August 9, 2025 • 22 mins
In this episode, Sam Ashoo, MD interviews Christina Shenvi, MD, PhD, MBA about ways to manage your day and keep distraction at bay.
- Introduction to Dr. Christina Shenvi
- Why Focus and Time Management Matter
- Experiences coaching medical students and professionals
- The importance of managing mind, time, and attention
- Applicability to both career and personal life
- Framework for Focus
- Three-step framework: Prioritize, Strategize, Focus
- Explanation of prioritization
- Mapping personal and professional activities to priorities
- Deep Work vs. Shallow Work
- Defining deep work and shallow work
- Strategies for categorizing and scheduling tasks
- Time-blocking and protecting focus time
- Overcoming Distraction
- The psychology of distraction and procrastination
- The impact of digital devices and social media on attention
- The variable reward system of social media and its addictive nature
- Strategies to Improve Focus
- Clearing mental, physical, and digital environments
- The importance of a distraction-free workspace
- Systems for capturing and organizing tasks
- The Pomodoro method and using time pressure
- Building a Personal System
- Experimenting with different task management tools
- Adapting systems to personal needs and preferences
- Daily Practice and Training Focus
- Reviewing and updating task lists daily
- Chunking email and shallow work to specific times
- Training the brain to focus like a muscle
- Special considerations for people with ADHD
- Resources and Contact
- Dr. Shenvi’s website and online course (timeforyourlife.org)
- Invitation to connect for coaching or further learning
For more about Christina Shenvi : https://timeforyourlife.org/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Christina Shenvi (00:00):
That's great that your family does not pay
you to hang out with them.
I would worry if they did.
Sam (00:04):
But what a cool job that would be.
Christina Shenvi (00:05):
But what a cool job.
Hey, if someone would pay me to hangout with my family, that'd be awesome.
Sam (00:11):
Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Amplify.
I am your host , Sam Ashoo, andI wanna thank you for being a
listener and encourage you to rateus in whatever podcast app you're
listening in so that we can get theword out there to more listeners.
And I also wanna share with you thatthere are only a few days left in EB
Medicine's special $1 for a seven daysubscription to any or even all three
(00:34):
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That's a great deal.
If you're not already a subscriber,go there and take advantage of
this special and check us out.
You will not believe how many coursesand how many issues and how many
hours of CME you will have access to.
It's an absolutely wonderfultime saving and critical to
your practice subscription.
(00:55):
Do yourself a favor and takeadvantage of that special today.
And now let's jump intothis month's episode.
Christina Shenvi (01:03):
Nice to see you again, Sam.
My name's Christina Shenvi and I'man associate professor of Emergency
Medicine at UNC Chapel Hill.
Sam (01:09):
Fantastic.
Thanks for being on the show, Christina.
Today we're talking about focus,but before we dive into that, this
is your first time on the show andI wanna let listeners know what a
fantastically interesting person you are.
So, in addition to being inclinical emergency medicine, you
have a lot of other interests.
(01:30):
One of the biggest ones isgeriatric emergency medicine.
Tell me more about that.
Christina Shenvi (01:34):
That's right and having a lot of different projects in the air
or balls that I'm juggling at one timeis what got me really interested in
time management and then focus and howwe focus our attention and what we do.
One of the hats I wear is in GeriatricEM where I work with the geriatric ED
collaborative to help improve geriatricEM care around the country and now doing
(01:58):
a lot more internationally as well.
Some of the other hats are ineducation and educational leadership
as well as faculty development.
And then I have a lot of other side gigsor side hustles that keep life interesting
and one of those is in time management,and I got interested in that because
time management isn't something we doon the side, it's how we do everything.
(02:22):
And so in order to be productiveto do more of what we care about, I
got really interested in some of thescience behind how we spend our time.
The psychology of things likeprocrastination and focus.
And I created an online courseall about time management.
Sam (02:38):
Wow.
And somehow you're using allof that information for your
multiple interests as well.
And it must be working becauseyou're quite successful.
You have your ownpodcast as well, correct?
Christina Shenvi (02:49):
Yep, I run a podcast.
You know, I can say that it's thebest Geriatric EM podcast in the
world because it is in fact the onlyGeriatric EM podcast in the world.
But also I have the privilege ofinterviewing a lot of experts in
the field and love to share thatinformation with the listeners.
Sam (03:06):
Fantastic.
Well, in addition to being anaccomplished physician, speaker,
and educator, tell me what got youinterested in time management and focus.
Christina Shenvi (03:17):
Well, for about five years I was directing an
office at UNC that supported our800 medical students academically
So I was working with a lot of studentson how to study, how to work well,
and a lot of it came down to thesechallenges of focus and time management.
They would get distracted or theywould put things off, or they
(03:38):
didn't know how to prioritize.
