If I were starting a pharmacy residency now, here is what I would do first to prevent burnout
Burnout is a complex topic. There are many ways to address it and prevent it, but today I want to talk about the very first thing I would do if I were starting a pharmacy residency right now. This was something I implemented in the second quarter of my residency, but would have saved me so much time and stress if I had implemented it sooner. That thing is an effective project management system. Your residency is full of repeated tasks: topic discussions, continuing education (CE) presentations, patient reviews, data collection…you get the idea. So, here is how to managing those tasks to save you a ton of time.
Step 1: Pick a project management tool
While to-do lists and planners can be helpful, the complexity of your work in residency make them difficult to keep up with. Meetings are constantly moving around so your work calendar (typically Outlook) is the best place to put events so they can be moved around as needed by the meeting organizer, however, a project management tool is essentially a “fancy” to-do list. It keeps your different tasks organized, allows for subtasks, and tasks can be copied and used again when you have to do them in the future. There are several project management tools available. During residency I used a board based tool called Trello and today I used a tool called Asana since it has a better calendar function. Both of these project management tools allow you to collaborate with others (great for projects with co-residents) and offer free versions of their software. Before diving in, take a look at these and other tools that are available and pick one that will work best with your style of learning and organization.
Step 2: Identify repeated tasks
The next step in effective project management is figuring out which tasks are one-off and which ones are repeated. One-off tasks such as teaching a lecture for your teaching certificate program should still be added to your project management tool so you can keep track of your activity, but don’t need to be retained as a template. My first “project” task I included in my residency project management tool was a CE presentation. I ended up doing 6 CE presentations over the course of my residency year and even more since I graduated that followed a relatively similar process. Each time, I didn’t have to go back and search my email for instructions or links, instead all of them were saved in the project template so once I had my presentation date I was able to schedule out all the tasks I needed to do.
Step 3: Write out the process
For repeated tasks, take extra time during the first time you complete the tasks to write out all the steps you need to remember and save any resources or instruction documents to the task template for quick reference. In the example of the CE presentation above, there are a lot of steps to the process. During residency I would need to pick a topic, get the topic approved, find a mentor for the presentation, send in the CE forms to ACPE could approve it, outline the presentation, complete the slides, come up with questions, send my slides to my mentor for review, send out the recording and slides afterwards, and save the feedback I received once it was sent (and probably a few other things I can’t think of without my project management tool opened). Since there were so many moving parts and specific deadlines for each step in the process, I took extra time during the first presentation to write those items out and saved it in a template that I slightly tweaked for each presentation moving forward.
Step 4: Save the process & repeat
Once you have completed the project for the first time, you can save the project as a template so you can go back to it in the future. Each tool has different steps for you to do this so make sure you check out a few YouTube videos on how to best utilize whatever tool you choose. The real time saver and burnout prevention comes when you have to repeat the task. All you have to do is pull out the template and you have everything you need to schedule out the project steps to keep you on track. My preferred tool, Asana, actually gives me a daily to-do list so I don’t have to come up with one on my own. It keeps me on track and when I open the tool each morning, I know what my priorities are for the day and week. This allows me to look at my calendar and make adjustments as needed based on my schedule.
While implementing a project management strategy doesn’t seem like a burnout prevention tool, it can save you a lot of time and energy trying to remember all the little things you need to do to get a project over the finish line. Once you get used to the tool, you can also add personal things to your list. I have reminders for reviewing my finances monthly, taking out the trash, following up on emails I’ve sent, and annual things such as taxes. At this point, most of my “life” is on autopilot. I don’t have to think about what needs to be done because I have set up a system that reminds of what needs to be done and when. This helps prevent the overwhelm and stress that comes with keeping all those tasks in your head instead of written down somewhere. When it goes on too long, that overwhelm and stress can lead to burnout when it doesn’t have to.
Many pharmacy residents also struggle with setting the boundaries they need to put in place to finish their residency without feeling completely burned out. I created a free guide for pharmacists on how to set boundaries without guilt to help you out with this. You can grab it using the form below!
