Why do I need protected time?

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Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills

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to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

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As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients.

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When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find

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that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research

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program.

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Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit.

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However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

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For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians

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the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

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Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene.

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Welcome to today's episode.

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We are talking about, why do I need protected time?

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I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is a pleasure to be speaking with you today.

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Thank you for tuning in.

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So, we're addressing the question of, why do I need protected time?

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Before we get started, I want to let you know that we are enrolling our first cohort of

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coaching clients on August the 28th.

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If you're interested, sign up on our website, ClinicianResearcherPodcast.com.

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We hope to see you there.

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So, we're talking about, why do I need to protect my time?

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And this is an important question that comes up for me every time I interview a candidate

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for a faculty position.

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Invariably, I'll say, so how do you see yourself spending your time as a faculty member?

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And this is someone who has said that, I want to succeed as a research leader.

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And they'll start by saying, well, I really love clinical, therefore, I'm thinking that

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I probably want to do about 50% patient care and 50% research.

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And I start laughing as soon as I hear that, because I'm like, yeah, this person doesn't

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understand.

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They don't understand what it takes to succeed as a research leader.

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That's why they're advocating that 50% of their time be spent doing clinical work and

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50% of their time be spent doing research.

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And so, it's interesting and I laugh a lot because that was me.

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When I was interviewing for faculty jobs, I just thought that, hey, what is this research

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thing?

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It's not that big a deal.

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Of course I can do it with 50% of my time.

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I don't need 100% of my time to do research.

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And I want to just pause and talk a little bit about what it takes to succeed as a researcher

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when you actually don't have research training.

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Okay.

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I always like to refer back to my PhD colleagues who spent maybe five to seven years of their

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lives getting their PhD.

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Most of that time, 75%, possibly 80%, was spent really honing their research skills.

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And then they go to summer graduate assistantships or after their PhD, they get a postdoc.

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And so, I think when you start to put the numbers together, how much time does it take

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for a PhD to get the research training that helps them succeed in leading a research program?

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I would say it's probably a minimum of seven years.

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It's at least five years, right, to get the PhD, but it varies.

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But I'm thinking it's at least five years, possibly longer.

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And depending on how many postdocs they did and for how many years, it could take as long

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as it took for us to finish our medical training overall.

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And so, it takes a long time to learn to lead a research program.

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And so, when I have someone who's a clinician, who's never really done any significant research,

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maybe other than what they did in fellowship for about a year or two, they come and they

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say, I want to learn to lead a research program and I only want 50% time to do it in.

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It says to me that they don't understand what's needed to succeed as a clinician scientist.

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And so, I'm not really here to talk about that specifically today.

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I will talk about it in a future episode.

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But today, I think I want to explain what it really means to have protected time.

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People talk about protected time all the time.

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It's like, but what does that really mean?

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So, we're going to talk a little bit about protected time.

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So, what does protected time refer to?

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Well, protected time really refers to the time you have to do the work you're supposed

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to do.

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And that really is the short definition, is the quick and dirty way to think about it.

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If I came in to do research, what is the time I have in my daytime schedule to do the research?

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And many times in academic medicine, and this is part of our, because of our training, we

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believe that our 24 hours should be dedicated to our jobs.

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And no wonder we believe that.

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For me, when I came up in my training, we did 30 hour shifts when we were on call.

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And so, yeah, it's not a big extrapolation to believe that, well, if I spent all my day

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in the hospital, then maybe my 24 hours is reserved for my job as a clinician.

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So training aside, in general, there is more to your life than just the work that you do.

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You know that, and I know that.

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And therefore, when you think about your job as an academic physician, and you think, well,

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why don't I just compute my working hours from Monday to Sunday as the time I'm spending

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in my academic career, I would say you probably would not be alone in doing that, but it's

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not helping.

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And it doesn't help you to be the full individual that you want to be.

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And so protected time really refers to what is an established number of hours at your

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institution for your daytime job?

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What does that mean?

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Is it 40 hours?

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Some institutions would say it's 50, but every institution has a specific number of hours

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that they agree is the number of hours in which time should be, the time for work is

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allocated.

