The Hidden Cost of “I’ll Just Do It Myself”

You are finally done seeing your last patient, but your day is not over. You still have to write the patient charts, tackle the inbox messages and call back the patients. You tell yourself, “I’ll just do it myself – it’s faster.” Somehow, you are still stuck in the office two hours later. Having the sense of control when you are doing things yourself feels efficient, but it is quietly extending your workday. The practice of doing everything yourself is costing more than just your time.

Most of us physicians have experienced this, and many are still facing it every day – the unfinished patient notes, the inbox tasks, orders, forms and callbacks. Those create an emotional toll. They drain your energy, physically and emotionally. It is easy to carry resentment and lose joy in practicing medicine. You are not behind because you are inefficient; you are behind because you are carrying too much on your shoulders alone.

Why do we keep doing things ourselves? There is a strong belief that “no one can do it as well as I can”, or “it will take longer to explain than to just do it myself”. That may sound reasonable at the moment, but you are creating short-term efficiency at the expense of long-term exhaustion. The more capable you are, the more things you believe you have to do yourself, the more work you accumulate.

What are some hidden costs of “doing it yourself”? The most obvious cost is your time. For every task you keep for yourself, you add future hours you repay with having less time to do other things outside of work. Compound that over days and weeks – you lose many hours. There is also the cost of cognitive overload. The more you manage, the more decision fatigue you create. When you feel exhausted and still have to make more decisions, you have less clarity and tend to increase errors. Your team suffers from underdevelopment. Your staff never get to learn and they remain underutilized. It creates a culture of “I can’t do it” or “that is not my problem”.  Of course, the personal cost is what hits hard. Think about all the evenings and weekends lost to catch up with your work. The more extra hours you work, the more drained you are, the more emotional withdrawal you have from life outside of medicine.

Instead of doing everything yourself, delegate. Delegation is a clinical skill. Delegation is not purely administrative. Delegation is not optional. Delegation is a core professional competency. Remember that you did not master your specialty or any procedures on day one. You can learn and master delegation. Delegation is not about perfection; it is about capacity. It allows you to have more capacity to handle your everyday work.

One of the biggest obstacles for physicians to not do everything is letting go of a task, thinking that the standard will be suboptimal if done by someone else. Does everything need to be done to meet your set standard? For many tasks, if the staff can do it 80% as well, it is good enough. Letting go and letting others handle certain tasks may be scary. Your reflex may be resistance, resisting the idea of letting go. There is the fear of others making mistakes. There is the fear of rework, having to redo other’s job. If someone else can get something done 80% as well as you do, it is far better than you completing it at the 100% standard at 8 pm or later. You can always course correct, refine and guide your staff over time.

Start by starting. You can start delegating today. Identify the “only you” tasks. Those are the things only you can do, such as making the diagnosis, offering complex decision making, and nurturing patient relationships. Spot tasks which you can delegate. For example, certain elements in the patient documentation, such as taking and recording vitals, certain inbox tasks, or some order entry items. You do not have to create an overnight overhaul. Start small. Delegate one task consistently. You are building trust toward your staff incrementally. The more trust you have, the more comfortable you are to delegate. Yes, it takes time to train your staff to handle certain tasks. Once they know how to tackle the delegated tasks, you free yourself up to do other things. Your short-term investment of training the staff will gain long-term freedom. Create simple protocols and list your preferences. You may even make it into a video or an instruction guide, you do not have to keep repeating yourself when you have new staff.

By delegating, you are gradually transforming your identity from purely a doer to a leader. You go from “I have to do everything” to “I lead a system that works”. Leveraging your team has an expanding impact on patient care. When you can lead your team and utilize each member well, you feel lighter at the end of the day, you get to leave work on time and you find joy in practicing medicine and life again.

The question to ask yourself is not “Can I do this faster?” Instead, it is “Can someone else do this instead of me?” Letting go is not lowering your standards. You are leveraging your team to raise the quality of your life and your clinical practice.