind of have to run the other five kilometers in the opposite direction to get back home. And that way, when I sit down for a four-hour block of studying, really all I need to focus on is getting through the next two hours because once I've done two hours, well, then I just have to repeat what I've already done, and I'll be done with four hours. I know it sounds really simple, and it sounds kind of stupid. You guys probably think I'm crazy right now.

But if I just do two hours of studying, then I can repeat what I've done, and then I've reached my goal. Okay, and the fifth and final section is about setting standards for yourself. For me personally, once I've done a four-hour block of studying, I know that that is something that I am now capable of. And so, next time I come to studying, if I study for three hours or two hours, then I'm like, Well, this isn't really as best as I can do. This isn't pushing myself to my maximum efficiency or capacity. I've done a four-hour block before; that means that I'm capable of doing it again. And I keep up that standard, and I keep studying for four-hour blocks because I know that I can reach that level of capacity and productivity. It's the same thing like once I've done a ten-kilometer run. I know that I'm capable of running ten kilometers. And so, I keep running ten kilometers every time because now that's my new baseline. That's what I'm capable of achieving.

I don't like to give myself excuses or reasons to do something out of a lesser level than what I've done before. I feel like I've done it once; I'm capable of doing that, and so I can keep up that standard now. Obviously, you can probably see the slippery slope that comes along with this line of thinking. I'm not crazy; I'm a robot. I obviously have times when I can't study for 4 hours. If I follow everything that I'm saying about 80% of the time, then I'm doing a fantastic job because the other 20% is just real-life things happen. Things come up; you need to change, and you need to be flexible. But this is my line of thinking. This is my philosophy. And this is when I try to upkeep as much as I possibly can. Okay, and that is it. I hope you guys have found this video useful. I hope you've enjoyed it, and if you did, please do leave a like on this video and subscribe to my channel to see more content from me in the future. If you have any tips for how you like to study or

Know something that works very well for you and would like to share with the rest of the community? Please do so in a comment down below. I love reading and replying to all of your comments, and that is it for me. I will see you guys in the next video. Peace. You. What video are we doing today? Why I study in for our blocks? Let's go.

Why I'm able to study 4 hours with NO breaks (how to stay productive)

Kharma Medic

The Benefits of Studying in Four-Hour Blocks

The speaker, a third-year medical student, shares their method of studying in four-hour blocks for maximum productivity and efficiency.

They prefer this approach to avoid the distractions and procrastination that come with shorter study sessions.

By completing two four-hour blocks a day, they finish their work by 7 p.

, allowing for ample free time to engage in other activities.

Staying Focused with a Four-Hour Work Block

Planning the night before is crucial for a smooth start, eliminating time wasted on deciding what to study.

Minimizing distractions by having everything needed for the next four hours within reach helps maintain focus.

The author avoids getting up from the desk for the first hour of studying to prevent procrastination and distractions.

Staying focused on studying requires pushing through the urge to take breaks and giving oneself reasons to continue.

Eliminating phone distractions by keeping it out of sight and reach can help reduce the temptation to check it.

Rewarding oneself for completing study sessions with treats or activities can also serve as a motivating factor.

Working in four-hour blocks helps establish a routine and set personal standards.

By focusing on completing two hours and then repeating the process, the goal becomes more manageable.

Achieving a four-hour study block sets a new baseline for productivity, motivating the individual to maintain that standard in future sessions.

I believe in maintaining a consistent standard for myself and not making excuses for lower performance.

While I aim to follow this philosophy 80% of the time, I recognize that real-life situations require flexibility.

I'm open to sharing study tips and engaging with the community through comments.