It takes me too much time to study anything.
Hi, I'm a 19f med student (1st year) and it's so hard to motivate myself to study, and that's because it feels painfully hopeless. Let me explain myself:
For context, I've always been a bit slow at studying/ making notes. Back in school, I was that gifted student who went through classes scoring easy A bc I just got everything in class and spent minimal time on solo studying. But as the years went by, and the curriculum got heavier, that eventually stopped working and I had to actually put in some effort. And that effort took enormous amounts of time. Blame it on perfectionism or distraction, it's a mix of both. A good student with high standards and undiagnosed ADHD.
Right now, we're on a national strike for more than 3 months. I can't go to classes, so I just get to read pdfs, watch videos and grind through it all.
I need to study the curriculum on my own basically, and I just get so frustrated with myself when I feel like I don't get anything done and days are flying by. I'm obviously falling behind, and I can't seem to be able to catch up bc it takes me too much time studying.
What if I start and never get done?
What if I put in all this effort and time and in the end it's useless bc I haven't covered what I was supposed to study?
It gets me so anxious and I've started to have frequent panic attacks (again - I've been here before thanks to my slow studying). I'd wake up terrified (worst feeling ever) and spend my day as if doom is impending. I either get a little tiny work done or I'd tend to just freeze and do nothing and get scared to death.
I wanna catch up, but it takes me too much time to study anything. What people spend 4 hours on, I might spend 2 days on it. That's not sustainable, that's not even rational. I can't keep going like this.
Please give me some help. How can I reduce the time I spend on each thing I study?