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Right?

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When people say 20%, if you make Monday to Friday kind of the normal work week, that's

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just work with me here, you're like, oh, no, it's not.

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Just work with me here.

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If we say Monday to Friday is a normal work week, then 10% is Monday morning, 10% is Monday

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afternoon, and vice versa until you get to 100% at the end of the week.

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So what is that?

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If we look at your Monday to Friday job activities, how much of that time is allocated to this

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particular activity?

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If you are an education researcher, how much of your Monday to Friday is allocated to that

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activity?

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What is the time you actually have to do the work?

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There's protected time on paper, there's protected time in reality.

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We'll talk a little bit about that today.

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But just recognizing that, do you have time allocated in your schedule to do the work

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that you're supposed to do in your schedule?

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And on the flip side of that is to what extent does the work you're supposed to be doing

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in a certain period extend beyond the borders of the time that's allotted to it?

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If you're a clinician, you know that this is true of most clinical activities, they

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tend to expand beyond the borders that are allotted to them.

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So protected time for research specifically is the time you have to do your research during

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your daytime hours.

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I know there are a lot of people who advocate during research at nights and on the weekends.

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Now we'll tell you that that means you don't have protected time.

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If you're having to move your research or your academic or scholarly work to family

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time or leisure time, the time when you should be recovering or doing something different

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from your academic job, it's a sign that you don't have protected time within your job

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description to do what you're supposed to do.

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So when I talk about protected time, I'm really talking about the designated periods or blocks

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of time within your schedule that are safeguarded for specific academic activities.

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Specifically, if you're trying to become a clinician scientist or you're in the process

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of it, you're research.

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And when I say research, I'm referring to all the things that enhance your research,

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not just the doing of the research, but the thinking about the research, the writing about

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the research, the presenting the research, the publishing the research, all the things

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that have to do with research and protecting your time for research.

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So I want to talk today about seven steps to protect your time because protected time,

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as you know, is not guaranteed.

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And sometimes protected time feels like a ghost or like an amorphous blob that's like,

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oh, I want protected time and I think I have it, but what does it look like?

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Or maybe you have it on paper and you're like, oh, I definitely don't have it.

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It's on paper, but it's not real.

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How do we make protected time real?

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How do we do that?

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And so I'm going to talk today about seven steps to protect your time, seven steps to

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protect your time.

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I like the number seven.

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It's kind of just easy.

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Okay.

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Step number one, verify your need.

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What do you need protected time for?

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And people are always talking about protected time, protected time, protected time.

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And then I see people get protected time and it's like, oh, my life is so easy now.

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I just coast.

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I'm sorry, but protected time is not about leisure.

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Protected time for leisure, you should work towards the weekends as your protected time

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for leisure or the nighttime as your protected time for leisure.

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And you know, you can mix it in because at the end of the day, it really is about your

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time productivity, not necessarily about your time, but protected time is protected time

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to do something.

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It's not protected time to relax and take breaks.

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It's protected time to do a different kind of work.

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And so you've got to figure out why do I need protected time?

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What am I going to do with my protected time?

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And it's got to be so clear.

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And what I see that happens to academic physicians is that they don't have clarity around what

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the protected time will do for them, or they don't have clarity around the activities that

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they will perform within the period of time that's protected.

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In a sense, people have the sense of like, you know, I'll do it when I get to it or,

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you know, I'll just work it in during the week.

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But when you really are serious about protecting your time, you want to know what that protected

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time gives you.

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In a sense, you're about to make an investment.

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What are you investing in?

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You got to know that.

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And I think it's one of the things that we don't get enough training to do.

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And that's why I coach people in their micro negotiations to how do you figure out what

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you want?

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Because until you figure out what you want, you've got to know how to figure out what

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you want.

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You've got to understand what you want.

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And if you don't know what you want, well, how can you fight for it?

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And if you don't know what you want, when you get it, how do you know you already have

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it?

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And so there they are.

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There are people who have protected time who don't think they have it because they don't

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even know what they need and they don't recognize the protected time that they have.

