Exams and Organizing My Life

I passed all of my exams.
I PASSED ALL OF MY EXAMS.

I had a minor freakout where I thought I missed passing biochemistry by one question, but the professors accepted two different answers for one of the problems I originally got wrong, so I passed exactly. Not really where I want to be in the long run (since I had been getting 89% and 95% on the practice exams), but  at least now I have a decent springboard to go off of. I also exactly passed my anatomy lecture exam, but the lab exam is weighted double and I ROCKED the lab practical. Since I aced (that's right, ACED) my physiology exam, this puts me in a fairly decent place.

However, surviving my first round has also shoved my weaknesses front and forward. I've never been very good at time management. I am a horrible procrastinator. I also tend to give up - if my calendar says I'm supposed to study for four hours, and I spend the first hour taking a much needed nap or just talking with  my roommates, I have an unfortunate tendency to give up the entire study session.

So, these are my goals for the next round of exams.

1) Never get more than a day behind with lecture videos. I never got too far behind with them for the first round, but, knowing me, this could potentially be a problem in the future. This gives me a little bit of flexibility in case a professor is slow to the point of annoyance or I just really need to sleep in, but puts a little more responsibility on my end of things.

2) Prelab the NIGHT before, not the day of. This hasn't been a problem with histology, since we have LON-CAPA questions due long before lab, but I tend to put anatomy off until the lunch right before lab, and my pre-lab quiz scores show.

3) For biochem, rewrite everything. I tend to memorize things a lot better when I rewrite them, and since this section is all about glycolysis, memorization is key.

4) Keep my life better organized. Confession: I've never been a neat person. I probably never will be. But there are some things I can do to make my life easier. I've been doing VERY well with laundry and dishes, because I thought out a personal system that is both easy and efficient. I need to do the same for my desk. My desk is currently buried under non-school items, so when I go to study at home I normally end up in my bed. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, since I naturally migrate from one spot to the other to keep both blood and brain juice flowing, but when I sit in bed all day because my desk isn't an option, my productivity dwindles.

There will be probably be new goals after the 2nd round of exams (eating healthier and not driving to class because I want to sleep 10 more minutes come to mind), but I think these are the biggies that will decrease my overall stress levels and make medical school life much more enjoyable.

And really, why am I doing all of this if it's not enjoyable?! :)