What to work on.
And so I did hours and hours of coaching,hundreds of students, one-on-one, and
then I started putting it together andhow can I make this into a workshop
or a course that I can teach them?
And then I started talking aboutit at national conferences, and it
(03:59):
seemed to really resonate with people.
And I got asked by a physicianup in Canada to create a four
week course for her faculty.
And so that grew into then somethingthat I've run at many different
institutions as well as run on my own.
And then I built it outinto an online course.
So got interested in it through thatpathway, but really just love working
(04:24):
with people and trying to help themget more fulfillment in what they do.
It's not about like, here's a calendar,here's a scheduling spreadsheet,
here's how to track your time.
I mean, those can be useful tools,but it's really the punchline
is it's about managing your mindfirst, and then managing your time
(04:44):
and your attention and your focus.
Sam (04:47):
And is this always specific to people in medicine or
people in all walks of life?
Christina Shenvi (04:51):
I've worked with mostly physicians, but also
other high performing individuals.
So the focus is on people who areprofessionals, high performing, want
to do more of what matters, but alsowant to have time to travel or spend
with their kids or do other things.
Sam (05:06):
And when you're talking about trying to find time to do the things
that you want to do, this can becareer or non-career oriented.
Christina Shenvi (05:16):
Correct.
The skillset is the same.
Sam (05:18):
Awesome.
Awesome.
And when we talk about it to an audienceof, say, emergency medicine physicians who
are listening today or perhaps residents,people in training, we've also got some
people who are other ki nds of clinicians.
There are PAs and nurse practitioners allkind of trying to juggle a busy clinical
practice maybe in training and thenperhaps married, perhaps have children,
(05:40):
perhaps have other outside interests.
How is it that someone goes about tryingto prioritize or categorize all of that
in their life when they're talking aboutthings like focusing on what to do next?
Christina Shenvi (05:53):
Yes.
Well, here is a framework that I liketo use when I'm thinking about focus.
Now we can't cover everythingin time management here in
one hour or one podcast.
But this topic of focus, just gettingthis down, can really be a good entry
point into making a lot of other changes.
So here's my frameworkfor thinking about focus.
(06:14):
It is prioritize, strategize, and focus.
So we can walk through that andkind of unpack it a little bit.
Sam (06:20):
yeah.
Christina Shenvi (06:21):
Prioritizing means first, are you doing the right things?
Are you doing the things thatmatter to you, or are you spending
a lot of time on low value things?
The Pareto concept, the 80 20 concept of,you know, spend 80% of the time on that
20% that really matters the most insteadof kind of spending most of our time on
the 20% that doesn't matter . So, firstprioritizing, and this can take the form
(06:47):
of stepping back and saying, all right,what are all those things that I'm doing?
First, just list them all out.
I'm doing clinical shifts.
I'm running this you know,I'll list some of them for me.
I run a program called Flagship.
That's a nine month facultydevelopment program.
I co-direct the ACEP teaching fellowship.
I'm speaking at these coming, you know,10 things in the next three months.
I have four kids and I have variousthings that they're doing that I want
(07:11):
to be involved in or that I need todrop them off, you know, and, and do.
So these are first, just listall the things that you're doing.
And one framework I like to use when itcomes to prioritization is the framework
called Ikigai, which has become morepopular these days, but it's the idea,
if you can imagine a Venn diagram ofwhat you love, what you're good at,
(07:35):
what the world needs, and what you'rebeing paid for or can be paid for.
So think about that Venndiagram with overlap.
And what I like to do is thenmap onto it all those things
that I listed that I'm doing.
So some of them fit right in the middle.
I love it.
The world needs it.
Meaning like it's making an impact orit's important, it's making a difference.
(07:56):
So I love it.
The world needs it.
I'm good at it.
I'm, you know, working in my strengths.
I find that flow state when I'm workingon it and I'm being paid for it.
That is the perfect centerwhere everything aligns.
I wanna do more things thatalign with all those circles.
Now there are many thingsthat we may do and love.
(08:16):
Maybe it's, you know, coachingyour kids little league or
soccer practice or something.
Does the world need it?
Okay.
Yeah.
Broadly speaking, you're makinga difference in kids' lives.
Are you good at it?
Well, you don't have to be thebest soccer player in the world
to coach your kids' soccer team.
Do you love it?
Yes.
Will you be paid for it?
No.
But it could be a really highvalue thing for you because
(08:38):
it meets those other criteria.
S o for me, just listing those thingsout then helps me understand what
are those really high value thingsthat I care about versus what are
things that are low value to me.
