When everything feels urgent – or when other colleagues’ “urgent” stuff lands on your desk – it can feel impossible to get your other important work done. So how can you manage your time so that you can do the stuff that really matters? The stuff that isn’t just urgent, but is important to you and your practice?

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One of the most frequent pushbacks we get when we do our how to take control of your time and workload training is, but surely this stuff can't apply to me because I'm a healthcare professional.

I'm in clinics all day.

I have meetings.

I have a very structured day.

So all this stuff that you're telling us about the importance of prioritizing, time-blocking, managing my workload, it just doesn't apply to me.

And recently we did a webinar about how to beat the urgency trap, all about how we get stuck doing the urgent stuff at the expense of the important stuff.

And someone put just that in the comments.

They said Well, you know what.

I have surgeries booked for me.

So time-blocking just isn't going to work for me.

And I've been reflecting on this a lot, because I know that a lot of our listeners are doctors, they're nurses, they're healthcare professionals who have patients booked in, who have busy schedules.

And these are sort of pre-booked schedules, prebid clinics, pre-booked surgery sessions, pre-picked visits.

And even if you don't work in healthcare, if you're a teacher or a lawyer you've often got a busy sort of day job delivery schedule of lessons, of client meetings, and you might not have the luxury of sort of endless days where you are able to plan your workload and decide exactly what you're going to focus on on a given day.

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And many of you have told me that you don't have a single minute spare that isn't already scheduled in with meetings or with patient contacts.

And so the idea that taking control of your workload is really difficult.

But I do know that many, many people are drowning in never-ending to do lists, and just not knowing where on earth they're gonna fit anything in.

The other thing I know is that a lot of our listeners not only have to do the day job, you're leaders as well.

So having some organized stuff, you're having to think about strategy.

You're having to develop workflows and protocols and think about how we develop services.

So then we've got another problem that if that is a really, really important part of your job, and let's face it.

Probably the more senior you are, the more important that the strategizing, the managing people, the thinking about what's going to work, those extra curricular stuff, that's not by rightly delivering the service, the more important that is, the more time you need to do it.

And often your delivery schedule hasn't been reduced as much as you need in order to get that other sort of leadership stuff done.

So when busy healthcare professionals say to me, well, we can't do time blocking because all our time is already accounted for, I've thought, well, okay.

Is time blocking something that we should be recommending to people?

I know that I found it very helpful, and I know that most productivity, gurus and people that specialize in this stuff and research it, say that time, looking at the only way to manage your to do list.

Does it work for healthcare professionals?

Then I thought, well, yes, because you already do it.

You already time block.

If I think of the day of an average GP, you have time blocked your surgeries.

You know when your surgery is starting and when it will finish.

You know that it will probably be another half an hour, an hour, before you've actually finished seeing patients.

You will time block any practice meetings and already.

So you have already time blocked the urgent unimportant stuff, particularly the patient contact.

You'll time block ward rounds if you're in hospital.

You'll time block your exercise class if you go and do that in the evening, or if you've got a dinner party that will go in because you know you're doing that, you can't do anything else.

So we already use time blocking.

The mindset shift we need.

Is that we also need to time block the other stuff as well.

Now those of you that don't know what time blocking is, that is simply rather than just having a to-do list with a load of stuff you tick it off, you actually put tasks directly in your diary with the amount of time it takes.

So, for example, if I have to prepare a webinar that might take me a couple of hours, so I will put in an appointment in my diary for two hours for that particular preparation of the webinar.

Now if someone then asked me if I can do a meeting in that time, oh, yeah, I could, but what I have to do is move that block somewhere else.

It doesn't get shrunk.

The meeting doesn't go in the middle of it.

The time block goes somewhere else.

It's a very good way of knowing exactly what's in your diary, and knowing that you've got enough time to do it.

And if you don't time block.

What will happen is you will stay stuck in urgency trap.

