Channel Your Inner ER Doctor to Banish Being Busy

If you are a busy executive who craves more hours in the day to get work done, then it’s high time you become like an emergency room doctor and banish your busy mindset for good. Instead, adopt a ready state of mind so that you can bring your best self to work every day.

I bet if you asked someone how last week was, they would say “busy”. It’s a four-letter word that has become synonymous with our working week, even in a post-pandemic world. In fact, in some organisations, saying you are busy is a badge of honour. 

Being Busy Offers No Value

When we describe our work as “busy” we are less capable of handling everyday life. And, truth be told, being busy does not offer any value. What’s more, being busy can adversely affect your health. Aches, pains, and muscles tense. General tiredness takes over and headaches are common.  All of this impacts your ability to make clear decisions and take decisive action. 

A New Mindset to Tackle Any Task

The good news is there is a better way to manage your day and move your state of mind from being busy to being ready to tackle any task or unexpected event. This new approach sees you apply similar tactics that emergency room doctors and nurses use daily.

In my role as a leadership capability coach, I’ve coached many Sydney emergency room doctors throughout the pandemic. Those emergency doctors and nurses were under immense pressure and stress with understaffing, increased patient loads and changing nature of Covid-19 itself. 

Yet, through coaching them, I learned that they react to work stressors better than most people. I admire that while they were and are very busy, they don’t feel busy. 

Top Skills to Bust Being Busy

Here are my top three skills to cultivate so you can move to a ready state of mind, even with a full inbox and heavy meeting load:

Triage like an emergency room doctor. Prioritise your workload according to the urgency of the task. Emergency specialists use a colour coding system that I have adapted for the workplace:

Red: this is an immediate and critical activity. Red activities are your top priorities and will give you the best return from your time investment.

Orange: this is an emergency that could become critical. Orange activities are emerging issues which could turn into a crisis. 

Yellow: is urgent and not critical. Yellow activities are priorities that have deadlines of 48 hours or more.

Green: is semi-urgent and not critical. Green activities are important though they can wait. 

Blue: is non-urgent. Blue activities can be actioned when time permits.

Each morning, scan your online diary and mentally flag your red, orange, yellow activities, and so on. The good news is that by using this triage system effectively, you will soon re-train and change your brain to stop reacting as though everything on your to-do list is red.

Simplify daily tasks. Design your working week to make things easier for yourself so that when code red strikes, you are prepared with a ready, steady mindset. Declutter your to-do list by finding ways to reduce daily decision making. Here are some key tips:

·       Plan your weekly tasks the Friday before the next week

·       Automate your inbox by setting up your preferences. For example, shift non-critical work, such as emails in which you are a cc, to another folder

·       Co-locate important things such as placing your gym or cycling gear in the same place

·       Decrease temptations such as turning notifications off or, even better, silencing email when you’re working on an important activity

Help someone else! Emergency room doctors are compassionate, and they’ll consult one another to arrive at an agreed diagnosis and treatment plan for their patients. Whether their patient is admitted to hospital or is discharged, it’s satisfying for the doctor and the broader ER team once this happens. Consider, how you bring compassion to yourself and your peers. You’ll reap the proven benefits of both self-compassion and compassion toward others, such as increased happiness, improved medical outcomes, reduced stress, and increased social connectedness.

By adopting a steady mindset – thanks to adapting tactics used by emergency room doctors – you will significantly improve your working week and banish feeling busy for good. A bonus is that you will likely find yourself with more time to do the things you love.