A few days ago, I received my end of year exam results. I achieved a 84%.

This result surprised me for two reasons.

1: It was one of the best scores I had ever achieved in medical school. Given this year was pass/fail, I found myself aiming no higher than 60-70%, and being content scoring here.

2: I studied with minimal intensity in preparation. For this exam, which covered material from the whole year’s lectures, tutorials and practicals, I rarely studied more than three hours a day. This was in stark contrast to how I traditionally studied, which involved high intensity cramming the week before. 12-hour study days, coffee naps, all-nighters, you name it – that was me.

So what happened?

I realised that intensity is overrated. Consistency matters more.

For the last three months, I committed myself to doing 300 Anki cards a day. If this sounds like a lot, it isn’t – this rarely exceeded one hour, and I felt quite able to do more if I needed to. Watching lectures, attending class and doing practice exams made up the other three hours per day.

The key was doing this consistently. Day in and day out. I made a deal with my partner: if I ever failed to study 300 cards per day, I would pay her $50. And since I didn’t want to lose money this way, it held me accountable.

In the beginning, I didn’t feel like I was learning much. I watched my colleagues study harder, longer and I wondered if I was keeping up.

But within a few weeks, the consistency began to pay off. I had more energy each day to study, found a routine for my revision and felt my knowledge slowly compound. I began to contribute more to tutorial discussions and felt prepared for every class. All of this was largely new to me, where burning out before an exam was standard practice.

The problem with high intensity work is that it’s rarely sustainable. Which is fine for a once-off deadline like a thesis: once it’s over, it’s over. But for lifelong excellence, consistency is what pays off in the long term. Daily writing beats short bursts of inspiration. Consistent exercise beats one enormous workout. Frequent study beats cramming. What looks like skill is often just consistent discipline.

Intensity is overrated and consistency is underrated. Anybody can show up one day and smash out an enormous workout or study load. The real high achievers are the ones who show up each day, put in a good amount of work and repeat tomorrow. Believe me: I’ve seen them.

I don’t write this to brag. There are people who scored higher than me and objectively know more about medicine.

But in a world where “I studied 10 hours today” is sexier than “I started studying 10 weeks ago”, I cannot help but wonder if we are sending the wrong message.