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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 the Clinician Researcher podcast.

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

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Thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast.

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I'm always excited to share my thoughts with you, but I wouldn't be able to share my thoughts

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if you weren't listening.

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So I just want to say thank you so much for being here.

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So I talked on the last episode about how I create a strategic plan, and a strategic

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plan is a big and a beautiful, bold thing, and I have mine on the side of my wall right

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by where I write to remind me of what I'm supposed to be working on.

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Here's the thing about the strategic plan.

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The strategic plan represents an aspiration.

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It's like, wow, these are all the things I want to accomplish.

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And what happens when your strategic plan meets your clinical, clinically busy calendar?

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There is a clash of arms.

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There is because it's like, oh, great.

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I love that you've outlined all these things that you want to do, but where are you going

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to put them?

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Because your schedule gets full really, really fast.

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And that's why today I am talking about how I negotiate my academic calendar.

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My calendar is my weekly map for moving work forward.

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If it's on the calendar, it's happening.

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If it's not on the calendar, it is not happening.

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And so that is why I want to talk to you about how I negotiate my academic calendar, maybe

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give you some ideas for how you might negotiate your calendar too.

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And here's the thing.

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It may be that you already have a superstar master of your calendar.

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And I would love to hear your thoughts because my way is only my way.

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It is not the way.

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And it is not the only way.

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It is the way that's working for me today.

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The moment I find someone else who is doing something that is better than me for me, so

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not better as in more superior, but just wow.

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I'm like, I like that strategy.

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I'm going to incorporate it.

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I will transform my whole experience.

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I totally will.

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And so what I'm sharing with you is what I do this moment.

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Tomorrow, I'm going to get an idea that transforms the way I do it.

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And I'll be doing something different.

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So if you're listening to this, whenever you're listening to it, I've already moved on from

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the ideas I've shared with you.

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And I'm inviting you to be part of that.

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Share your ideas with me so that I can transform the way I work on my calendar as well.

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Okay, very good.

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So the very first step, I'm going to talk about seven ways in which I negotiate my academic

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calendar.

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And my very first step is to have my overarching goal.

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I know I said this in the strategic plan episode, but it's important to say again, it doesn't

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matter what my calendar, it doesn't matter what I put on my calendar unless I have a

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plan.

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Like my calendar is the platform for my plan.

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It serves my overarching goal.

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My calendar leads me to scholarly productivity.

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It leads me to impact.

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That's what I want to do with my academic career.

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I want to impact the lives of patients.

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And the process I want to impact the providers that care for these patients.

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I want my work to be impactful.

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And I've determined that the way I want to do that is not just in seeing patients alone,

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but also in moving forward the research that helps the patient I cannot see, that helps

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the patient that still needs help when I'm no longer here.

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And so my overarching goal is impact.

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And that is important because that guides how my calendar serves me.

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Everything that does not lead me to impact cannot find its way to my calendar.

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Actually, it kind of sort of still does.

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But that overarching goal allows me to say, this doesn't fit on my calendar.

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How can I get rid of it?

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And this is important because once I took on an administrative role where people would

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just put stuff on my calendar, oh my goodness, it made me so mad.

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But the people who would put stuff on my calendar were usually people who were a little bit

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above me in the rank of the role.

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And it would be like, hey, I put an 8 o'clock meeting on your calendar.

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I'm like, what?

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I write at 8 a.m.

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How dare you?

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And then I would just suck it up and show up for a meeting that would now invariably

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spawn my mood.

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And then I wouldn't be able to write.

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So it was like, not only did you put a meeting on my calendar at a time in which I should

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have been writing, your meeting residue ruined my writing time.

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So I stepped out of that role because I don't want people putting stuff on my calendar that

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affects my ability to write.

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And it's because I have an overarching goal.

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It's because I understand that I came for impact.

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That's why my calendar cannot be anybody's platform for just putting meetings on there.

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But I learned my lesson from that point.

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I absolutely did.

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And I learned my lesson and oh, wow, I'm getting ahead of myself now.

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OK.

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But I think I'll say it because it fits here right now.

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What I learned my lesson about is that there are no open spaces on my calendar for meetings

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unless I create an open space.

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So I literally will go forward a year in advance and close off stuff.

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Like my writing happens from 8 to noon.

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Therefore there can be no meeting from 8 to noon.