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And so step number one in protecting your time is to figure out exactly what you need

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the protected time for.

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What do you want to do with it?

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I hear you saying, well, duh, I need it to do research.

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What do you, what does that mean?

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You need it to do research.

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Are you talking about the time you need to do experiments?

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That's good.

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You do need time to do that.

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Or the time it takes to do an analysis?

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Sure.

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Sure.

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You need that.

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Well, what about the time it takes to design the project?

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Hmm.

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Okay.

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That's not a doing thing.

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It's a thinking thing.

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You need time for that.

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What about the time it takes to present the project to collaborators so that you can get

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feedback on your ideas?

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Okay.

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That feels like, you know, a little bit, a little bit squishy.

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You know, oh, I can do that on my own time.

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It's all part of your research.

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You gotta be very clear about the activities that move you forward so that you can request

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or work towards or negotiate a protected time to do that.

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So if you don't know what you need protected time for, if you don't know, if you just have

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this box of like, oh, just research, be very clear about what activities you're doing in

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that timeframe.

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Okay.

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And if you don't, if you don't know, work with a coach to help you clarify for yourself.

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Work with your mentor.

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But sometimes your mentor may not know how to help you figure out what you need because

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you're a multifaceted person.

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But your research mentor hopefully understands what it takes to succeed as a researcher.

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And if you are considering, if you're an early career person or just in the process of applying

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for a job and you're asking for protected time, go talk to someone who understands what

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you are looking for the protected time for so that you are clear on what the protected

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time will give you.

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Okay.

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We talked a lot about making sure you understand what you need protected time for.

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That's number one.

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Number two, determine how much protected time is needed.

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So when job applicants come and they're like, yeah, I want to lead a research program and

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I'm thinking, you know, I'll use 50% to do the research.

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It helps me understand that they don't recognize what's needed.

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I'm like, dude, you have spent the last 10 years of your life not doing any research,

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not getting research training, not getting training for research leadership.

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You're telling me now that you think you can succeed doing that for just 50% of your time.

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Oh, you don't understand how much it takes to really succeed in this research endeavor.

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Because when you think about it, I always love to go back to our PhD colleagues.

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Our PhD colleagues finish their degrees and then they get their postdocs.

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And when they're done with their postdoc, then they say, I need protected time to lead

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a research program.

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Go figure.

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They've been spending all this time learning to lead research.

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Then they get to the faculty positions and they're still asking for protected time.

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Well, what do they know that we don't know?

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And that's so important to recognize that no matter how much of a superstar you are,

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you have a specific skill set to build if you're going to become a clinician scientist.

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It's a very, very specific set of skills.

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You need time to develop this set of skills.

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If you are fortunate, you've had time throughout your medical clinical training to be able

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to get these skills.

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But most MDs, most clinicians have not.

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And so to think that you're going to come into a faculty position, never having had

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any significant amount of this training, and you're just going to be able to just lead

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a whole team is not realistic.

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And so the second step is to recognize what kind of protection is actually needed to succeed

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in the way you want to.

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So it's that there is sometimes a gap between expectation and reality.

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So my expectation is that I can succeed with just 25% clinical time.

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I can succeed with just 10%.

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Oh yeah, I just need 10%.

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10% is not going to cut it.

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You probably need actually 90% time.

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You probably need 100% time, depending on how much skill building you have to do.

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And so if you don't know how much time is actually needed to accomplish the goal that

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you have set for yourself, well, who can you ask?

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Who are the other people in your network of mentors that you can go to and say, I want

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to build a research program in health services research?

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What kind of time will I need?

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What kind of training will I need?

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What are the skills I need to acquire?

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And how much time do I need to protect to be able to do that?

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You want to have a realistic expectation.

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And if it's not what you want to do, building a research program is not for you.

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You're like, well, I just want to dabble.

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I just want to support people.

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That's fine.

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You also want to recognize how much time is realistically needed during your working hours

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to accomplish this task.

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And so make sure you understand how much protected time is actually needed for the activity that

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you want to do.

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Okay.

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Number three, negotiate your protected time on paper.