Maybe it's a committee that I'm on thatI really need to gracefully exit from, or
(08:59):
maybe it's certain personal administrationwork, like home administration work that
I really don't like, or maybe it's workadmin tasks that I want to then say either
outsource or some things maybe I can'toutsource I wanna do them as quickly
and efficiently as humanly possible.
(09:19):
Or maybe if I can, I wanna takethem off my plate altogether.
So first is just sitting down,understanding yourself, understanding
what you're doing, and understandingwhat you want to be doing, and that's how
you can start to big picture prioritize.
Which then can feed you intokind of prioritizing your day.
(09:40):
So I'm curious for you, Sam, whatwould that look like for you?
What are those things that like map rightin the middle of the circle for you?
Sam (09:47):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a great question.
I mean, things I'm involvedwith, obviously this podcast in
EB Medicine, which is somethingI thoroughly enjoy doing.
And then , there area ton of other things.
You know, I enjoy the martial arts.
That's a hobby.
I get to do that with my children.
It's definitely somethingI'm not getting paid to do.
But I'd say that's a prettyhigh priority for me.
(10:07):
Spending time with my family is,I think, at the top of the list.
Again, not something I'm gettingpaid to do, but something
I find of great high value.
The administrative stuff yeah, there'sa lot of that kinda administrative,
nonclinical medical stuff that I dothat I don't really have a passion for.
(10:27):
But it pays the bills and so,it can be challenging sometimes
trying to build a priority list.
So I've got a lot ofthings that I enjoy doing.
I've even got some things I enjoydoing, I just don't have time to do.
Playing music is one of them.
You know, I would say I valueit, but not above anything else
that I've already mentioned.
And so it often falls off the list, but ifI could, I would spend more time doing it.
(10:50):
Yeah, so then if I've got all of thesethings that I value and some I want
to be doing, some I maybe would chooseto do less of, but they pay the bills.
Then, what would be thenext step in that focus?
Is it better to kind of check off theones that are maybe not of high value and
(11:11):
get 'em done as quickly as possible, orto put those off until the end and spend
more time doing the things that I enjoy.
Christina Shenvi (11:18):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
So you've got your priorities.
Check.
And that's great that your family doesnot pay you to hang out with them.
I would worry if they did.
Sam (11:27):
But what a cool job that would be.
Christina Shenvi (11:28):
But what a cool job.
Hey, if someone would pay me to hangout with my family, that'd be awesome.
So you've got your prioritiesand this is now where focus
can help you unlock more time.
Because let's say you sit downfor your day and you've got
all these things you could do.
Well, now you need to strategize,well, what am I going to choose
(11:49):
to do of all these things.
You could plan your next podcast.
You could go hang out withyour kids and skip off work.
You could do your chartsand your admin tasks.
Well, now you need to strategize.
What are you going to do?
And this is where focus can really help.
First of all, focusing just todo that executive functioning
of planning your day.
But then second of all, let's lookat, for example, a high value task.
(12:12):
Like maybe for you that's planningout your podcast or something, you
know, content that you're creatingfor EB Medicine that you love.
If you can focus really well and do thatwork in two hours, focusing, using all
your attention, you can maybe get thatdone in two hours as opposed to not really
(12:32):
focusing, kind of also checking youremails, also bouncing around to different
things, and then it takes four hours.
One of my favorite books about focusis Cal Newport's book Deep Work, and
in that book he gives this equation.
The high value work that youproduce equals time spent
times intensity of focus.
(12:52):
So I could spend four hours with lowfocus and get the work done, or two hours
in high focus and get that work done.
So that's just the first broadidea for how you can apply it
to your deep, high value work.
But then all these shallow taskslike, you know, for me, submitting
reimbursement receipts, planningmy travel, you know logistics and
(13:15):
hotels, all those types of things.
Similarly, if I can take those lowvalue tasks, let's say I have four
hours of low value tasks to get done.
If I can do each hour's worthof work in 45 minutes, in four
hours, I've saved an entire hour.
So those small changes inefficiency, because most things
(13:37):
that you do in an hour, an hourlong meeting, an hour of emails.
If I can really focus and work quickly andget it done in 45 minutes, that doesn't
seem like a big shift, but in eighthours, that's two whole hours of your day.
So that's pretty incredible to me.
So, all right, Sam, we'vegot your priorities.
Now you're gonna sit downand strategize for the day.
(13:58):
Okay.
So one approach is to write down all thethings that you could do that day, and
then look at them and say, all right,which things require a deep focus.
Which things really are gonna requirelike more than 45 minutes or so.
Maybe it's, you know, planninga presentation or creating some
(14:20):
content, writing an article, writinga grant, something like that.
Those you're gonna call deep work.
And then other tasks that maybe don'trequire all your focus, maybe lower impact
tasks, we're gonna call shallow work.
So now you can think aboutarchitecting your day so that
you can apply your focus best.
