The Preparation You May Not Realize Can Help You Leave Work on Time

You may think the reason you are staying late is what happens during your workday - too many patients, too many messages, too much charting, too many interruptions. What if part of the solution begins before you even arrive at work? 

Most physicians think of preparation as reviewing charts, checking the schedule, or making a to-do list. There is another kind of preparation that often gets overlooked: preparing yourself to have the kind of day you want to have. Efficiency does not begin when you start working. It begins with how you prepare to work. Let us explore the four different areas: sleep, mindset, patients, and environment.

1. Prepare your body: protect your sleep. 

Many physicians are working late because they try to finish as many things as possible, often driven by “just one more thing” to finish. The problem is that today’s unfinished work can become tomorrow’s depleted energy. Insufficient sleep can negatively affect your energy, focus, attention, concentration, decision-making, ability to stay present, and tendency to become distracted or make avoidable errors. Preparing for tomorrow’s efficiency begins with protecting tonight’s sleep. Working later tonight does not necessarily make tomorrow earlier. Sometimes it simply makes tomorrow harder. 

2. Prepare your mind: decide how you want to meet the day.

Before opening your inbox or walking into the office, notice what you are already telling yourself. 

“Today is going to be hectic.”

“I’ll never get everything done.”

“I’m already behind.”

You get to decide how you think about your day. Be intentional about it.

“Today is manageable.”

“I can take this one thing at a time.”

“I don’t have to solve everything at once.”

This is not focusing on positive thinking or pretending the day will be smooth and easy. It is a about creating space for possibility instead of predetermined overwhelm and doom. You can knowledge that you do not know exactly how today will unfold, but you can decide how you want to approach it. 

3. Prepare for your patients: do not begin the visit when the patient enters.

Preparation is not about spending hours reviewing every detail. It is about knowing enough before the visit to enter with a sense of direction. Consider:

• Why is the patient here?
• What is the most important thing to address?
• What information do I need?
• What decisions might need to be made?
• What follow up is likely to be needed?

When you begin thinking about these questions only after the patient is sitting in front of you, you are doing more cognitive work during the visit. Preparation can help you enter the encounter with a clearer starting point. Preparation is not about doing more work before the patient arrives. It is about making the work you already have to do easier to navigate. 

4. Prepare your environment: make focus easier.

Besides the internal preparation, external preparation is also important. Your environment can either support your attention or constantly compete for it. Ask:

What tends to interrupt me?

Which notifications can I silence?

When will I check messages?

What can I batch?

What needs my immediate attention?

What can wait?

What do I need readily available to do my work efficiently?

Set yourself up to do one thing at a time, as our brain is designed to focus on one thing at a time only. You do not have to eliminate every interruption, which is impossible. You can become more intentional about which interruptions deserve your attention right now.

5. Preparation is not about creating a perfect day.

Your day will not always go according to plan. That is part of medicine. That is part of life. A patient may arrive late. A nurse may need you. An urgent call may come in. An unexpected issue may completely change your schedule. Preparation does not mean controlling everything. It means giving yourself a better starting point and a framework for responding when the unexpected happens. The goal is not a perfect day. The goal is to be prepared enough to navigate an imperfect one. 

Start preparing for tomorrow today. Protect your sleep. Prepare your mind. Prepare your patients. Prepare your environment. If you are consistently staying late after your last patient, the answer may not be simply work harder or push yourself to work faster. There may be opportunities earlier in the day - and even before the day begins - that can change how you move through your work. What could change if you stopped thinking about leaving work on time as something you have to figure out at the end of the day, and started preparing for it before the day even begins?

If you are  physician who is tired of spending evenings and weekends catching up on work, you do not have to figure out the path to leaving work on time by yourself. In my 1:1 Physician Coaching Program, I help physicians identify the patterns keeping them stuck, create practical changes that fit their real-world practice, and reclaim time without seeing fewer patients or compromising patient care.