We're tracking how well we know each topic to scheduling review sessions for us.

So we always know what to be doing at any given moment.

Yeah, that tech doesn't exist yet.

At least not yet.

But in today's study skills episode, I want to show you how to build a system that does everything I just mentioned to save you time and give you peace of mind to know exactly what to work on at all times.

And yes, you can grab a template for yourself at the end of this video.

So we call it the GROW method, and it's based off Ali Abdaal's retrospective revision timetable.

The idea of the GROW method is to build an adaptable review schedule, one that changes based on our confidence and how well we know the information before using the system.

I would plan ahead of time when I would review each individual lecture one by one.

Like on Monday, I'll do lectures one, two, three on Tuesday, four, five, six, and so on.

That's a prospective revision schedule, and it has some issues.

First, nothing goes according to plan.

Like what if it takes me a lot longer to do lecture three or I need to take Pepe to the vet or I come down with explosive diarrhea?

Then I have to shift my entire schedule around, which gets chaotic and I get overwhelmed, and that makes my diarrhea a lot worse.

Second, a prospective revision schedule doesn't consider how well I know a topic.

If I'm super confident in lecture one, then reviewing it is a waste of time.

It's like farming with level 100 Diglett.

It's already maxed out.

And say lecture six is high yield and tough, but I don't get to it because I wasted all my time reviewing the previous lectures.

Then I double screwed myself for the exam.

I wasted time reviewing stuff I already knew, and I didn't review the stuff that I didn't know.

So the GROW method avoids both these problems.

And here's how it works.

GROW is an acronym that explains the method step by step.

The general idea here is to consider every topic as a plant or a tree.

Some topics are harder to learn than others and require more time and attention.

You know, more water and sunlight.

Problem is, we only have a certain number of days until the exam, which means we don't have unlimited water.

So the GROW method helps us distribute our water efficiently.

We schedule our reviews in a way that prevents overstudying topics we find easy and understudying topics we find challenging.

Basically, spend more time with topics we're less confident about.

Here's how it works.

G stands for grid.

This method uses a grid calendar or table type layout.

You can use Microsoft Excel.

You can draw it out by hand.

We also built a notion template that we'll link in the description below.

We want to make one grid per exam.

List all the topics for that exam in the left column.

And then every time a topic is reviewed, record the date to the right.

R stands for rating system.

We want to come up with a color coded system to rate how confident we feel about each topic.

For example, you can use this red, yellow, green traffic light rating system.

So every time we review a topic, we want to highlight that date with the color based on our confidence level.

So if I didn't know this topic well, I'd mark it red.

So I know to spend more time and attention on it next time.

O stands for overall outcome.

The goal of the GROW method is that by exam day, we want zero topics to be read and as many topics to be green as possible.

And W stands for weakest topic.

With this system, we don't have to worry about planning what to study ahead of time because we'll always decide on studying the weakest topic at that moment, which I think is pretty nice because if I took the time to plan all of my review sessions ahead of time and then I fall behind, then I have to shift everything forward and it kind of ruins the entire schedule and it gets annoying.

But using the GROW method, I can study whenever I want and just look at what red topics or yellow topics I need to address.

And if there are multiple red topics and I can't decide which one to review, then I'll go with the one with the least recent review date.

We keep reviewing our weakest topic until our overall grid is as green as possible.

OK, so now I'm going to do a very quick demonstration about how to use the GROW method in a simple app like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel, something that I know you all have access to.

And I'm going to leave the GROW acronym somewhere on the screen over here so you guys can follow along and know which step I'm actually tackling.

So step one is G, which is the grid calendar.

So the cool thing about Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets is that it's already organized in a grid.

So on the left side of the grid, I'm going to put all the topics or lectures and across the right is going to be the date that you actually reviewed them.

So let's just make an example that this is going to be anatomy class.

What do people, what do we learn in anatomy?

Can't think of anything else off the top of my head.

The cool thing about using Google Excel, I mean, Google Sheets, is that you can duplicate each sheet at the bottom for every single class you're taking.

You're probably going to want to make one GROW table for each class you're taking.

And so when I'm preparing to study for the day, I can just easily see every single class and quickly find the weakest topic that I need to study for.

But I digress.

I'm getting ahead of myself there.

Let's get back to anatomy here.

Let's say that's today's date, which is November 30th.

I reviewed this lecture and maybe I did this one as well and this one, because why not?

So moving on to the next part of the framework is our rating system.

So I want a way to actually rate my confidence after I reviewed each lecture.

So a very easy to use rating system would be something like the stoplight system where red is super hard, yellow is kind of in the middle, and green is super confident.

I know that's like the back of my hand.

So for cranial nerves, I'm not super confident in it, so I'll give it a yellow.

And you can do that by just going up here to the fill color.

I'm just going to do yellow for that one.

Sitz muscles, for some reason, I just got it.

Easy.

So I'm going to give it a green.

And neck muscles.

These guys are pretty tough.

If anyone has studied anatomy, there's a lot of neck muscles in there.

Kudos to my ENT boys.

And let's say that tomorrow I'm going to review these other three lectures that I didn't touch yet.

So 12, 1, 22, I'm just going to copy this and put them in these two cells.

And once again, we're going to use the R rating system.

And let's say that for some reason, not the best day.

I'm going to give this a yellow.

I'm going to give this a red.

And I'm also going to give this one a red.

Maddie's got a lot of work to do.

Anyways, moving on to O, which is the overall outcome of what we want.

We want to see as many of these become green as possible.

And I'm going to see that happen as I continue to review more and more and more each coming day.

So let's fast forward.

Dawn of a new day.

I just drank some coffee.

I'm revved up.

Maybe a little bit anxious.

Sit down at my desk and I wonder, what should I study today?

I'm going to go with W in the framework, which is weakest topic first.

I'm going to take a look at everything I have here.

The weakest topics are the ones that are in red.

And the ones that I should prioritize are the ones that I haven't looked at in the longest time.

It's going to be neck muscles, which I would look at first.

And if I still have time, I'm going to hit abs and then we're going to hit legs because we don't skip leg day, right?

So as I review my weakest topics, I'm once again going to color code them using the rating system.

And let's say that all of these were a little bit better.

So we're going to be yellow.

And then I'm just going to continue this process, right?

And look, we're getting to the point now where they're all turning green.

Cool.

But that doesn't mean I should stop studying, right?

Because if my exam is next week, I still want to have these fresh on my mind.

Weakest topic just ends up being the last one that I reviewed.

So, for example, if I was going to continue studying for anatomy to keep it fresh before my exam, the weakest topic would now be the sitz muscles, because this was the longest ago that I reviewed.

And what's cool about the growth system is that it's adaptable, right?

It changes with how confident we are.

So because I didn't look at the sitz muscles for almost a week, maybe today, as I reviewed it, I actually felt less confident than I thought I did.

So just because it was green once doesn't mean it can't go back to yellow or doesn't mean it can't go back to red, right?

Because our confidence changes as time goes on.

Maybe we learn some new information.

Maybe we do some practice problems and realize that, oh, maybe I didn't really understand abdominal cavity or brachial plexus as well as I thought.

And I can change the confidence rating system accordingly.

But yep, this way, I always know what I need to be studying each time I sit down because I have the grow system in place.

But seriously, we don't need super fancy tech to schedule our reviews.

We keep it simple using Notion.

You can keep track of all your classes, track your confidence levels with each topic if you're a rookie or you're a ranger.

And you know exactly what you need to study next.

So to get the newly updated template, just check the link in the description.

And if you want to guide a tutorial on exactly how to use it, just stick around a little bit longer and check out this video right over here.