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I'm going to open up the slot after lunch from 1 to 3 for your meetings.

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So OK, if you can find a slot between 1 and 3 p.m. on any one of these days, then sure,

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you can slot in the meeting if you want.

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Actually, I don't even let people put meetings on my calendar.

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But if by any chance somebody is so brazen as to look at my calendar and say I'm going

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to put a meeting on there, they can only find an available slot where I would be OK and

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not so mad if I found a meeting there.

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So that's how I responded to that.

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My overarching goal for my career allowed me to create that structure.

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OK, that's number one.

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I have an overarching goal for my career and it tells me how my calendar should serve my

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career.

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OK, number two is I create a strategic plan.

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So I spend all this time talking about the strategic plan yesterday so that I could,

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you know, put my strategic plan onto my calendar.

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I could map it onto my calendar.

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And so the second step is creating a strategic plan.

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And I spent a lot of time talking about that yesterday.

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So if you missed the podcast episode, please go back and listen to it again because I really,

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wow, spent twenty five to twenty six minutes talking about a strategic plan.

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Go listen to it.

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Number three, I own my calendar as a map for my week.

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It's on the calendar.

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It's happening.

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It's not on the calendar.

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I'm not doing it.

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Very, very simple and invariably.

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So I make the plan for my calendar a week in advance.

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So today is Friday while I'm recording this episode.

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It's Friday and I will sit down later today and I'll look at my calendar for next week

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and I will map out the week on Monday morning.

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When somebody comes in with an emergency meeting that needs to happen on Tuesday, I have to

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now look at my calendar and display something to make up for that emergency meeting.

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So then I have to decide, is that an emergency for me?

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I get that it's an emergency for you, but isn't an emergency for me that it should allow

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me to display something that I already sent as something I needed to do the week before?

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Most of the time the answer is no.

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So sorry that, you know, that came up for you so suddenly, but I don't have space in

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my calendar this week.

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I can do it next week.

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So the calendar is a map for my week.

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It is a map for my week.

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It's not on the calendar.

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It's not happening.

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And the good news is that when I go and sit down and map out my calendar, and that's actually

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number four, I'll talk about it in a minute, is I sync my work calendar with my home calendar

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so that, you know, there's perfect alignment.

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If it's not on the work calendar, it's not on the home calendar.

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It's just not happening.

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It's not happening.

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And in reality, life happens, right?

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Life happens.

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And some of the things you plan, you don't get to do.

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And you know, that's why I think people say that the goal, the value of the plan is not

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in the plan.

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It's in the planning.

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And in the process of planning my week, then I'm clear about what the week is going to

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look like for me.

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I allow the week to serve me.

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I don't allow the week to just happen to me.

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Okay.

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So number four is I fill my calendar a week in advance.

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So that's what I was talking about earlier, where on Friday I sit down and I look at the

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calendar and I looked at the week ahead of me.

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I look at all the meetings I've already committed to.

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And sometimes I fall, again, into trouble because, you know, former Teosi is so ambitious.

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She wants to have all these meetings with people.

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And I'm looking at the calendar.

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I'm like, why?

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Why is there no white space on your calendar, young woman?

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Anyway, you know, I can't get too mad at her.

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She's really working hard for me.

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But anyway, so I look at the calendar and I'm like, oh, these are all the meetings I've

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previously committed to.

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And I don't make myself a slave to the meetings I committed to.

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Sometimes I uncommit.

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Sometimes I look and I say, the grant is due next week.

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I'm not sure what I was thinking when I put this meeting on my calendar, but I am not

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going to be able to fulfill that commitment.

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And so I uncommit.

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I send an email and I say, I'm so sorry.

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Something has come up.

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I'm not going to be able to make this meeting next week.

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Can we move that meeting?

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But it allows me because I'm looking at it a week in advance, I'm able to make those

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decisions.

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And so when I sit down with my calendar, look at the meetings that are coming up, look at

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my writing time, which has already been scheduled a long time ago, then I can now pull things

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from the strategic plan.

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The things that I said would come from week one, week two, if it makes sense, I put them

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onto the weekly calendar.

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And usually I have two writing goals per day.

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One is a grant writing goal and one is a manuscript writing goal.

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And usually it depends on the grant writing schedule.

