Alright kids, welcome back to the classroom. So in this video, I'm going to explain my four-part daily routine that I used during engineering school to help me get straight A's in my exams. Because this routine that I'm going to explain behind me, it seems complicated, but trust me, it's very simple, very intuitive.
It takes advantage of some basic human biology and psychology to optimize your day for the highest grades with the least amount of stress. And I can say this because I literally looked forward to exam season. because of this routine.
Partly because of this routine, partly because I learned to love studying, which go watch my videos about it if you're interested, but I'm gonna go through this routine right now and trust me, I think you're gonna love it. It's super effective, it's very, very easy to follow, and hopefully it's gonna be fun here as well. Class is in session. I know it looks complicated, but trust me, it's very simple. This is one day.
This is one day. Here's where you wake up on the left, and time goes on throughout the day. And here's where you go to bed at night time on the right.
Okay, so why is it this weird-ass shape? Why is it like up and down and shit? Well, it's very simple.
This is you. You start off in the morning, in the day. And basically, your body has something called a circadian rhythm, where basically throughout the day, your energy fluctuates up and down. You might notice this, that sometimes parts of the day, you're more tired than other parts of the day. So this up and down is actually your energy.
So let me explain. You wake up in the morning. This is you. And in the morning, your energy is at a peak.
I've put arbitrary times here, by the way. This is just me. My circadian rhythm might not be exactly yours, but at 9 a.m., my energy is at a peak.
My circadian rhythm is at a peak. And as the afternoon goes along, my energy drops till about 3 p.m. I literally wanna go to sleep.
My circadian rhythm is down at the floor. But then what happens is my energy goes back up. And at about 7 p.m. around evening, my energy takes another peak. And then of course, towards bedtime, my energy goes down.
So my system here will leverage when your energy is highest. And that's when we're going to study. So section one and section three are your study periods.
I'll tell you why they're two study periods. I'll tell you what exactly to do at every single hour. I'm going to go through section four here right before bed. This is something I never hear talked about. This is essential though.
during exam periods, I think. I call this a release period. So it's a tropical island here because this is your release period. So basically, you might have something that you would rather be doing than studying or something that you do end up doing rather than studying.
So for me, during my exam period, it was scrolling on YouTube. For you, it might be like TikTok, Netflix. I know a bunch of you guys are on the hub every single day, you know, shmeeting your shmeet. Maybe you do drugs or some shit. Whatever you do, whatever you do, here's the problem.
You tell yourself that you're going to do it after exams. You're like, okay, I'm going to focus for three weeks and then I'll allow myself to watch Netflix. Then I'll allow myself to play video games.
But that shit doesn't work, as you know. I saw a meme the other day. It was like, oh man, I can't wait till exams are done so I can do that shit that I was doing anyway without stress. So it doesn't work. Basically, what ends up happening is We can't resist for three weeks.
So what happens? We wake up and we're like, okay, I'm just going to go on YouTube for an hour, then I'll study. Oh, you know, dinner's over, bro.
I'm just going to play video games for an hour, then I'll study. We end up sprinkling that shit throughout our day. So when we tell ourselves we're not going to do it for three weeks, that shit doesn't work. So my method here, basically, it's very, very simple. You're allowed to do that shit.
You're allowed to do your vices. You're allowed to do whatever it is your addiction is, whatever bullshit you can't resist. All you have to do is just do it during this release period. So for about one to two hours before bed, I literally give you permission to go ham, scroll as much as you want, play video games, do whatever you want.
Just give yourself one rule. You're only gonna do it at this period. Now, the reason this is so effective is because instead of resisting for three weeks, all you have to do is resist till nighttime. So you're gonna be tempted here to go on Netflix.
You're gonna be tempted here to go on YouTube. All you have to tell yourself is, hey, just do that shit at night. And the reason it's called a release period is because it's like during the day you're building up that pressure.
You're fighting all these cravings. And then here you literally release that pressure. You allow yourself to do all those vices.
Now, of course, ideally, here's the thing. I'm not saying you have to have this. Ideally, you would be so addicted to studying. If you watch my videos, you might be addicted to studying so much that you won't need this shit. You'll want to study till bedtime.
You got to be honest with yourself. If you do have something that you kind of revert to, just try to do it here. It's that simple. Now, again, I'm not telling you, you have to have this, you know, don't go home tonight.
and like go on the hub, go shmeet your hub on the hub tonight and be like, oh bro, Penrose said I should go shmeet my fleet on the hub. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying to develop an addiction to drugs or whatever. But if you do have something, you got to be honest with yourself. Simply do it during this release period.
