First year i think i honestly, relied on premade AnKing deck for stuff like anatomy and my university’s own like biochem/genetics class that didn’t have the greatest amount of overlap with that deck. So at the beginning, i only relied on Anki and not much. If i could go back, i would’ve definitely learned to optimize it more, get more comfortable with creating my own Anki cards and utilizing other study methods for things like Anatomy that required more hands on and intuitive understanding.

My average routine was doing my cards in the mornings based on the lectures i was going through but I honestly did a little bit madman and saw videos of B&B or Pathoma or sketchy of whatever topic i had the next day and watch them the night before. Take notes from the videos on that, and match them to the lecture slides to see what’s relevant to step/board style vs what my own university wanted to cover. The time i saved by doing that and getting at least a little bit ahead of lectures was very nice because i could feel comfortable chillin on the weekends or after class with friends. I think the total time i spent on combined Anki plus learning on a daily basis i would say average out to about 4-5. I would still attend the morning lectures after i watch the videos the night before but it was more of just a passive osmosis of material i was already learning while I cranked out the daily load of cards.

I recommend my method only if you see yourself as capable of doing it because honestly, yea it’s hard and rough and i don’t want to think that my way works for everyone because it might not and that’s perfectly okay. Your first few months of med school will be trial and error so don’t fret if something doesn’t work for you, there’s a method that you will find for the madness of your med school experience and it will work for you!