Increasing My Be Time — Ad Astra per Aspera

Life is full. For everyone. We schedule each minute of our days, from waking up in the morning to going to bed at night, and are even encouraged to ensure our hours of sleep are adequate…everything is budgeted carefully. There is very little time to “just be” in most of our lives.

Most Saturday mornings I take an hour or so to calendar my upcoming week. Where do I have conflicting meetings and which ones do I prioritize? How many openings do I have for patient care and which slots are ripe for a double book if needed? When will I exercise each day - is there a meeting during which I can multitask and walk? I try to take stock of the work that didn’t get done during the last week and sort out what I can wrap up before the next one starts. When the previous week has been particularly off schedule, off “budget” and chaotic, this hour helps me regroup and refocus.

I recently took a “staycation” for a few days (who actually goes anywhere anymore?) and found myself at loose ends. I had turned over patient care to my partners and had a vacation responder on my email. I wasn’t supposed to work, and I felt restless. It didn’t take me long to find projects at home: cleaning out my closet and organizing our wine collection filled the void nicely. I discovered that being unscheduled made me uncomfortable; I had forgotten how to relax! Naming the problem was the first step; fixing it seemed an important second one.

Symptoms of physician burnout include loss of motivation, increased cynical or negative outlook, decreased satisfaction or sense of accomplishment and feeling tired and drained most of the time. As the duration of the pandemic expanded with an uncertain endpoint, I found myself checking more of those boxes. How could this be? I love my work. I love my crazy calendar, booked full of interesting meetings and patient care hours. I love my email triage systems and organizational spreadsheets. I love my patients and my team. Perhaps I needed to love myself - and create some “just be” time.

Since my relaxing skills were rusty, I required practice. I asked a friend who regularly has a book in tow to loan me a stack of her recent favorite reads. I got a pile of jigsaw puzzles for my birthday and enlisted my daughter to help nudge me to work on them. I reminded myself to not return to my laptop in the evenings after supper. Initially, that “just be” time felt awkward. I had the nagging sensation that I should be DOING something and had to keep reminding myself I was doing something: I was taking a break.

I’m not going to claim professional status at relaxing yet, but I’ve definitely seen progress. I can get lost in a book or jigsaw puzzle for hours and am spending less screen time in my evening hours. The wear and tear of COVID-19 persists, and taking a break from the myriad of professional stresses it creates is important. I look forward to the day when I can add “eating out in a local restaurant” or “go shopping with a friend” to my list of relaxing activities. For now, I’ll just keep working to increase my be time.