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So negotiating protected time is number three, because if you don't understand what you need,

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you don't know what you're negotiating time for.

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If you don't understand what's actually required, then what are you negotiating?

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How can you negotiate without understanding value?

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For this reason, we're doing a master class on August 21st at 6 p.m. about negotiating

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your next, your first next or current academic job.

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And that's August 21st at 6 p.m.

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Sign up at coagcoach.com.

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Events, that's C-O-A-G-C-O-A-C-H.com slash events.

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And if you get to our website, you should be able to find that mail.

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It will be in the show notes as well.

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But you've got to understand how to negotiate what you need to succeed as an academic clinician,

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as a clinician scientist.

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You've got to understand it.

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And when you understand it, then you can negotiate for it.

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But if you don't understand the value of what you're negotiating for, the moment someone

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says, well, we can't really do that, then you're like, oh, okay, well, you know, I thought

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I would ask for it.

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And if I don't get it, I'll be fine.

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Recognize the value of what you're negotiating so that if you have to give that up, you pursue

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something of equal or greater value.

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Those are the things that are important.

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So the important thing is to understand first what you're trying to get, why you're trying

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to get it, recognize how much is needed, and then you can go negotiate for it.

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You negotiate it for it on paper.

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Now, why do I say it's on paper?

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Because well, what happens on paper may be different from your reality.

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You may say, well, I negotiated 75% protected time, and then the way your clinic structure

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is set up actually eliminates that 75% protection.

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And so on paper, it's really important to negotiate it so that there is an expectation

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on both sides that this is what you have for you.

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Now kind of the classic time that people talk about is 75% protection.

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But what if you need more than 75%?

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So you got to understand what you need so you can negotiate it for it on paper.

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And negotiating for it on paper doesn't confirm the reality of it.

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What it does is it sets up an expectation that this is what we've agreed to.

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And so when you go to your clinic and find out that it's just exploding on all sides,

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taking up five days of your week, you can come back and say, hey, remember we both have

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this expectation that 80% of my time is protected for this particular activity?

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Wow, I'm finding that that's not the case.

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So you negotiate it on paper so that when you come back and say, hey, it's not working

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like it's supposed to, there is a reference to what the expectation was, especially if

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perhaps the person who recruited you to your job is no longer there.

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And you can say, hey, hey, this is what we negotiated.

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This is what we agreed upon so that there is at least a frame of reference to start

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from.

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Okay?

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All right.

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So make sure you negotiate on paper what you need once you've figured it out and you know

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what's required, make sure you negotiate.

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If you don't know how to do that, join us in our masterclass on August 21st to know how

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to do that.

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Okay.

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Part four is get help to protect your time, especially if you are just starting out.

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If you have a research mentor, a career mentor, an institutional mentor, you have peers, you

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have a group of people who are gathered around you to help you succeed, leverage them to

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help you protect your time.

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What does that mean?

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Well, protecting your time, that means making sure that you have the designated blocks of

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time for what you're actually doing requires a lot of help for one.

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I'll start with the peer help.

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So you can start out with protected time on paper.

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And then somebody who thinks, wow, this person has all this time in the world, they must

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have nothing to do.

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Let me help them fill their schedule.

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They're going to reach out to you with a very innocent request.

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We just need people to serve on the curriculum committee.

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Oh, it's not much of an investment.

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It's just one meeting a month.

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And you're like, oh, one meeting a month?

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Of course, I'll help out.

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And what you didn't recognize is that it's one meeting a month and four hours of prep

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time.

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You just gave away five hours of your time.

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So they told you that it is four hours of prep time and one hour of meeting time.

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That's five hours.

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And so in a full month, let's give you a month, five weeks, but most months have at least

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four weeks, a little plus or minus.

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You just gave up five hours of your whole month.

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And that becomes significant when you start to add up all these things.

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So that's why you need to get help.

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You do need to get the help of someone who can advocate for you, but you also need to

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recognize that you're going to need to advocate for yourself.

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And your peers can help you say, yep, don't do it.

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Don't do it.

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That's a trap.

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Don't do that committee.

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That's the one that's going to take you all your week to get done.

