Using First Aid as a framework...advice from successful USMLE takers

[islander23]

Contrary to many of my classmates, I am choosing to tackle the step 1 on my own, without Kaplan or Falcon. I am in the process of setting up a schedule and byeing all my references. My plan of action was to use First Aid kind of as a scaffold and make sure I know it cold, and supplement it everyday with a few other high yield books like RR path Goljan, BRS physio...etc. For those of you that took a similar strategy and did well, did you find that you had ample time really read some other sources in a bit more depth than you would read First Aid, and still have time to bang out 50-100 USMLE world Q's everyday? Rather than following the traditional "do physio for x amt. of days, then path. then anatomy...." I'm going to try and take a systems based approach (hit up all areas of eg. neuro in a few days - anatomy, histo, physio, path...) If there is anyone out there who took a similar approach, lemme know how it turned out. One last Q, how exactly did you all go about allotting time to every subject? Is it typically done based on your personal strenghts, or is standard to give a subject like Neuro or Cardio almost a full week to hit up its anatomy to its path...thanks for the feedback...very much appreciated...