So for me, for example, what I'll dois write down the things that I could
(14:44):
do that day, like things that maybeare coming up that are due or things
that you know, somebody's emailedme and I need to respond to and do.
And I'll categorize themby deep or shallow work.
And then I'll prioritize them.
So with that deep work, what are thetop three or four things in order
that are most important to get done.
(15:05):
And you could think about that with,you know, a two by two matrix of
what's urgent and what's important.
Or you'll just have a senseof, okay, this is due soon.
I need to get this done.
This is high priority.
You're gonna prioritize them.
And then I know for myself, I workbest kind of first thing early to
midmorning, like from when I startwork, if that's 9:00 AM 9:00 AM to noon.
(15:29):
I can get a good solid three hours ofwork done there, so I'll prioritize
my deep work during that time.
I know I've worked with some peoplewho say they work really well at
5:00 AM before their family gets up.
So they will get up at 5:00 AMfrom five to seven they'll get some
deep work done, more power to them.
That is not me.
I know that from nine to 12.
That's my like sweet spot.
(15:50):
So I try to protect that time,not scheduling meetings for that
time if possible, and I willthen prioritize that deep work.
And then you still need to havetime to do the shallow work.
So that might mean, you know, forme, one approach is when I'm eating
lunch around noon or 1230, thenI'll shoot off some of those emails
(16:13):
or do some of that shallow work.
But by looking at your work throughthat lens of what requires a deep focus
and what is high priority, then youcan start to time block in your day.
So from nine to 10:00AM I'll work on this.
10 to 11, I'll work on that.
Or maybe it's a bigger project,it'll take two or three hours and
you can start to time block out,this is what I'm going to aim to do.
(16:35):
So that's one approach.
How do you think that would work for you,looking at what you have on your plate?
Sam (16:40):
So I like it.
But I'm wondering now, howmuch time are you spending in
the categorization process?
Like every morning you sitdown and do this, or are you
just projecting out a week?
Or how do you go about doing that?
Christina Shenvi (16:51):
It varies kind of depending on how
much time I have in a day.
And here, for this purpose, we'renot talking about clinical work.
We're talking aboutlike those other things.
If you have a whole day or a half daywhere you're like, okay, I'm going
to get all these other things done.
I will, if I have a whole day ahead ofme, sit down at the start of the day and
write out, you know, deep work, here'sthe four or five deep work tasks that
(17:13):
I could do, and now let me prioritizethem, and shallow work, here's the
three or four shallow work tasks.
And the nice thing about that is thenif something pops into my head, like,
oh shoot, I've gotta email Sam aboutthe podcast we're recording, then I
can add that to my shallow work tasks.
And when I come to the shallow work, Ican knock it out so that when I'm deep in
the deep work, if something pops into myhead as a reminder, I don't have to then
(17:37):
do it right away or keep it in my head.
I can write it down and do it later.
So that's one approach.
Or if I know oh, I have Tuesday afternoonfree, I have Thursday morning free, then
I can, you know, block out ahead of time,maybe the week ahead, what I'm doing.
It really doesn't take that much time.
Sam (17:54):
And when you're deep in the deep work, this is like time where
you've silenced your phone, put thataway, no one can get to you unless
it's an emergency kind of thing.
No distractions.
Christina Shenvi (18:04):
Perfect.
So we've prioritized, we've strategized.
Now, how do you actually focus?
So if you've set aside, all right,Tuesday morning, you're gonna work on
that podcast or you're gonna work onthat grant, how do you actually focus?
And part of it is definitelyreducing distractions . There's a
lot of literature on distractionand procrastination and psychology.
(18:25):
Even I've read some literature fromkind of the IT world about this.
It's really fascinating.
And in thinking about it,why do we distract ourselves?
Why do we get so distracted?
We check our phones on average, thisis from twenty twenty four, three
hundred and forty four times a day.
Sam (18:44):
Wow.
Christina Shenvi (18:44):
When we are in the office on email, we check
our email every two minutes.
What is going on?
I think there's several things.
One is that often we wannaavoid the negative emotions that
may come up with other work.
So for example, let's say we're workingon that grant and we're like, Ugh,
this is really overwhelming, or thisis frustrating, or this is boring.
(19:08):
Or maybe we're writing a paper andwe're like, Ugh, why am I doing this?
It's never gonna get accepted.
We have a lot of self-doubt.
We want to avoid those negative emotions.
So what do we do?
Sometimes we go to TikTok orInstagram or Facebook or whatever.
Other times we go to, let mejust knock out a few emails.
Sam (19:27):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (19:27):
So most often when I've worked with now hundreds of physicians
and other professionals, when I talk withthem about what do they do when they are
seeking distraction, often it's shallowwork, so they'll go to their emails
because there's a sense of satisfactionfrom knocking out a few easy emails.