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Those are the kinds of things that you need to be thinking about.

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Get help to protect your own time.

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The things we talked about, recognize what's needed.

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What do you need to do to fill the space that you've been given?

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If you don't know it, get help, figure out what should I be doing with this?

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All this beautiful time that I have four days of my week, I don't have any patient care

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responsibilities.

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What should you be doing with that time?

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How should you structure that time?

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It's unstructured.

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How should you structure it?

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So you need to get help so that you can accomplish that.

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You need to get help from somebody who can advocate for you, especially if a senior person

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is asking you to do something that's going to take up your time.

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For example, you're supposed to be protected to do research.

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And then someone says, oh my goodness, we now need a medical director for this particular

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area.

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And no, you know what?

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We're going to find a medical director to replace that role.

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But for right now, we just need you in this role for just one year, just one year.

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I'm on paper.

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You've negotiated protected time for three years to transition to your own independent

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funding, and someone is offering you one year of time as a medical director where the work

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doesn't stop and you're on call every day.

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People reach out to you whenever there's trouble, and apparently there seems to be trouble every

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day.

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You do need help to be able to go to someone senior and say, hey, this is what I was told

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that I needed to succeed.

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And this new role is going to take me away from that.

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How do we negotiate out of this role?

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So you do need help to do that, especially if you're new and especially if you're concerned

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about power differentials that may exist, making sure that you don't have your protected

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time overrun by someone else who is well-meaning or someone else who's not thinking about your

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career development as much as you're thinking about your own career development.

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And that brings me to number five, which is build the skills to protect your own time.

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So nobody is ever going to be as good as protecting your time as you are.

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If you have the greatest research mentor in the world who's like the enforcer, who's like

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anybody who even dares ask you for something has to go through them, like I'm going to

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protect your time.

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If you're lucky, maybe you have that person.

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But you know what?

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Ultimately, you've got to build your own muscles of protecting your own time.

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Most people don't have that kind of mentor.

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And even if you do, you've got to do what you can to protect your own time.

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There's a time that's protected on paper, and there's a time that's really protected

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to do your work.

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And it defeats the purpose.

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If you have four days of your work week devoted to research, and wow, most of that time is

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spent putting out fires on email or addressing the half day of clinic that you have every

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week.

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So you do need to build the skills to protect your own time.

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And it's great if your research mentor can help you with that.

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But more likely than not, you're going to be able to access and leverage other resources

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that help you learn to protect your own time.

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And sometimes what happens to people is that the week runs away with them.

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It's like, oh, wow, what did I do last week?

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I don't even know.

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And then you look at your list of activities and you recognize that, wow, I didn't move

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my research forward.

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I didn't move any meaningful writing forward.

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How did this happen to me?

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It takes skill to learn to create structure out of unstructured time.

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One resource I'm going to recommend to you is the National Center for Faculty Development

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and Diversity, NCFDD.

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They've got great resources to show you how to structure your own time.

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Or better still, come to our master class about negotiating your own, your first next

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to current academic job that's coming up on August 21st.

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And we'll show you what it means to negotiate to protect your own time, which is critical

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to succeeding in the academic universe.

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Or you can sign up for one of our coaching programs.

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Our next cohort enrolls August 28th.

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And if you missed that window, it's again November 20th.

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You'll always have the next cohort enrolling on our website, clinicianresearcherpodcast.com.

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But whatever happens, ultimately, you are responsible for your own career advances.

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It's nice if you have the one guru mentor who can lead you by the hand and show you

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the way to go.

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I hope that's not the person you're relying on to advance your own career, because ultimately,

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no one cares about your career like you care about your career.

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00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:56,400
Having your guru mentor is really focused on advancing their own career.

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And they're thinking about you, but not all the time.

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The one person who's thinking about you all the time is you.

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And so please do what you can to build the skills and focus on protecting your own time.

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It takes skill, it takes work.

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And to be honest, you're going to be doing it throughout your career.

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And you want to make sure you do that.

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The next thing you want to do is to make sure that you secure funding.

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So funding is an easy, but actually, I shouldn't say easy.