You'll stay stuck and only able to make the time for the stuff that other people have already time blocked in your diary, like your surgery.

But you won't have any time for that really important strategy piece to think about the future of the practice or how the teams should work in the locality.

For example.

So you will only be prioritizing the stuff that's already in your diary, which tends to be the urgent stuff.

So urgent stuff, obviously patient care is urgent and important.

It's what you do.

But other people's meetings go in your diary, don't they?

And they often appear as urgent and important, when they might just be urgent, but not important.

Because the stuff that's in your diary will just always trump that other stuff that you've got to do that's, that's not in your diary.

And if you don't time block, you actually have absolutely no idea of the time that you have free to spend on other stuff, which makes it a lot harder to say no to things, or much harder to say yes to things wholeheartedly 'cause you don't really know if you can have the time to do it.

And if you have an allocated time for tots in your diary, You're going to feel very out controlled because you know, that there's this huge amount of stuff that you need to do, but it's a bit like trying to fit a balloon full of water into a box it's much too small.

You just know it's not going to work.

And that for me, certainly creates this underlying anxiety that I am never going to get everything done that I need to, and it just gets me in the pit of my stomach and it's like, I might get hit by something unexpected at any point or there might be some consequences of not getting to this stuff, and I never quite know what they're going to be or when they're going to come.

But if you do start to, to time block stuff into your diary, you will feel more in control of your workload.

I've got an incredibly busy few weeks coming up and there were some things I need to prepare for like the upcoming Permission to Thrive session and upcoming webinars.

But I've time blocked the preparation time in my diary.

So that stuff isn't worrying me 'cause I know i've got time to do it.

It genuinely helps me feel less stressed.

I'm also able to say no with confidence.

So if someone wants me to do something that's maybe not one of my priorities, and I would like to do it, but I look at my week and I know that there is no free time in that week, it's much, much easier to say no to that person to just to say to them, I'm sorry, I'm at capacity at the moment.

I can't get to that until then, or.

I won't be able to get that to that now, is there any other way you can get that done?

It means I can just be so much clearer with people.

Just like if someone asks you to go to meeting and you're in theater, you'll say, no, I can't do that meeting.

I've got an operating list.

It's clear, right?

Clear is kind, as Brene Brown says.

You will also become much, much more productive because you've prioritized what's really important, you've put it in your diary and you're getting it done.

And the other thing that you'll find happening is you become much, much more protective of your time, because you can see exactly how much time stuff is taking you.

You'll start to think well, do I have a spare two hours to spend on that?

And what could I be doing with that instead?

What should be time blocked in that instead?

And it will start to help you see what needs to be changed in your working week, because if you are genuinely in a job where 100% of your time is blocked with meetings and clients or patient facing stuff, the numbers suggest you're never going to be able to do your job properly.

Because we all need personal time for organization, for learning, for CPD, for thinking time.

And so there might be some changes that you need to make.

You may need to have a chat with your colleagues or your line -manager to carve out some time.

Where you can put in stuff that you need to do.

And I talk a lot about the importance of thinking time.

And for me, this has been a real game changer.

It's time, blocking time in my diary.

Now it might just be 10 or 15 minutes.

But that is where I think about what I've got to do.

I write notes on it.

I plan stuff.

This is the deep work.

And again, in the agency trap webinar.

We've got a lot of pushback when I talked about deep work and the need for thinking time.

You know, we have care professionals.

We have no time for thinking time.

My goodness, that is such a difficult place to be.

If you genuinely feel you have no time for thinking time, and that is the number one thing that one needs to change for you.

Now don't take my word for it.

I've got an accent here from the podcast with Graham Allcott, the Productivity Ninja, to talk a little bit about thinking time, how he does his weekly review, and just why this stuff is so important.

I started off by asking him, well, what about health care professionals?

What about people who have to deliver a service?

They've got the day job, as well as everything else that they've got to do.

