Avoiding Burnout in Medical Writing - Part 3 (Effective Calendaring)

Have you ever gotten into the office on a Monday morning, opened your calendar, and suddenly felt a sense of dread?

I’ve been there. I still feel that way sometimes but, more often than not, I now feel a sense of excitement with my calendar. By implementing many of the techniques I described in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series (eg, saying “no”, making time for my priorities, and aiming for my ideals), my calendar is much more aligned with my wants and needs than it used to be.

Combine this with some philosophies I have embraced and some tips I have learned along the way, and I can honestly tell you that I wake up a lot of mornings excited about how I have planned my day.

Philosophies and Quotes I Now Live By

“Perfection is the enemy of progress.” – Winston Churchill

I’ve had to learn how to be less of a perfectionist. It was VERY hard at first, but I’m getting better at letting go. Sometimes sending out things that I know could be better isn’t my choice, as I have a deadline and was able to do only as much as I could do, but other times, I make the conscious choice of sending something out in a current state instead of devoting another 4 hours to make it a bit better. This brings me to my next philosophy…

The Pareto Principle (or the 80/20 rule)

For many outcomes, roughly 80% of the consequences come from 20% of the causes. This means that in most cases, 80% of the progress comes from 20% of the effort. For example, if I spend 10 hours creating Draft 1 of a document, I probably got 80% of the draft completed in only 2 hours. The next 8 hours were spent making minor improvements that only had 20% of the overall impact.

It's always a tough choice to spend xx more hours on a document to get it a tiny bit better or cleaner or to send out as is. I always want to do my best work, but I also like to consider what is in the best interest of my client. When I bill by the hour, would they rather me send out a first draft that might have a few grammatical errors or not yet include every acronym in the list of abbreviations, or would they rather me send out something close to perfect, but charge them an extra $2000 for my time? For first drafts, I live by the 80/20 rule. I put as much time as I can to get the document close, but not perfect. I will annotate the document to make clear where content will be updated for the next draft (eg, the list of abbreviations or reference list) so reviewers understand where I have not yet devoted much time (so they also don’t spend much time looking through those sections). For final drafts, I’ll put in the extra time to get the document as close as possible to “perfect”.

Parkinson’s Law

Work expands to fill the available time. Think back to a time in high school or college when you were assigned a big project. Maybe you were given 3 weeks to complete it. If you were a procrastinator, you may not have started until a day or two before the assignment was due, but you still finished, right? If you were not a procrastinator, you probably started within a day or two of receiving the assignment, but you still didn’t finish until the night before the assignment was due. The assignment itself could be done in 5 or 10 hours, which is why the procrastinator still finished. But by starting early, you gave yourself more time and probably spent 20+ hours working on it. Your end result probably wasn’t THAT much better than the procrastinator’s (remember the 80/20 rule?).

I’m not saying to procrastinate. I am definitely not a procrastinator myself. But – and hear me out – you can be WAY more productive by giving yourself an allotted amount of time (and only an allotted amount of time) to complete something. It will actually make you less likely to procrastinate and keep you focused.

This is the basis for how I plan my days and my weeks, and brings me to my #1 rule of calendaring.

1.      Block your time according to what will be accomplished in x amount of time, not just working on something for x amount of time.

This one is actually very hard for me, but has been the most life-changing approach to calendaring that I have implemented. For example, if I have to prepare Draft 1 of a CSR, it’s really easy to say “I will work on this CSR from 1:00 – 5:00 pm on Tuesday of this week”. A first draft of a CSR can easily take 20 to 30 hours of time to create, so breaking out specific sections to accomplish is work in and of itself. But, try something like the following:

• 1:00 – 3:00 pm on Tuesday – complete primary efficacy endpoint section

• 3:00 – 5:00 pm on Tuesday – outline secondary efficacy endpoint sections

You can follow the same approach for non-work-related things.

"7:00 to 8:30 am today I will run 4 miles, take a shower, get dressed, and be prepared to start my workday." This could replace “before work today, I will exercise”.

 You may find that you incorrectly estimate how long something takes (despite Parkinson's Law) and you’ll need to schedule additional time later in the day or the following day to finish. If you use the above CSR example, I recommend once it hits 3:00, you move onto your secondary efficacy endpoint sections, even if the primary efficacy endpoint section is not complete. This keeps you disciplined in adhering to your calendar. You can come back to the primary efficacy endpoint section later.