That feels a lot easier than thehard work of writing that paper,
(19:50):
writing that grant, writing that bookchapter, creating that PowerPoint.
So sometimes we avoid things becausewe want to avoid the negative emotions.
Sam (19:58):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (19:59):
Other times though, we feel like, you know, it's productive.
I get a sense of being productive if I cancheck off a few items on the to-do list or
emails, and that's not bad, but it becomesmaladaptive if we are then not ever
getting to the deep work that we wanna do.
Sam (20:15):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (20:16):
There's also a commodity, there's a
price tag on our attention.
There's a saying that if youare not paying for something,
then you are the product.
Your attention is whatis being bought and sold.
And that is very true about socialmedia, which I'm gonna harp on because
that is one of the big distractors.
(20:37):
When you look at, for example, so I'mgonna pick on our phones for a minute.
Sam (20:42):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (20:42):
When you look at how much time we spend on our phones per day,
on average , what would you guess theaverage time spent on a mobile device?
And I'm not go nna make you pull up yourphone and show us your weekly average use.
Sam (20:57):
yes,
Christina Shenvi (20:57):
That's between you and God.
What do you think isthe average in the US?
Sam (21:02):
I'm gonna guess like,
sam_1_07-18-2025_120148 (21:04):
uh,
Sam (21:04):
five hours.
Christina Shenvi (21:05):
You're pretty spot on.
Yep.
The average is five hours and 16 minutes.
And if you look at baby boomers,currently the average is like
four hours and 20 minutes.
It increases if you're a Gen X,four hours, 48 minutes, gen Y or
millennial five and a half hours andGen Z, six and a half hours per day.
Now I hear you say, okay but I am usinga lot of that time for productivity.
(21:33):
Well, maybe, but the data would arguethat actually the sliver of time
that we spend being productive on ourphones is actually relatively small.
So from some really interestingdata on how we spend our time on our
phones only, what percentage wouldyou guess we spend on productivity?
Sam (21:53):
Oof.
20%.
Christina Shenvi (21:55):
5%.
Sam (21:57):
Gosh, you're killing me 5%.
Ugh.
Christina Shenvi (22:00):
Now there's lots of other great things we do.
17% is on streaming audioor music, so I love that.
I listen to tons of audio books ormusic while I'm at the gym or driving.
So , I'm okay with that use of my phone.
Productivity also can behelpful sometimes, although
there's some caveats there.
But we spend a whopping 37% ofthat five and a half hours or
(22:21):
five, and a quarter hours on socialmedia and 25% on entertainment.
So we need to take an honest look atour phone use and our distractions.
And it's interesting, Sam, so I went onlike a nice deep rabbit hole about this.
Why are we accessing social media?
The number one reason is boredom.
Sam (22:45):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (22:45):
when we are doing tasks that are maybe boring.
What do we do?
Well, five minutes intothe task, what do we feel?
We feel like this tingle in our brainsand our brains are like, this is boring.
I don't like boring.
I like interesting.
You know what's interesting?
My phone.
And so I encourage you to try this, liketry just moving your phone somewhere
(23:09):
where you can't reach it and sitthere and work on something and just
start a timer and notice how long isit before you reach for your phone.
Sam (23:19):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (23:19):
So , there are lots of things out there, lots of reasons
why our attention is under siege.
A lot of people are making a lotof money off of our attention.
The other thing about social mediawithout going too deep into this,
is it has a variable reward system.
Sam (23:37):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (23:38):
So you know, back to those experiments with mice or rats or
whatever, where they would press a lever.
And if you press a lever and you alwaysget a reward, it's not that addictive.
If you press a lever and younever get a reward, well you're
gonna stop that pretty quickly.
But if you press a lever and sometimesyou get a reward, like a slot machine,
that is the most addictive and thatis exactly how social media is, and
(24:01):
it's designed that way on purpose.
So we sometimes seek distraction becauseof avoiding those negative emotions.
It's easy to look at.
It's entertaining.
It gives us some dopamine.
Sometimes it's productive, right?
Sometimes we find that good deal or thatnew idea or that good book recommendation,
and it also avoids the burden of choice.
(24:24):
It avoids decision fatigue.
So hear me out with this one.
When we are working, we have todecide what am I gonna do next?
You know, we talked about that already.
Prioritizing our day.
What am I gonna do?
What am I gonna write next?
What am I gonna say in this email?
It's just constant decisions,whereas why are reels that just
(24:45):
continuously scroll so much easier?
We don't have to choose what to look at.
It's just fed to us, whichis so easy on our brains.
So that becomes a habit, thatbecomes an addiction and here's
what scares me straight eachtime from Cal Newport's book.