I think a few things just around the edges of that though.

So one is, I think, um, even if you don't necessarily have lots of autonomy to use the best energy that you have in the day to apply to really difficult thinking tasks because that's when your surgery hours are, for example, I still think getting that stuff out of your head, writing that stuff down, having a really good,

um, set up around, you know, what those tasks look like and just clarity around that stuff will actually just really help you manage any level of attention.

So even when you're feeling a bit tired.

So I use an app called Todoist, which is how I do all of my, um, my second brain stuff.

And one of my lists in Todoist is just called the Mindless List.

And the idea with that is these are things that I've thought about in advance, but they're all things that I can do when I'm half asleep.

I don't need too much attention on them.

So they're kind of like little things like going and doing some Google searching or ordering something off Amazon or like looking into that, or just quick email to this person or whatever.

And of course those are the sort of things that like if you've got that, if you are prepared enough that you have that kind of list and you have five minutes that you snatch in between appointments, you can do one of those things in that time.

So there's all kinds of ways where just having a bit more structure will help you anyway.

And then there's like the bigger question of is the stuff that you have to do outside of the appointments, you know, is some of that stuff, stuff that you really need like high quality attention on?

And if it is, then I would say you've got to do something to break that structure.

So whether that's, do you come in an hour early and leave an hour early, like once a week?

Like, you know, are, are there just those little changes that you can make, just acknowledging that, like leaving that really difficult thing to do until four in the afternoon when you're tired and you've been seeing people back to back, it's gonna take you three hours to do it then.

Whereas if you just did it one morning where you're fresh and you use your best energy on it, it might only take you an hour.

So there's all sorts of little things that you can do structurally, I think, um, that will really help around that.

But yeah, I mean, if, if your main job and the way you earn your money is by actually doing the, the valuable work with of, of seeing people, um, yeah, you kind of have to see that as, um, as a pretty important thing to do, right?

And it's obviously, you know, most of the people listening to this are, they're doing probably work that's much more valuable for society than certainly, than, uh, you know, most of the stuff that the rest of us do.

But also probably more valuable than doing emails and sitting in meetings and all that other stuff too, right?

I think there's gotta be something to be said for, um, you know, those, those jobs are so, they're so vital for a good society that, you know, I think we have to sort of view that work in a really kind of, you know, uh, re reverential, is that the right kind of words?

Um, I certainly do anyway, and I'm prob sure probably like when you're in the middle of doing that job, you don't see it that way.

But, um, you know, like absolute respect to, to all of you listening who are doing those kind of jobs, you know.

Well, that's really kind of you.

And it is, it is, I think, a real privilege to do a job where there is a real purpose to it.

Like you can actually directly see the people that you are helping doing that job.

It does have a flip side, though.

It means that you maybe elevate the bits where you're actually seeing people above the bits where you're organizing yourself or, or strategic thinking.

Because actually a lot of the, the listeners, they're doing the day job, but also they're in positions of leadership.

So they're directing healthcare for their local neighborhood or, um, integrated care system or something like that.

And actually a lot of the time actually, they'll have more impact in society, in spending an hour doing deep work and thinking about strategy for a whole community than, than seeing six patients, for example.

And we find it very difficult to prioritize that really important stuff over the stuff that comes at us really, really urgently.

Yeah.

Well I suppose that comes back to a phrase I use quite a lot around productivity, which is making space for what matters.

I kind of feel like that is the essence of productivity, right?

So, I mean that's a really good conundrum that you pose there, where it's like, yeah, spending some hours doing deep work on stuff that's strategic leadership focus is gonna have this big impact.

So if I was that person, it'd be like, my question to myself would be, right, how do I get 15 hours of that instead of two, right?

And how do I, like, how do I delegate some of that patient work?

Or, you know, like, is there a, there must be like a way of unlocking that, you know, like there's this kind of box of, of value in there and stuff, isn't there?

