How do we manage the large volume of things we must take on during the application process?

Simple answer: temporally prioritising.I can break down the things necessary for a medical application into several parts: volunteering, shadowing doctors and other things to demonstrate exploration of the field and interest, preparing for entrance exams, strategically picking universities, writing your personal statement, and focusing on getting the grades.However, not all of these things take top priority at once. For example, if you're doing the UKCAT, it might be best to to do it late August or very early September so that you'll have your score before the application deadline and can thus strategically apply as some universities place different emphases on your UKCAT score, your grades, your interview, etc. Play to your strengths. As well as this, your year 12 priority should be more on demonstrating your interest in medicine, volunteering, and collecting things to add to your personal statement, as well as ensuring you're keeping your grades up so that your predicted grades will be up to par when applying. Overall, don't panic at the volume as it's not all top priority at once.