He says, if you spend enough time infrenetic shallowness, you can permanently
(25:09):
reduce your capacity to perform deep work.
Sam (25:12):
Wow.
Christina Shenvi (25:13):
Isn't that frightening?
Sam (25:15):
That is scary.
Good grief.
Christina Shenvi (25:16):
And I'm like, frenetic shallowness.
Oh my goodness.
That describes my day sometimes.
Sam (25:21):
Wow.
So let's say I'm already super distractedby my phone and checking it a million
times 'cause it sits on my desk right nextto me while I'm trying to do my deep work.
And it is consistently going offor consistently trying to draw my
attention away from what I'm doing.
Or if I'm doing something boring.
I'd imagine this takes some trainingand practice to develop as a skill then
(25:44):
just like anything else I'm going to do.
Christina Shenvi (25:48):
Absolutely, 100%.
Sam (25:48):
I mean, I can already feel the anxiety of putting down my phone somewhere
away from where I can't see it and notknow that something else is going on.
Christina Shenvi (25:56):
There's an aphonaphobia.
We're worried if we don'thave our phones with us.
Yes.
So here's where it starts with our minds.
So in order to focus, yes,there's lots of strategies.
I'll give you strategies, but first weneed to clear our mental environments.
So I think about, makingthe desired behavior easier.
Like let's say you're on a diet,you're really trying to cut out carbs
(26:18):
or whatever it is, you're cutting outfat, I don't care, whatever it is.
Let's say you're trying to eat healthier.
You wouldn't leave a buffet ofdonuts, cookies, and, you know,
whatever is you're poison of choice,on your kitchen counter, right?
Sam (26:35):
Right.
Christina Shenvi (26:35):
Because every single time you go by your kitchen
counter, you're gonna be tempted.
No, my kids know if there are candiesout, I will forget and I will just eat
them without even like, consciouslythink- it's like a reflux, you, you know,
walk by and I'm just gonna grab one.
So they know any sweets need to go in theoven, like the bottom oven that we don't
use except on Thanksgiving, you know,so everything has to go in the bottom
(26:59):
oven and that way it's out of sight.
I'm not gonna eat it.
We need to make the desiredbehavior easier for ourselves.
And here's three approaches, clearthe mental environment, the physical
environment, and our digital environments.
So I told you it starts withunderstanding and managing our minds.
We can't sit down and focus anddo deep work if we have a lot
(27:20):
of mental trash churning up.
And that could be benign thingslike, oh, I need to email Sam.
Oh, I need to do myreimbursement spreadsheet.
Oh, I need to buy milkwhen I'm at the store.
So all those thoughts, those are likeballs bouncing around in our heads.
We need to have a place to put thoseso we can talk strategies for that.
We need to have a system tocapture all those to-dos.
(27:43):
But then a lot of times there are otherthoughts that are getting in the way,
like oh, this is never gonna get accepted.
No one's gonna like this podcast.
Why should I spend time planning it?
Nobody's gonna listen.
If they listen, they won't like it.
They'll think I'm stupid,or whatever it is.
Whatever things we havechurning in our heads.
So we need to start with a clear mind.
(28:04):
One approach that I like, youknow, some people meditate.
That's great.
I'm not very good at meditating.
What I am good at is writing things down.
So my approach is if I feel likethere's all these things turning
around there to take five minutesand just write down all my thoughts.
Without any judgment or censure.
So write down everything andjust notice what's there.
(28:25):
Oh, interesting.
That's why I am avoiding this 'causeit's really boring, or, oh, I feel
resentful that I have to do thisbecause my department is now making
me do this or that, whatever it is.
So I am avoiding it becauseI feel resentful or I feel a
sense of institutional betrayal.
All sorts of big feelings maybe underthe surface that we don't realize.
(28:47):
So just writing them down or,you know, maybe it's coaching.
I have gotten coaching over the years.
It's been invaluable to the pointthat I was like, this is amazing.
I'm gonna get training and become acoach because it's so life altering.
Or maybe it's therapy, whatever it isfor you that helps you clear your mental
environment so that you can then focusonly on the thing that you're doing.
(29:11):
So that's the first step.
Then the second one, this isprobably the easiest, is clearing
the physical environment.
There's actually a lot of studiesthat having a clear physical
environment helps you focusbetter and make better decisions.
So just having a space, doesn't have tobe a big space, just having a space that
is under your control and is cleared.
Now, the biggest one for us askind of knowledge workers is
(29:35):
clearing our digital environment.
And there's, you mentioned Sam having, youknow, a phone next to you on your desk.
There are studies that show that havinga phone on the desk, not even, you know,
doing anything with it, just havinga phone on the desk next to you makes
you perform worse at difficult tasks.
