Why Tracking Your Baseline Skyrockets Your Grades

Most students think they are studying effectively, but without data, it is easy to lie to yourself. Hours in front of the book do not equal progress. What matters are your focused minutes and the tangible outcomes you produce. By measuring your baseline honestly, you gain the clarity to set realistic goals and actually improve.

In this video you will learn how to track your true study habits, why focused minutes matter more than study hours, and how this simple audit can turn wasted effort into consistent academic success.

👉 Drop your questions in the comments and subscribe for more videos on how to study smarter, measure your progress, and dominate as a student and premed.

Each week, I’m bringing strategies for:

💪 Locking in that bulletproof mindset.

⏰ Cutting the nonsense and getting productive.

🧠 Studying smarter, not harder.

🩺 Streamlining your path to med school.

If you're serious about medicine, this is where you need to be!!

**VISIT MY WEBSITE**

https://www.premedproductivity.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing the Medic Method
• 0:50 Measuring Your Baseline
• 2:17 Breaking Academic Quicksand Cycle
• 4:25 Tracking Focused Minutes and Outputs
• 6:43 Setting Realistic Expectations
• 7:47 Call to Action and Resources

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I'm gonna break it down to you guys. I like systems. Who likes systems here? Who likes step-by-step, who likes recipes they can follow to be successful? That's what we're doing today, and so, for me, when we talk about overcoming unhealthy perfectionism, finding our correct, right level of perfectionism and then striving for our greatness, it comes down to the medic method. It's five steps to win without burnout, and so it's gonna help you raise your grades, raise your pre-med profile, without having to raise a ton of hours and get stressed out about it. So, as we go through this medic method, I'm going to break it down, all five parts of it. Then we're going to go through specific scenarios of the most common culprits of stealing your joy and stealing your success.

Speaker 2: 0:37

Today is the day, guys. You're going to take your future into your own hands. You're going to dominate. You're going to be successful.

Speaker 1: 0:49

No excuses, just dominate. So the first M in this medic method is measuring your baseline. You have to do a truth audit and this is so important because it's the lies we tell ourselves that get us into trouble. How many of you guys consistently lie to yourself? You consistently mislead yourself in an attempt to protect your feelings? You actually hurt your future, you kill your dream because you're so concerned about not feeling that regret, not recognizing that you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. But if we're honest with ourselves, how many of you guys tell yourselves in your mind I'm studying all the time.

Speaker 1: 1:22

I'm studying focused, I'm studying every day when really you're not. You're going through the motions and it's one of my favorite things to do when I go out to study events is ask students hey, how many of you guys know how to study? And I'll ask that question and I'll re-ask it how many guys really know how to study? And I make them be honest with themselves and recognize dang it, I really don't know how to study. I'm just kind of faking the funk. I thought I'm supposed to know how to study, like I'm a student, but I really have never been formally trained, dr Pineset, and then I'll ask another question. I said hey, how many of you guys study listen to the words of this how many of you guys study when you're supposed to study? How many of you study when you're supposed to study? So, if you schedule study time, how many of you study when you're supposed to study? So, if you schedule study time, how many of you guys are actually sitting down and starting that session when it's supposed to start, following through to the end of that study session and you're focused throughout that session? And if we're honest and we're being truthful with ourselves, the truth is we are not as focused, we are not as dedicated, we are not as consistent as we would love to be and, more importantly, as we would need to be to be successful. Yes, so if we want to be successful, if we want to create effective change, if we want to make ourselves an accessible student we aspire to be an accessible pre-med we have to figure out where the heck we are at, truthfully and honestly.

Speaker 1: 2:38

And for me, if you guys know my story right my jam where I was flunking out of college, I was not on track to get a stand for medical school and I wanted to become a doctor, I really wanted it really, really bad, all my heart. But I wasn't on track and I was lying to myself, telling myself hey, just keep working hard, hey, put in more time, hey, keep doing this, and it's like the 10,000 steps. I was in a position where every time something went terrible, every time I got a bad grade. My solution was work harder, push through it, grind more and you'll be more successful.