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It takes time to procure funding.

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But you do want to fund your time that you need.

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You need to fund your protected time.

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What does that mean?

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So one way we look at it for research time, many faculty fund their research time with

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grants.

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And when you're first starting, you might get an institutional startup package to help

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you do that.

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You might apply for an institutional career development award to help you do that.

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But applying for funding allows you to have somebody pay for a portion of time.

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Somebody says, hey, out of your workday, I am buying 70% of your workweek.

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Someone will say, out of your workweek, I'm buying 70%.

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And that means three and a half days worth of time that you should be spending on this

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00:27:14,620 --> 00:27:17,860
particular project, moving this particular project forward.

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So you can secure funding through grants, especially if you're starting out the career

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development awards.

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However, you can also secure funding for the activity you have, for example.

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So the way you secure funding for your clinical activities is by seeing patients.

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Actually, you're only really securing funding if you complete the processes by which the

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patient is finally billed.

468
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:46,160
It doesn't matter if you're going and seeing patients and you're not billing anybody.

469
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:49,800
You're not really protecting your time for clinical duties if you're not finding the

470
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:52,120
funding by billing patients to do that.

471
00:27:52,120 --> 00:27:56,960
So for every activity you have as an academic clinician, there does need to be funding to

472
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:57,960
do that.

473
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:00,640
And the clinical piece seems easy because that's what we've done.

474
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:04,120
We've gotten a lot of training to do the clinical piece.

475
00:28:04,120 --> 00:28:09,560
The research piece is harder because we don't have as much training in successfully submitting

476
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:14,080
proposals or bringing ideas to the proposal stage and then going from the proposal stage

477
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:21,500
to aligning our proposals with funders and then submitting and then using the information

478
00:28:21,500 --> 00:28:24,600
from one submission to do the next submission.

479
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:25,600
That takes time.

480
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:30,240
It takes skill to build, but is an important component of securing funding to protect your

481
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:31,600
time.

482
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:36,880
Another example is say education is a component of your work as a faculty member.

483
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:41,340
Your time has been allotted to you to do this work of education.

484
00:28:41,340 --> 00:28:48,640
Are you an associate dean or an associate, you know, something in charge of medical student

485
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:51,840
education or do you have a titled role?

486
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:54,080
Well, who's paying for you to do that work?

487
00:28:54,080 --> 00:29:00,360
You just want to make sure that it's clear how much time is allotted so that you can

488
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:02,120
do that work successfully.

489
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:07,120
And so if someone's asking you to do work, it's going to take a significant chunk of

490
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:08,120
time.

491
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:11,280
Your response should always be, well, that's a great opportunity and where's the funding

492
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,600
going to come from?

493
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:18,640
Talk about how to do this better, how to do this more effectively in a future podcast

494
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:19,640
episode.

495
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:24,140
But one way to work towards protecting your time is to secure the funding and it allows

496
00:29:24,140 --> 00:29:28,480
you to say, well, this is the amount of dollars that are allocated so that I can spend three

497
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:30,360
and a half days of my week doing this work.

498
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:35,920
And so you secure funding and it does give you opportunity to protect your time on paper

499
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:37,760
and then the rest is up to you.

500
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:42,720
In working with your mentors, your network of mentors and working with your administrative

501
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:50,020
support, your division chief, department chairs, make sure that there's alignment between what

502
00:29:50,020 --> 00:29:53,880
has been promised and what's actually happening for you.

503
00:29:53,880 --> 00:30:00,680
The other piece of protecting your time is containing your clinical work in such a way

504
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:03,600
that it doesn't overwhelm its boundaries.

505
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:07,160
And some of you laugh, you're like, ha ha, easier said than done.

506
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:10,720
I just want to tell you that you've got to be really strategic.

507
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:16,400
If you're going to succeed as a clinician scientist and you've inherited an overwhelming

508
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:21,920
clinic where there's no support and you're having to go from morning till night doing

509
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:26,840
all these patient callbacks and doing prior authorizations, I would argue that you don't

510
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:28,760
have the protected time you need.

