In the movie Freaky Friday,
a psychiatrist, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, tears through
life at a frantic pace orchestrated by the jangle of bells
and buzzers from two cell phones and an online PDA. She's
so busy she literally has almost no time for anything,
least of all her teenage daughter. When the two switch
bodies through a bit of Chinese trickery she learns the
joys of many things � including what it means to slow
down.
More time is a luxury many in the
profession would like to have. Take the example of a
newly widowed 44-year-old Calgary FP. Though his wife
of 17 years died less than 18 months ago, he feels he
almost has to remarry. "I have three wonderful kids
and I still miss Ilene terribly," he bursts, "but they're
running me ragged. I desperately need someone full time.
This may sound cold but a new spouse would be ideal,
except that I have no time to date!"
One of the ways he manages to cope
is that he's a highly organized individual. "I sit down
with the kids every Sunday night and we plan the coming
week down to almost 15-minute intervals. That way we
all know where we'll be and what we're doing at all
times." Everything from household chores to soccer practices
and even meal times get written on a weekly calendar
the 14-year-old made. When complete, it's posted on
the fridge. "We couldn't get by without it," says the
doctor.
Clean up your act Being
organized also works for a Kingston, Ontario cardiologist
who spends the first 30 minutes of every office day
planning and putting things in order. A system of carefully
developed files, four labelled in-boxes and a Blackberry
PDA linked to his laptop keeps his professional life
humming along. His desk is uncluttered. His briefcase
could double as an exhibit at a conference of efficiency
experts.
Reining patients in "My
biggest time saver was learning to keep patient visits
on track," says an Edmonton internist. "I've learned
to take the initiative in interviews and get right to
the point of the visit. "If a patient begins to ramble
on me, they only do it once. The next time I tell them
to come in with a written list of their concerns and
we go through it, ticking each item off."
Schedule playtime "My best
excuse for getting out of the office early is my weekly
hockey game," confesses a Hull, Quebec GP. "We have
ice time at 4:00pm every Thursday. As long as I'm on
the team, I have to be there and that suits me just
fine. I don't know which I like more, the exercise,
the camaraderie or the chance to cut the working day
short."
The joy of doing nothing
"I manage my time by doing nothing," says a St Catharine's,
Ontario clinician. "I found I was running around like
a fool yet seemed to be accomplishing less and less.
At the beginning of the summer I came across a book
by Karen Salmansohn called How to Change Your Entire
Life by Doing Absolutely Nothing. She was the person
who coined the word 'multitasking' and I know all about
that, so I picked it up. It looked very pop-psych and
took all of 20 minutes to read cover-to-cover but it's
been a real help. You actually schedule downtime into
your day where you do nothing except concentrate on
the flavour of a cup of coffee, a meal or the way your
body feels. In other words you stop and smell the flowers,
the very opposite of multitasking. The remarkable thing
is that these little oases of time seem to rejuvenate
and reenergize the rest of your activity."
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