Um, so I, I would kind of think about it in that way.

But then I suppose it's like, you know, when it comes to the idea of making space for what matters, the, the trick is to have the time and the space to really evaluate that properly and really think about what matters.

And that's the thing that everybody in whatever your job is, struggles with day-to-day.

And it's all about quality thinking time, quality thinking space.

There's a couple of reasons for that.

One is I think we sometimes we like the idea of.

Taking time to think and plan and reflect and you know, look ahead and just really kind of think about stuff more intellectually.

But we often don't have the, the structures or the kind of, um, the sort of step-by-step guide to actually just make that happen in a really practical way.

The second thing is there's a massive load of guilt around.

Spending any time and space just in a thinking mode.

Um, we tend to view, you know, activity, being online, replying to emails, all those things as being work, and then thinking as almost being this thing that's kind of separate from work.

But there's a lovely quote from Henry Ford who says, Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason so few engage in it.

And I think, you know, we need to, in whatever our industry, like really kind of change this narrative around, you know, thinking time and prioritization time and planning time as being like a luxury or being like an extra thing or being not work.

We need to look at that as being the most important part of the work, right?

And so I think.

Changing that mindset is one thing.

And then there's kind of practical tools, a lot of which I talk about in the book.

Um, and the, the one that probably makes the most sense and is most easy to explain is the idea of doing a weekly review.

So having a time in your week where you almost have like a checklist.

I'd literally have a checklist with mine and you just go through.

Certain questions like what's on my calendar?

What's coming up in the next few weeks?

Like, what's on my, what's on my to-do list?

What projects am I working on?

What new projects could there be?

Or what new projects are there that I've not started?

And just I go through these questions.

And the aim of that kind of hour and a half is like not to do any work, but it's for me to feel like I'm in control of my work.

I'm thinking about it rigorously and properly.

And the other aim of it, of course, is that I can then close the laptop at the end of the week and know that I've got everything ready for Monday morning and you know, I'm not gonna have to sort of take that work home, think about it over the weekend.

So for me that's like, it's the time of my week where I probably think the hardest.

And at the end of that hour and a half, it's the time of my week where I feel most in control, calm, like, you know, ready for, uh, being able to kind of switch off for a couple of days, you know?

So I think that's just a really practical thing that, you know, we, we can all, we can all do more of, of that quality thinking time.

But just having a really good structure around doing a, a kind of weekly review and weekly planning session, in whatever your role is like, will just make a huge difference.

One thing I think we need to do is think very, very differently.

About our, to do lists.

And I've done a podcast about this before, but I'm going to leave you with this final thought.

That we should see our to do list as a river.

Not the bucket.

What do I mean?

Well, I first heard about this from the author Oliver Berkman who's written that brilliant book 4,000 Weeks.

And he was saying that he always viewed the list of Booksy hats to read a bit like a bucket.

Like he had to start with the top one and just work his way down and get to the bottom of the bucket.

But he realized there was so many books in this world that he really wanted to read.

He was never going to get to them all.

So he started to see them more as a river.

And there's this river of books flowing past that at any point, he can choose to read one if he wants to or not.

And I think we need to take that mindset about our, to do list.

There is always so much to do.

We could do a million, one things we can always improve things.

We could all haste make life better.

We could serve people more.

We can always be a better this, that, or the other, but there just isn't enough time in the world.

And so rather than having all these things on our, to do list and seeing it as a bucket that we've got to get to the bottom of, what if we saw it as a river?

There were things that we definitely are going to take care of that out of that river, because they are important to us.

And sometimes they become urgent, like meetings, like seeing patients like dealing with emergencies.

But there are some things that are just going to go past us and we're not going to get to.

Why we're not going to get to them?

Because we are human beings.

And we only have 24 hours in the day.

So start to time block your diary.

Start to make time for thinking time.

And see all those tasks that you've got to do as a river.

You choose the ones that it can really move the dial for you.