511
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:34,040
And the question is, how do you negotiate the resources that you need so this clinic

512
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:36,600
doesn't expand beyond its borders?

513
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:40,240
It's easier said than done, but if you're going to do it, you're going to want to be

514
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:45,080
intentional about it so that you actually protect the other days of the week that are

515
00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:50,080
supposed to help advance your research from your clinic expanding beyond its boundaries.

516
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:54,600
And that's something that if you want to learn about, you should join us at our master class

517
00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:56,480
on August 21st.

518
00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:57,520
Okay.

519
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:01,120
What else do you do in terms of protecting your time?

520
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:05,400
The last thing, number seven, is protect your time for self-care.

521
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:11,200
So as academics, especially during our training, there's a sense that, you know, we can work

522
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:14,240
every day of the week and be just fine.

523
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:21,240
And in reality, you do need times of rest and relaxation, times to recharge and rejuvenate.

524
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:25,120
And the weekend is usually the time that's allocated to do that.

525
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:26,400
Does it have to be the weekend?

526
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:28,920
It kind of just depends on your work schedule.

527
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:31,200
Say you've been on call for a seven-day period.

528
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:33,120
Well, you didn't have that weekend.

529
00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:36,160
Are you going to wait till the next weekend before you rest and rejuvenate?

530
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:37,160
No.

531
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:41,360
Take a day off on a Monday and recover or maybe take your weekend.

532
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:47,640
And so ultimately, what I'm saying is that you do need to protect your time to be the

533
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:50,080
best that you can be.

534
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:56,920
The most important piece of you in this journey is your brain, your mind, your ability to

535
00:31:56,920 --> 00:32:01,900
think clearly in this journey of being a clinician scientist.

536
00:32:01,900 --> 00:32:05,480
You want to be able to be a clear-thinking person.

537
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:07,800
You want your mind to work well for you.

538
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:13,320
And if you are doing, doing, doing, and you don't have time for your mind to rest and

539
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:19,440
recharge, then your output is having less quality over time.

540
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:22,560
And you know, academic physicians are some amazing people.

541
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:26,480
I've seen people who can really work, work, work, work, work for long periods of time

542
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:27,480
without rest.

543
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:28,480
I've seen it happen.

544
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:33,560
And I've also seen the crash that comes at the end of it, the burnout, the anger, the

545
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:36,360
disengagement, and that loses them periods of time.

546
00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:42,640
And so if you want to avoid that, you do need to build rest and relaxation into your schedule

547
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:48,720
because you want to protect your time by protecting the mind that helps you work optimally in

548
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:51,040
every situation.

549
00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:56,640
So I'm inviting you this week to think about how is my time protected and who is the chief

550
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:58,600
protector of my time?

551
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:03,720
I want to challenge you to take up the mantle of leadership in your life to think about

552
00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:07,400
how do I protect my time for my success?

553
00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:10,300
You may need to recruit sponsors to help you.

554
00:33:10,300 --> 00:33:13,160
You may need to recruit mentors to help you.

555
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:16,320
But take charge of protecting your own time.

556
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:21,680
Ask yourself, how can I contain my clinic so that it doesn't overwhelm the rest of

557
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:22,960
my week?

558
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:28,520
What resources do I need to ask for so that I can accomplish this goal?

559
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:34,480
And if you ask it and you succeed in protecting a little bit more of your time this week compared

560
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:39,200
to last week, come find me and tell me how you did that.

561
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:43,560
Leave me a voicemail on our podcast website.

562
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:46,320
That's clinicianresearcherpodcast.com.

563
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:50,000
And tell me how you did it and I will share it with our audience.

564
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:51,000
Excited to have talked to you today.

565
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:52,000
Thank you for listening.

566
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:53,000
I look forward to the next time.

567
00:33:53,000 --> 00:34:09,400
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast, where academic

568
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:14,560
clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they

569
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:16,160
have a mentor.

570
00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:22,120
If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself.

571
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:24,000
Someone else needs to hear it.

572
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:28,080
So take a minute right now and share it.

573
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:33,520
As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation

574
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:53,120
of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.