That's it. Bro, I got to calm down. I've never done a standing video like this.
I'm out of breath, but okay. Now I'm going to go through extreme detail what to do every hour of the day. Okay. So this is you, the hero.
You wake up, okay, and you're going to battle throughout the day. Like I said, we've got two study periods. One here, one here.
I'm going to go through them. So you wake up and you do some morning routine, whatever it is. I'm not going to tell you what to do during your morning routine, it's up to you.
Me, I used to wake up, take a shit, get some breakfast and go for a walk. But here's what you want to do. You want to start your first study session as early as possible because right after we wake up, that's when our energy is at a maximum.
So we're going to take full advantage of that and literally it can be right as you roll out of bed. I know many people they roll out of bed and they get straight to studying, you can do that, but preferably within an hour of waking up you want to get to your first study session of the day. I'll tell you how to approach it, but there are a couple things that you want to do before your study session.
This one here is essential. Before your first study session of the day you must take about five minutes to write your targets for the day, to write your goals for the day. If you don't do this, you're going to waste a lot of time doing low leverage tasks and wasting time.
So literally just sit down for five minutes with a notebook open, with your computer open, and just write what you're going to do for the day. Literally like what past papers are you going to do? What topics are you going to hit? Literally just spend five minutes and this will save you so much time throughout the day. There's a quote something like five minutes in planning saves 20 minutes in execution.
It's more like two hours. But This is the first thing. This is the only essential thing you need to do in the morning. Set your goals for five minutes.
Then you can begin your study session. But here are three weapons I'm going to give you that will make your study session way more focused and way more energetic. So the first weapon you can use is caffeine, coffee, yerba mate, whatever the hell you want.
If you're a crackhead, then energy drinks. But caffeine will basically increase your dopamine and your adrenaline, which will help you focus better, help you Retain mem your memory better and it'll increase your energy. So caffeine is one weapon You can use similar one is cold showers If you take a cold shower again, your adrenaline will rise your dopamine will rise.
It'll help you focus better It'll give you more energy and now the final weapon I've got here. This is an interesting one focus warmer So if you take about one to two minutes before you sit down to study to warm up your focus system You're gonna focus way better. So this is literally I'll tell you exactly what to do pick a point Somewhere in the room.
I'm gonna pick my camera here and for about one to two minutes You want to focus on it as intensely as possible? You want to literally just stay a hundred percent concentrated on it thoughts are gonna come distractions are gonna come stay focused on it for about one to two minutes and Then begin your work and when you do that You're gonna notice that your focus is way better because you've just spent like a couple minutes warming up that focus system So these are just three weapons you can use so Use these three weapons if you want. Set goals. Now we're gonna begin our first battle of the day, our morning study session.
So here's the mindset you wanna have going into this. Basically, you wanna study like a warrior. You wanna study like a cheater.
You wanna work intensely for short bursts of time. So here's what you do. Lock yourself in a room or be away from the distraction of people.
Get all distractions out of your way. Put your phone in another room. At least put it on airplane mode under your bed.
Get that shit out of there. And you're going to have your eyes locked onto the screen for about two to four hours. Now you can take breaks in between, but for a period of about two to four hours, most of that time is going to be locked in onto your screen studying.
I'll give you some more specific details here, because two to four hours is a long time for many people. But you want to work like a warrior. You want to sprint hard and you want to take rests in between. So if you can only focus for like 20 minutes, do 20 minute sprints, 20 minutes, then five minute rest, 20 minutes, then five minute rest, 20 minutes, then five minute rest.
People who are much better, they can do maybe two hours, two hours, then a 10 minute rest, then another two hours. But work to your limits. But you want to work hard, and then rest, work hard and then rest.
Repeat for about two to four hours. Now I'll tell you why exactly two to four hours here. Basically, if you work like this, if you've read the book Deep Work, by Cal Newport, if you've studied the science of focus, you know that if you work, you know focus is like a muscle.
If you focus very, very intensely, then you need to rest. You can't focus for 12 hours. If you can study for 12 hours, that means you're not focused very intensely. So actually, the more intense your focus, the less amount of time you want to study.
So if your focus is really, really, really intense, two hours is pretty much the maximum you're going to be able to do. If your focus is more trash, then you're going to go more towards the four-hour mark. But this is the total, by the way. But after about four hours, your focus system is going to be so depleted. that you literally need to rest.