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If I'm done with my grant writing submissions for the quarter, then there's no grant writing

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that's going to go on my schedule.

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If I have a grant due in a couple of months, then a little bit of the writing will go on

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the schedule and then there'll be more manuscript writing stuff that'll be on the schedule for

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that day.

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So one grant writing thing will get done and then a manuscript writing thing will get done.

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So I have two blocks of writing, two major blocks of writing in my calendar every day.

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And by every day I mean Monday to Friday.

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Now if the grant is due next week, everything moves from my calendar to accommodate the

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grant writing and then when the grant writing is done and if there's no other grant coming

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up, I will then kind of like focus more on the manuscript.

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So there's a little bit of give and take as to when manuscripts versus grants fill my

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schedule.

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Okay.

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So I fill my calendar a week in advance based on the things I put on the strategic plan,

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which if you go back and listen to the strategic plan episode is really those are the things

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that I want to move forward that are scholarly but that there's no accountability.

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Okay.

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Number five is I close my calendar to any additional meetings.

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So yes, here it is Friday.

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I'm looking at next week and I see that, oh, no one filled the 2 p.m. meeting slot or I,

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you know, my past self did not fill the 2 p.m. meeting slot on Thursday.

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I will close the meeting slot.

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There was not a meeting space available.

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It's closed.

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I don't even have to have anything that, you know, is planned for that hour.

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It's just closed because in looking at my schedule a week in advance, I'm preparing

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for the week in advance.

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And so I'm thinking through, okay, this meeting, this is what I want to accomplish from this

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meeting, you know, that writing project that I said I'm going to do this week, this is

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what I want to accomplish from it.

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And so anything else that comes kind of is a little bit disabilizing because I haven't

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prepared for that.

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I haven't.

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So I don't want anything to surprise me come on my schedule that I'm not actually prepared

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for because one of the things about outsourcing my thoughts to my schedule, outsourcing my

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time spent during the week to my schedule is that I don't have to worry about it until

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the day shows up.

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And then I pull it up and I'm like, oh, these are the things I'm supposed to do.

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I don't have to think too far in advance.

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I'm just like when it's time I look at the schedule and the schedule helps me.

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I've already prepared to do that.

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So when things pop up on the schedule that I hadn't previously planned, they surprise

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me and they can, you know, they just kind of it bothers me to have those kind of surprises.

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So I don't like them.

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So I close the schedule to any new meetings.

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Now the other thing that that allows me to do is it allows me a little bit of flexibility.

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If there is a meeting slot at 2 p.m. and there's like a research thing that comes up where

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I'm like, I want to talk about this paper before we send it out because I really feel

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like we need to sit together and really map out what the discussion would look like.

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Then there is a slot that's available that I can open up for that to happen.

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So it gives me a little bit of flexibility to move things in if I need to.

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But if I don't need to, then it gives me a little bit of white space and I need white

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space.

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I'm prone to just like putting a lot of stuff on my calendar and having white space is helpful.

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So when the opportunity comes for a slot that's not filled, I take it.

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And if there's nothing else to put in it, I take it and I celebrate it and I rest and

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I do something different that helps my mind.

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So anyway, that's that's how I close my schedule to any additional meetings.

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That's number five.

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Number six, I decide in advance what's allowed to take over my priorities.

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You know, invariably, there's something that comes up where someone says, oh, my goodness,

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we've got to meet on Thursday at 2 p.m.

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This is absolutely critical.

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And then I stop and I think, hmm, 2 p.m. is the time I designated to work on that other

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manuscript.

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Hmm.

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Is this new request of sufficient priority to displace that time that I had dedicated

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to this manuscript?

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And if the answer is no, the answer is no.

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What I love about it is that there's no confusion about what fits and what doesn't fit.

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It's already been pre decided.

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It's been pre decided.

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Like I've decided these are the things that are allowed to take priority over a meeting

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I've scheduled.

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Let me give you an example.

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My chair calls me for a meeting, so she never calls me for a meeting.

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For the most part, I don't meet with her.

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My chair, and my chair, I'm not talking about, you know, my chair is above my division chief,

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right?

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So it's two steps above.

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My chair says, hey, I would like to meet with you at 11 a.m.

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Then I clear the space for my chair.

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But that doesn't happen very often.

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So it's not something I'm doing all the time, you know?