Sam (29:55):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (29:56):
So yes.
Can we multitask?
Sure.
I can drive and listen to a podcast.
I can walk and chew gum, youknow, not to like toot my own
horn, but I can walk and chew gum.
But have you had this experiencewhen you're like trying to read
road signs and you're navigating toa place you weren't familiar with?
I have to turn the music off.
Sam (30:12):
Yes.
Christina Shenvi (30:13):
I can't.
Sam (30:13):
Yes.
Christina Shenvi (30:14):
I'm at that age.
Tell me you're in your mid forties withouttelling me you're in your mid forties.
So I have to turn the musicdown because I need to focus.
So when we're trying to do difficulttasks, like imagine trying to sing along
to lyrics and do math in your head.
No, we can't do two cognitivelychallenging tasks at the same time.
So just stowing your phone somewherewhere it is away from your arms
(30:37):
length reach is a good first step.
Clearing your digitalenvironment means also turning
off any dings or notification.
Sam (30:45):
Mm-hmm.
Christina Shenvi (30:46):
You don't need that in your life.
I would not let a coworker likebarge into my room and tap me on
the shoulder every five minutes.
And yet when we have a ding that'snotifying us, oh, you have an email, you
have a message, that's what we're doing.
Why would you let them do that?
So clearing out any sort ofthings that are gonna notify you
or distract you, close down youremail when you're trying to work on
(31:11):
something that requires deep work.
Sam (31:13):
I like that.
I like that a lot.
In fact, I was just having thisconversation with my daughter the other
day because we are in the same house.
She's a teenager and she prefers totext me whenever she needs anything.
And so I finally had to approachher and say, listen, if you need
something, come and find me.
Otherwise the texting is for when you'renot here in the house or I'm not here.
(31:34):
'Cause I'm, I'm notgonna look at my phone.
'Cause I'll get a text from her andshe'll be like, can I have this?
And then a few minutes later, Heyhello, are you gonna answer me?
I'm like, is this an emergency?
Like, what's going on?
Come find me.
But yes, I can totally empathize withthe whole, my phone is going off every
three seconds 'cause someone is, youknow, teams messaging me personal
messaging, me sending me an email,sending me a work email sending me some
(31:55):
other notification you know, DMing,me, sending me a social media post.
Whatever it is, there'salways something coming at me.
And, although I have stopped the, youknow, the dings and the vibrations
and those kinds of things, they stillpop up on my screen as notifications.
And now what I've found I'm doing isthe phone sits next to me on the desk
and , just the screen lights up and Istart getting distracted and I go, oh,
Christina Shenvi (32:18):
Yep.
Sam (32:18):
What was that?
And I look over and read it andI'm like, I'm really doing myself
a big disservice in that scenario.
So, yes.
Okay.
Christina Shenvi (32:23):
Yeah reclaim your time.
Reclaim your focus.
You know, I had a real realization.
I was speaking on the topic of focus aboutsix or seven months ago, and I realized,
well, this is not the realization, butI realized I will never be a supermodel
or a professional athlete, right?
That's not a major realization, butthe realization was, the only thing I
(32:44):
have going for me really is my mind.
And so I wanna protect Protect it andnurture it as much as I possibly can.
Just like an athlete would exercisetheir body and train their skills.
I wanna train my mental skills'cause that's what I rely on.
That's, you know, what I do andwhat my livelihood relies on.
(33:05):
And so that's part of what keepsme motivated as well as the risk of
eroding your ability to do deep work.
All right, Sam, so I've gotsome practical strategies.
Sam (33:14):
Okay, let's do it.
Christina Shenvi (33:15):
If you're ready.
All right, so clearing your mentalenvironment, one approach is to sit
down and write all your thoughts.
Clearing your digital and yourphysical environment, that's
relatively straightforward.
You also need to have a systemto manage all those open loops.
So
Sam (33:32):
Yeah.
Christina Shenvi (33:32):
let's say you're sitting there doing your deep work, you've
planned, you've time blocked, right?
You can't just do deepwork for five minutes.
That's very difficult.
So you've planned out this hour and ahalf, I'm gonna work on that big important
task, that wildly important task, andyou've silenced your phone, you've done
all the things, and then you're sittingthere and in pops the thought into
your head, oh, I need to buy milk, orI need to send that email to Christina.
(33:56):
Now that thought is drainingyour cognitive capacity.
'Cause cause we're not good atkeeping things in our head while
also focusing on what we're doing.
So we need to have a systemto capture those tasks.
And here's where sometimespeople run into challenges.
They, especially in January,they like to buy the notebook
(34:18):
that will end all notebooks.
Or they download a new app andthey're so excited, I'm gonna
put al the things in here.
Sam (34:25):
I love me a new app.
