I’m a Doctor. Here’s How to Learn Faster WITHOUT Taking Notes

One of the most common questions people

ask doctors or med students is, "How do

you remember everything you study?" And

honestly, for the first few years of med

school, I didn't. I took pages of notes,

re-watched lectures, highlighted

textbooks, but none of it actually

stuck. I was studying like a student,

not like someone who needed to use the

knowledge in real life. And that shifted

me away from taking notes. Instead, I

started using a method that helped me

lock in information while I was learning

it so that I didn't have to spend hours

revising later, freeing up time to do

more of the things I care about. So,

I'll go through this triple layer method

that would help you do the same. And for

each part, I'll show you not just what

to do, but why it works and how to

actually apply it. So, if you're serious

about learning without having to take

notes, you'll want to pay attention for

all three parts. So, first, most people

believe that learning starts the moment

they open a textbook, hit play on a

video, or highlight that first sentence.

But real learning, the kind that

actually sticks without you needing to

take notes, begins before any of that.

And this starts with how you frame your

mind to absorb information. Think of it

like the gym. You don't start lifting

heavy without warming up. Learning is

the same. You need to activate your

brain before you ask it to focus. This

is called the setup layer. It's the

first step to learning without notes

because if your brain isn't engaged from

the beginning, no amount of re-watching

will save you. So, to build this setup,

there's a few simple steps that

shouldn't take more than just 10

minutes. First, change the way you

orient yourself to the topic. Don't ask,

"What am I about to study?" Ask, "Why

does this matter to me? What purpose

does it have in real life?" For example,

if I'm studying kidney physiology, I'll

ask, "How does this help me recognize

dehydration or acute kidney injury on

the warts?" That one switch gives

purpose to what you're learning. And if

you can't figure it out on your own,

asking AI like Tai GPT for context is a

solid first step to orient yourself to

what you're going to learn. And using AI

like this is especially useful for

situations where you're not really sure

of the real life applications of what

you're learning. The second step is to

do what most students avoid and is to

force your brain to guess what he

already knows, even if it's wrong. Sit

down and without looking at notes or

your textbooks, think about anything you

do remember about the topic, key terms,

concepts, diagrams, anything. Spending

just 5 minutes on this works well

because it activates any prior knowledge

which acts as a good anchor for new

information to stick when it comes in.

And once this is done, you can move on

to the final step of this first layer,

which is an important step that most

people stop doing at university, even

though it was done all the time at

school. And that's setting a focus

filter, which is a mental commitment to

what you want out of the study session.

So, this might be aiming to understand a

specific concept, being able to teach

someone about it, or being able to apply

what you're learning into a real

context. It's similar to learning

objectives, but they're more like

mission briefings. They tell your brain

what to pay attention to and help you

track if your study session actually

worked. It's important because there's

no point spending four hours at your

desk if you don't even know what a

successful study session looks like. The

setup layer is there to give you

direction, energy, and clarity. And it's

going to make everything you do in the

next two layers far more effective. So,

now that your brain's warmed up from the

setup layer, you can move on to the

second part, which is the conversion

layer. And at the end of this section,

I'll show you exactly how I'd use this

in practice. So stick around for them.

So this is the layer where real learning

happens. Not from watching videos or

highlighting, but from actively

converting what you're seeing into

something your brain actually

understands. But the thing is, this is

the part most students skip because it

feels harder. But that's the point. The

friction is the learning. So here are

three strategies that make this layer

work and they help you remember things

without needing notes. First, you need

to think like a YouTuber, not a student.

When you learn something, imagine you

need to explain it in a 2-minute video

to someone who's a year or two below you

or someone who knows nothing about the

topic. Avoid using jargon. Don't use

slides. Just have a story that they can

follow. If you can do this and you

genuinely feel like someone who's a year

or two below you can understand your

explanation. Then it means you

understand the concept. If the concept

still feels a bit vague, the second

thing to do is to build an analogy. Take

a complex concept and relate it to

something simple. The analogy doesn't

have to be perfect. It just has to be

something memorable so that it sticks.