Speaker 1: 3:12

But what kept happening was is I was just burning myself out. I was spending long hours in the library, a ton of time in front of my book, but I was distracted, I wasn't focused, I wasn't effective and I wasn't outcome driven and, as a result, my grades got worse. And so it was like I was literally like I was stuck in academic quicksand how many of y'all are in academic gosh, darn quicksand where the harder you fight for what you want, the further away you get. You're getting sucked down and suffocated by that hard work and by that effort. You're burnt out and you feel smoked.

Speaker 1: 3:43

We got to break that cycle, and so it starts with being true to ourselves and measuring our baselines. So we set realistic expectations for ourselves, so, measuring this baseline, I want you to take seven days, right, and it's easy to lie to ourselves when we don't have data right. It's like what we see in the media right now. I ain't going to name nobody, but you got certain politicians, certain people out here who love to twist the facts or, flat out, just make stuff up, and it's one of those cases where, if you don't have the facts in front of you, if you don't have the data in front of you.

Speaker 1: 4:12

It's easy to mislead and be misled, and so we want to get to the truth. So let's get to the facts and get to the data. So for the next seven days, to establish our baseline, I want you to track, literally, sit down, make a grid and say, hey, listen, what are my focused minutes? This is so important as you go to study. It's not about hours, because a lot of times we go too gross. We say, oh, yeah, I was in front of the book for hours. I want you to literally look in your study sessions, break it up. How many minutes would I estimate that I actually was focused in studying? I was supposed to for an hour, but how much of that was really spent focused? And give yourself a percentage. How many minutes was it, ask yourself.

Speaker 1: 4:58

Let's look at not just the focused interval, let's look at the outputs. So a lot of times you say, oh, yeah, yeah, I got a lot of work done. I got a lot of work done. I did a lot of stuff. If we don't get specific and quantify again, we can lie to ourselves. So what are real tangible outputs? You could put your gosh darn thumb on. You know what? I completed X amount of problems. You know what I attempted X amount of passages I was able to answer X amount of questions from my memory without having to cheat. Then we get even more granular with our outputs. Well, yes, I completed these problems, but what did I actually learn from these problems? Do I have tangible takeaways? These problems? Do I have tangible takeaways, concepts that I clarified today, that I learned new today, or I clarified today when I went through these passages? Have I identified any patterns, things that I'm messing up?

Speaker 1: 5:53

Let's quantify our effectiveness, not just our work, because for a lot of you guys, how many of you guys are working, putting time in, but you really don't feel like you're getting the outcome, and it may be that you're so focused on doing work that you aren't focused on where the work is taking you and the separator from really high level students from average students is that they look at making all of their work laser focused and directed towards an outcome. It's so important. We don't want to be busy, we want to be productive. Do you guys understand the difference? If you don't understand right now, like this video right now, comment, let me know that I'm here and you guys understand what I'm talking about and the importance of getting clear on the data and measuring our baseline and talking in terms of specific time intervals and talking in terms of specific outputs and outcomes so we can know if we're being successful. We cannot be vague. Oh yeah, I've been studying all day, professor. I've been doing all this stuff. I've been doing all the things I can do. I've been all. Let's get specific. So write down your baseline. Let's figure out where we're at and there's no shame in this, guys.

Speaker 1: 7:05

As someone who was the worst student in the world, it was hard for a second to admit that I sucked. But by getting clear on my baseline, it allowed me to then recognize and realize and accept the fact that I could not be the A student today Because I'm an F student. I can't go from F to A today. I have to be realistic, but without acknowledging the fact that I'm an F student, I can't go from F to A today. I have to be realistic, but without acknowledging the fact that I'm an F student, I had the unrealistic expectation that if I just worked hard enough today, I'd get the gosh darn A. And the consequence of that is that bam, oh, my gosh. It was devastating. It's literally the impossible task. So get that baseline so we know how we're growing, where we're going from.

Speaker 2: 7:45

That's it for another episode of the Premed Productivity Podcast. Show your love by smashing the like button and commenting in the box below. Today is the day, guys. No more excuses, no more complaining. You're going to take your future into your own hands. You're going to dominate. You're going to take your future into your own hands. You're going to dominate. You're going to be successful. I challenge you what are you going to do today to make your life better? Get to my website, premedproductivitycom, grab a free ebook, sign up for a free webinar and, if you're really ready to transform, enroll in one of my life-changing courses or coaching programs. You have greatness inside you. Let me show you how to unlock it so you can dominate and make your dreams a reality. No excuses, just dominate.