 2.      Build buffer time into your calendar.

 By doing this, you are allowing time to finish that primary efficacy endpoint section of your CSR without cutting into time planned for something else. This also gives you wiggle room for the unexpected. I always build at least 30 minutes toward the start of my day and 30 minutes toward the end of my day into my calendar just to check my various email accounts and calendars and to handle any ad hoc requests. I often get emails from clients along the lines of “can you send me this document?” or “can you add me to a workflow?”. Having time built into my calendar during the day to address these types of requests keeps me from becoming distracted by them during other focused work times and keeps me from having to cut into time allotted for other activities.

 3.      Include fun, relaxation, and non-work-related priorities into your calendar (do this first).

I include workouts, lunch dates, and time preparing for Toastmasters meetings in my calendar. I block time just as I would for a normal work meeting. I try not to move or cancel these calendar “events” unless absolutely necessary, and try to honor commitments to myself just as I would honor a commitment to a friend. If you planned to meet up with a friend for a run at 5:00 pm, would you bail just because you didn’t feel like it? No, of course not! So, why would you bail on yourself?

4.      Consider your work style.

Are you a morning person or a night owl? Do meetings drain you or energize you? How can you plan your day to account for these things? For me, I do shoddy work after 5:00 pm. If I need to work in the evenings (which definitely happens on occasion), I do all of my deep thought work earlier in the day. I save things like formatting, abbreviation list building, and SOP reading for the evenings. I also find that I’m quite drained after several back-to-back meetings. Days where I have a lot of meetings (currently, my Tuesdays), I plan lighter work for the afternoon after my meetings are over.

5.      Block deep work time and minimize task switching.

It’s easy to feel like I want to make progress on 10 different projects within a single day, but switching from project to project every 30 minutes to an hour doesn’t allow me to focus on any given one. I try to work on a maximum of 3 projects within a single day and have blocks of time to really focus on one project at a time. If I have work that requires really heavy concentration, I may even block an entire day to work on that project and only that project so I can dive in and really focus. I will block time on my calendar if needed for deep work time. I ignore emails and messages that come in during this time (and just check in later during the day for those that require a response).

6.      Keep a running list of small tasks that take 15 minutes or less to complete and organize by urgency.

You probably often have small gaps of time between meetings where there’s not enough time to dive into other work, but still long enough where you feel like you’re wasting valuable time. I keep a running list of quick tasks that need to be accomplished – things like scheduling a haircut or dentist appointment, inputting a month’s worth of business expenses into my accounting software, booking flights for an upcoming trip, getting clothes out of the washing machine, grabbing the trashcans from the curb on trash day, or reading a quick SOP. Whenever I find myself having a short gap between meetings (eg, a 30-minute gap), I knock 1 or 2 of these items off my list.

7.      Eat the Frog

This is a popular saying that basically suggests doing the task you are most dreading or most likely to procrastinate on first thing in your day. This could be something as quick as sending an uncomfortable email that needs to be sent. It takes 5 minutes but, until it’s done, you can’t think clearly about anything else. Getting this done first can both make you feel accomplished but also lighten your mental load so you can more effectively focus on all the other pressing things that need to get done!

 At this point, you’re probably thinking “well this all sounds great, but what if:

• Timelines are shifted?

• Priorities change?

• Scope changes?

• Things take longer than expected?

• People keep putting more meetings on my calendar?

• Unexpected and sudden life event?

• …”

These things are going to happen whether we plan or not. I try to plan my week first thing Monday morning, but I don’t plan every hour of every day. I like to keep some flexibility, because it is needed whether I like it or not! I plan priorities for the week and the main focus(es) of each day (considering any deadlines I have that week). Each morning, I then assess my meeting schedule and then plan out the details. I’d love to plan all the details a week at a time, but that hasn’t really seemed possible in this career!

Going back to Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I also make sure my calendar reflects my goals, priorities, and ideals. This is so important! I also set boundaries around my calendar – when I’m available to work, how quickly I respond to emails, how flexible I am to accommodate last-minute meeting invites, etc.

I also want to reiterate the importance of checking in with yourself on a regular basis. Make sure the goals you are working toward are still things you want, your priorities are still things you want to prioritize, and that your ideals haven’t changed. And keep in mind that these things will constantly be changing and you’ll have different seasons of your career and life that you will have to take into consideration. Show yourself some compassion, allow space for uncertainty, and keep moving forward.