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So for the most part, anyway, there are very few things that will come and overtake my

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schedule.

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Very, very, very few things.

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If life happens, then life happens, right?

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So everything is negotiable.

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Everything is negotiable.

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But for the most part, those emergencies that are other people's emergencies that are not

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mine, I do not let them overtake my schedule.

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I just like, oh, the schedule is full.

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But we can maybe meet next week or two weeks from now because I have an opening in two

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weeks.

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OK.

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Number seven, I get accountability every week.

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And so I have a peer group of men, a peer mentoring group.

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These are all faculty at about the same career stage.

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They're mostly at other institutions, which is so awesome for just the feeling of safety

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of like, OK, if I gripe about something, it's not getting outside of these four walls because

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they're not at my institution.

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Who are they going to go tell?

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Anyway, so I get accountability every week.

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And every week we meet.

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To the best of our ability, we meet every week.

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And we say, here are the things I accomplished last week.

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Here are my writing and research goals.

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This is what I accomplished.

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These are the things I couldn't, I didn't accomplish.

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These are the reasons I didn't accomplish them.

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And then these are my plans for next week.

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So we announce, we announce in advance what our writing goals are going to be for the

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following week so that we can come back the next week and say, what happened to those

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goals?

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Did we meet them or not?

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And so these are friendly people.

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They're not going to hurt me if I don't do my work.

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But I don't want to be the one showing up and saying, yet again, oh, I didn't do that

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writing.

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Oh, it was so hard.

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I mean, no excuse is a great excuse.

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I mean, there are just not too many excuses that should displace the thing that you said

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was most important to you in your pursuit of impact in your career.

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Like why?

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What does that?

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Yeah, I was just, I was really upset.

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And so I didn't do the work.

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Like it just doesn't really fly in our community.

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And so that accountability is beautiful because it allows me to, you know, commit.

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I said I was going to do this writing and I did it.

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I commit to it.

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And so I get accountability every week from a phenomenal group of peer mentors who hold

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me accountable and encourage me to.

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It's a really beautiful space.

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We share wins, we share challenges.

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It's a really beautiful space.

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And if you do not have your own accountability group, I totally recommend it.

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Okay.

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I get accountability every week.

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So that is what I do to negotiate my academic calendar.

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Now I want to challenge you this week to go block out space for your research and writing

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productivity on your calendar.

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No, do not roll your eyes and say, but they won't let me.

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Who is they?

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You are a grown adult making your own decisions.

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You own your calendar.

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Can I say that again?

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You own your calendar.

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Nobody owns it for you.

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You own it.

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And so I don't know who they is, but they don't own your calendar.

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You do.

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Now I invite you this week to go and create space for your writing and research productivity

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on your calendar.

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I'm going to ask you to take it a step further and block out that specific space every day

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for the next six months.

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Yep.

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If you're bold, if you're not feeling so bold, just do it for a week and see how it works

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out, but block it.

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It's a meeting.

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It is an official meeting between you and your intellectual self.

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Put it on your calendar and then come tell me about it.

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I would love to hear how putting your work on your calendar has transformed the way that

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you write.

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All right.

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It has been a pleasure talking with you today.

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Do not forget that we have a webinar coming up November 20th at 6pm.

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I hope this podcast episode comes out before the webinar, but if it doesn't, there'll always

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be a next webinar coming up.

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So look on our website, clinicianresearcherpodcast.com for more information about the next webinar

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and the next webinar after that.

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All right.

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Somebody needs to hear this podcast.

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00:19:10,980 --> 00:19:12,700
Please share it with them.

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00:19:12,700 --> 00:19:17,020
If you're a listener and you have not left us a review, please do.

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00:19:17,020 --> 00:19:18,300
Give us a five-star review.

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Other people can find us more easily.

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This episode has been helpful to you.

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Somebody else needs to be helped by it too.

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So please, please do me a favor and leave us a rating and preferably a five-star rating.

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00:19:30,940 --> 00:19:33,060
You've got to ask for what you want.

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All right.

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It's been a pleasure talking with you.

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I will talk to you again the next time.

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Take care.

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Bye-bye.

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Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast where academic

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00:19:52,900 --> 00:19:58,700
clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they

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have a mentor.

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If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself.

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Someone else needs to hear it.

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So take a minute right now and share it.

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As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation

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of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.