It's like an athlete sprinting. If you've sprinted so much, you need to rest. If you keep trying to sprint, it's going to be so inefficient that you're just going to waste all this time.
It's better to rest and then come back hard during our evening session. Use a timer. This one's very, very important.
So what I do is on my computer, I'll literally put a timer in the corner. You can get a physical timer, you can do whatever you want. When you work to a timer, basically what happens is...
It's kind of like you're on an assembly line. It keeps you, you know, pushing. It gives you like a deadline to work to.
The problem is we don't give ourselves deadlines. We tell ourselves, okay, we're going to stop studying at bedtime. And because of that, we have no sense of urgency.
So we study with trash focus and we feel hopeless because there's no end point. If you have a timer and you can see like, oh shit, I've got 90 minutes left, then it gives you that sense of urgency. So you push harder. But it also gives you hope because you can see an end point coming.
So work to a timer. This is essential. This will keep you way more focused and make it much more enjoyable. Okay, like I said earlier, if you've read deep work or you've studied the science of rest or you've read the book Rest, but I can't remember his name, then if you actually insert a massive rest period here between your study sessions, you will actually get more done overall.
If you try to study for this whole period here, you will get a lot less done. So here is an essential part. your rest period.
You're going to reach base camp here and in the middle of the day when your energy is lowest you're going to give yourself permission. This is essential. Give yourself permission to rest. I'll tell you exactly what to do here but the problem is we don't give ourselves permission to rest. We're in study mode all day long and so because of that we're constantly stressed and our focus sucks because you know we're trying to focus at every minute of the day.
If we insert this period here again it's like a release valve. But also it makes us come back stronger for the evening session. So during this rest period, you don't want to do any of the shit that you're doing during the release period. So no scrolling, no Netflix, none of that stuff.
If you do that stuff, it will destroy your focus for the evening session. And it will lower your motivation for the evening session. So during the rest period, what you want to do is you want to do activities that are the opposite of focusing. So I'll give you a couple examples.
Exercise, playing sports and shit. Socializing. Going for a walk, going out in the sun, those are big ones. My favorite, taking a nap. I take a 20-minute nap and that replenishes my focus.
So pick your favorite. Literally give yourself a couple hours for this. Give yourself permission for a couple hours in the day to just chill.
And I promise you, you will come back to this session here way stronger. This is also how riders approach their work, by the way. Many riders will literally have this massive block in the middle where they rest. I know many great leaders do this as well. because we're going to come back at evening time for your final battle of the day.
It's pretty much going to be identical to the morning session with a couple of differences that I'm going to go into. One thing that you can do here that I like to do is change up my environment. So here normally I'll do my desk or something like that.
Over here I like to go to the library or at least go to like a different room in your house. Here's the reason why. In the morning it's much easier to resist distractions because it's the morning you've just woken up. Maybe your family are busy too.
But here your family might be walking around your house doing random bullshit. You know, your brother's playing a video game. Your friend is like inviting you to go into Counter-Strike or something.
So it's much harder to resist distractions here. And it can kind of get boring if you're doing the same environments throughout the day. So if you give yourself a different environment here, it'll give you more of an adventure feel throughout your day and more novelty. And it's much easier to resist distractions.
So what I used to do is I literally used to leave my phone at home and I would go to the library and then of course you've got your release period. So that's pretty much it but one thing I do want to mention, this is not a prescription. I'm not saying you have to study at 9am and then 7pm and then rest at 3pm. Everyone's different.
Some people wake up at midday, some people wake up at 3am. This is just like a general guideline that you can use but the point is you want to take the general principles and adapt it to your life, to your daily routine. If you want to follow this exactly how it is, go ahead, but just be open to changing it because every single person is going to have a different routine that's perfect for their biology, perfect for their preferences.
So use this as a starting point. I always see comments on my videos. It's like, oh bro, how do I study 12 hours a day? If you do some simple maths here, you'll notice I only have eight hours. Now, if you study 12 hours a day, it's because your focus is trash, by the way.
Like I said earlier, the more intense your focus, the less you can do. But if you want to do 12 hours, go ahead. But still, I recommend having this massive rest period. Still, I recommend having this release period if you've got vices and shit.
But yeah, if you want to do 12 hours, go ahead, bro. I'm not going to stop you. I used to do about three hours during exam season. So again, you want to approach this like a warrior.
Study hard, rest hard, celebrate hard. That's pretty much it, bro. Go study, get out of here, get out of my classroom.
See you later.