And again, if you have a problem making

your own analogies, worst case is you

just use any AI software to come up with

one for you. And the third part of this

layer is the most underrated way to

learn, and it's about making

predictions. Think about when you're

watching a good TV show. You naturally

start to guess what's going to happen

next because you're engaged. Apply that

to studying. Pause and ask yourself,

what happens next? Even if you get it

wrong, the act of guessing makes your

brain more alert and more likely to

remember. So, let me show you how this

all works together with a simple

example. Suppose I'm learning how the

heart works. First, I imagine explaining

it as a YouTuber to someone who knows

nothing about the topic or someone a

year or two below me. So, this would be

explaining the heart as a double pump

where one side sends blood to the lungs

and the other side sends it to the rest

of the body. Then I build the analogy. I

might describe the heart as a two-way

delivery system. The right side picks up

oxygen and the left side delivers it.

And finally, I make predictions. One

could be asking myself, what happens if

the left side of the heart fails? This

could then be guessing that blood backs

up into the lungs. And that's why people

with heart failure experience

breathlessness. You can see that it was

very quick to go through those three

points, but it's a reliable and unique

way to retain information. And the idea

is to do this for each concept so that

you lock in the concept as you come

across them. You might find it difficult

at first to do this because you're

reshaping the information in a novel

way. But as I described before, your

brain remembers friction and not

comfort. Now, for a quick update, I'm

working on building an online course and

community and would highly appreciate

your feedback and input. So, check out

the links in the description. It would

help me out a lot if you would provide

some feedback in terms of what you find

helpful from my videos and what you feel

would help even more as part of a course

or community. Thank you in advance. And

now, back to the video. So, by this

point, you've primed your brain with the

setup layer, and you've processed the

content with the conversion layer. But

there's still one important step left.

This point is where most people stop.

They finish the study session, close

their books, and move on, assuming the

learning is done. But real retention

happens after you close the textbook,

when you mentally reconstruct what

you've just learned. And this is what's

called the reinforcement layer. It's the

part that actually locks the information

into your brain, so it sticks longterm

and shows up when it matters. And again,

there are three key steps to make this

layer work. The first thing is doing

what's called a five minute mental

playback. Right after you finish

studying, close your laptop and put

anything away and just walk yourself

through what you've learned from memory.

Don't worry about perfect detail. What

you want is the overall shape of the

topic. For example, you might say that

the topic you just covered had three

main mechanisms, one clinical case, and

another rule to remember. What you're

doing here is showing your brain that

this wasn't just a blur of information.

It had structure and that structure

makes it easier to recall later. The

second thing to help reinforce the

knowledge is called future

self-questing. It's a form of high yield

active recall where at the end of your

study session, you write down three to

four questions that your future self in

a few days should be able to answer. So,

if I was learning about heart attacks, I

might ask some of these questions. You

should ideally relate back to the focus

filters you came up with in the setup

layer because if you can answer them

later, you know your session worked. And

finally, the third part of this layer is

to make yourself uncomfortable on

purpose. If your learning feels too

smooth or too easy, chances are you're

not actually learning. One of the best

things I ever did for my retention was

to stop writing and instead try to talk

through a topic out loud with no

prompts. It's going to feel awkward at

first, but every time you get stuck,

you've just found a weakness. And fixing

those weak points is what builds deep,

long-term knowledge. If you stick to

this method, you'll find yourself

learning much faster. Not because you're

working harder, but because you're no

longer wasting time writing notes that

you'd only have to keep rereading again

and again. Instead, you dive straight

into understanding, which means you can

cover more content in a fraction of the

time with significantly better

retention. But now, a problem is that

even with the best method, you'll

struggle to make real progress if you

can't stay focused. And because we live

in a digital age with intelligent

algorithms, it's extremely easy to get

distracted by your phone in the middle

of a study session. This was an issue in

the past, even for me. But over the last

few years, I've managed to cut my screen

time down to under 30 minutes a day. And

that's what helped me stay consistent

and actually get things done. So, click

this video here where I talk about how

you can stop wasting hours on your phone

so that you can take control of your

focus and use your time on what actually

matters.

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