Future Me – Page 3 – Physician In Numbers

One Year At 90 Percent

I’m coming up on my one year anniversary of dropping down to 90% or 0.9 FTE. I want to reflect on it now, because I will be working in the hospital during the actual one-year mark–and there is really no 90% effort while you are leading a resident team in patient care.

Future Me, September Follow Up

At the end of October 2018, I wrote about 10 Steps to Future Me. I was a bit worried that I would be cutting back on work but frittering away that extra time. Those 10 steps were meant to clarify my personal goals: improving myself, and/or finding new activities to give my life some purpose other than medicine.

Lessons Learned During My Staycation

I recently enjoyed some time off. After my deliberations a few months ago, followed by an exhausting road trip, I decided this time to stay home for a week. Nine days at home without having to go to work represented an experience I haven’t had for years. I found it educational.

Re-entry

There’s an old joke about a man in the golf club locker room, hitting his head against the wall. Another man asks him, “Ron, why are you hitting your head against the wall?” And Ron answers, “because it feels so good when I stop.”

Talk vs. Action

I had planned to blog today, but we have company coming.

I figured I could either write about wanting to connect more with friends, or I could work on making a visit with those friends more pleasant.

Until next time.

What You Miss

The other day I read a blog post detailing the “Best Day Ever.” The author is retired, and has a lovely day fishing, playing tennis, watching his wife mow several lawns. Despite the fact that I don’t fish, play tennis, or want to mow lawns (even with a nifty riding mower), I was so jealous.

Future Me, the June Follow Up

In mid-February 2019, I reviewed my goals from October, and came up with some new ones. I had planned to check in again at the end of May, around Memorial Day.

Memorial Day has come and gone, and with it a lot of time spent with family, as my Dad had a health crisis. He is doing better, and now that I am home, I thought it might be time to review my progress towards my goals.

Spending That Future Raise

At the beginning of this month, I sent in a check to my mortgage company that was going to cover the “outstanding principal amount” for my mortgage. This may not be my last check–the amount listed was not the payoff amount–but the fact remains that I should soon have a lot more money available in my monthly budget.

This is likely the last time I will get such a salary bump, and I want to be smart about how I use it. Though I wrote about this one month ago, I am still turning over in my mind all the possibilities for using this extra money. The amount is not insignificant: the payment towards principal (including an amount to “round it up”) and interest is 22% of my take-home salary each month.

Since I am still thinking about it, I thought it might help me to be very specific about what I could do with it. If there are any recent residency grads about to start their new attending jobs, with their new attending salaries, I am hoping that this may help them think through what they will do with their bigger income.

Sometimes 90% is more than enough

Yesterday was my first day back after a 3-day weekend. I had planned this absence, as I had a meeting out of town. Despite having cut my hours last fall, I still found myself going home late yesterday with lots of work to do from home.

What Keeps You Going?

What keeps you going? A question that seems deep and philosophical. Which it might be, but I have a slightly different question in mind. Maybe I am asking, what helps you stick with a routine, or a habit? How do I motivate myself to continue a project?