How to study for the MCAT when you're lazy and hate studying.

What's up guys, WaveDysfunction here and this is a post I've wanted to do for a long time.

Every time scores come out, we see a decent influx of guides, how I studied, how I got a 520+, etc. But I wanted to make a post specifically targeted to those who, like me, are frankly just lazy pieces of shit. Or maybe lazy isn't even the right word. I'm talking about the folks who get distracted from studying because they hate studying and have always hated it.

You might be thinking "Oh yeah that's me, I'm so lazy haha I only studied for a couple hours last night". Or maybe you're thinking about that time you didn't study for a whole Saturday. I'm sorry but this isn't for you (though it still may be helpful). This is for my fellow fucks who will study for 10 minutes then take a "well-deserved break" watching youtube or surfing twitter for the next 30 minutes. Spend 6 hours "studying" for what was actually maybe 1 hour of real studying. Or my people who will do a 59 question section on UWorld over the course of three days and feel accomplished. I think you will know who you are.

This is not a specific guide of how I studied because I really just followed the guides people post here, so I don't think I'd contribute much in that aspect. But I will be giving tips as to how to efficiently study if you're constricted on time, and how to stay focused so you don't waste that time. Perhaps this will also help you in school.

1. NEVER passively study. Passive studying is the biggest waste of time. Don't just watch some KA videos or read a chapter out of your textbook and call it a night. For one, you probably won't be focused on the chapter the whole time, and two: you will barely retain a thing. If you have time, take notes while you watch/read. If you have less time, literally talk to yourself and discuss the topic you're studying while you study it. Even better if you have someone to talk to. My partner probably knows about half the mcat topics for the number of times I would explain things to her to help me remember.
2. Test anything new you have studied. Once you have studied a topic, do practice questions on it or just test if you remember what certain terms mean. This will reinforce the things you have learned, and keep you from falling into he trap of passive studying with little retention. Plus, it gives you something to do and focus on, which can be tough for people like us.
3. Keep the "Content Review Stage" as short as possible. Don't spend 3-4 months doing content review. This is general advice, but especially important for our kind of people because we just won't get much out of it. The content review stage is dangerous because it makes us feel as if we are doing something but we are actually wasting a lot of time. The fact is that we need to be keeping our minds fully engaged so we don't get distracted, which brings me to the next point.
4. Do practice questions timed, and do a lot of them. This is more general advice, but it is the most important. Practice questions (specifically UWORLD) will be the most useful thing you do and where the most learning will occur. But I want to specify that for people like us, you need to do the sets TIMED. They don't have to be timed to MCAT standards, but at the most 2x time. It'll make sure you don't get uber distracted and then end up spending 6 hours doing 60 questions.
5. Review practice questions right after you do them. This will keep hings fresh in your head and reinforce them. You can talk about it out loud, write down notes, etc. But importantly you must review right after you do them or else the lazy habits come back and later you'll say to yourself "eh I don't need to review them I'll remember what I got wrong". Trust me, you won't.
6. Do FL sections rigorously timed, but don't worry too much about testing conditions. This is mainly for the lazy folks. I'm not waking up at 7:00 on the weekend and taking a FL with enforced breaks and everything. I'll do the sections timed, but I'll take as long of breaks as I want. This might be controversial but I don't think it's necessary to do real test conditions, because nothing can really prepare you for how you will feel on test day.
7. Use one of the Anki decks here (Miledown, Cubene, Premed95) and use them after you've already content reviewed. Thankfully not all of us are lazy fucks and some incredible, beautiful, amazing people on this sub made these free decks that are quite comprehensive. Use them, don't waste your time trying to make your own because we know you won't make a good one anyway. I highly suggest Miledown because he has pictures and his cards look quite nice, and to me it made them easier to study. But be warned, Anki is not a substitute for quality studying like doing practice questions and reviewing them. Anki is a supplement to plug any gaps and to drill any stubborn definitions into your head.
8. Lastly, be weary of taking too many breaks in the guise of "not burning out". The problem with being lazy is that any amount of hard work will make us feel entitled to a break. So that's why I suggest to not schedule breaks. Take breaks when you got 10 questions wrong in a row on a section bank, or when you had to read a CARS passage 5 times and still don't get it. But don't take a break because you feel tired or you don't want to study. If you feel that way, come to this sub or r/premed to motivate you seeing all these hard workers getting into med school and getting 520+'s while you just spongebob memed after doing a single C/P passage.

That's basically it, I really hope that this will help at least one of you. I have struggled with effective studying ever since I got to college, but I've learned strategies that have helped me and I think they'll help you as well. The MCAT doesn't have to be some long drawn out marathon. I studied for 3 months while working full-time, and the only reason I was successful was because I studied efficiently, didn't waste time, and kept coming to this sub to motivate me.