Christina Shenvi (34:27):
yeah.
And then what happens a month, two monthslater, you're like, oh, I've put all these
things in there, but I'm not really doing'em, or I'm not going back to look at it.
And so I'm gonna delete that app.
That app didn't work for me.
It's gonna go in the graveyardof apps with all the other
apps that didn't work for me.
Well, there is no perfect app.
A system needs three components.
(34:47):
You need to be able to put thingsin, organize them, and take them out.
Right.
That's all it needs.
So that could be a paper notebook.
Sure.
That could be a bulletjournal, that could be an app.
I've tried a lot of the apps.
My favorite ones are Microsoft to do.
That's the one I actually use the most.
Sam (35:03):
Really.
Okay.
Christina Shenvi (35:04):
Or Trello is also a good one.
ToDoist.
There's all pros and cons.
None of them are perfect.
None of them are exactly what I wantthem to be, There's no perfect app,
so stop waiting for the perfect one.
If you wanna use an app, great.
If you wanna use paper, great.
I've, you know, done bothover different times.
But you need a system that can thentake those things, organize them, and
(35:27):
then you can access them at the timeswhen you need it, because you don't
need the concept of, I need to buymilk, when you're sitting at your desk.
You need that when you'reat the grocery store.
Sam (35:35):
Yeah.
Christina Shenvi (35:36):
You don't need, like, I need to email this person,
when you're at the grocery store.
You need that when you're atyour computer or your phone.
So creating a system that works foryou and just continuously adapting
it, you know, whatever works the firsttime is not gonna be your final system.
So find a system that works for you.
Some other action ideas are to usesome time pressure for that project
(36:02):
or thing that you're working on.
One approach that works for a lotof people is the Pomodoro method,
which is setting a timer for 20 or30 or 50 minutes or maybe an hour and
a half, depending on how much timeyou want, using some time pressure.
So if you set a timer then nowyou're like, okay, I'm on the clock.
I've gotta keep moving.
That can help you stay focused or anotherapproach is breaking up big projects
(36:26):
into interim goals with deadlines.
This also helps with what'scalled the planning fallacy.
I don't know if you've ever heard of that.
That was coined by Daniel Kahnemanand Amos Tversky and , one of the best
examples of this is the Sydney OperaHouse, you know, that iconic building.
And that was historically opened 10years later than planned, with a budget
(36:51):
of 102 million instead of 7 million.
Sam (36:54):
Oh
Christina Shenvi (36:54):
So I'm always thankful that I've never done
something 10 years later and millionsand millions of dollars over budget
Sam (37:01):
Yeah.
Christina Shenvi (37:02):
But very often I'm like, oh yeah, I'll do this thing
in an hour, and then an hour goes byand I'm like 20% of the way through.
So if you break things down into substepsand sub categories, then you realize, oh
just this first step will take an hour.
And then the second step,how long will that take?
(37:22):
So that can help you betterstay motivated and also better
estimate the amount of time.
Sam (37:29):
So what I'm hearing is you need to design your own app so
that we can all benefit from that.
Christina Shenvi (37:36):
I don't know, man.
You know, if anyone wants to designan app with me, I'm, I'm there for it.
Sam (37:40):
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
Ladies and gentlemen.
You heard it here first on EMPlify.
It's coming to your app store immediately.
Okay, so, I need to find a system.
I'm curious now, you said you've tried allkinds of apps and all kinds of systems.
How long did it take before you found yourideal system or whatever it is you use?
Christina Shenvi (37:57):
You know, I really loved just a paper system for a long time.
And that was working well for me, butdecided I wanted to move to a digital
and I'd tried out things like Trelloand I think Todoist, maybe Google tasks.
I can't remember.
I tried a bunch of them just so Icould be familiar with them, landed on
Microsoft To Do for several reasons.
(38:20):
One is you can make differentcategories of lists.
So I have like personal things which I'llstore, for example, books to read, books
that people have recommended or you know,things that I might wanna write about.
And then I'll have my work tasks,which has various lists, some
of which are shared with otherpeople, if it's a joint project.
(38:40):
And you can assign tasksto different people.
There I'll keep track of, for example,upcoming talks that I'm giving that I
need to write, and when the due datesare for submission or just random tasks
that come into my head when I'm, youknow, about to fall asleep or walking
or driving or something, and I'll addthem to that to-do list for quick tasks.
(39:02):
And then when I'm doing my shallowwork, I can knock some of those out.
It's again, not perfect.
I like that you can organize it well,and when you check off a task, it gives a
very satisfying little ding for me, whichthat is, you know, I think in medicine
we got very programmed during residencyto have check boxes and check them off.
(39:24):
So I use that to my advantage.
I love having a checkboxand I love checking it off.
So I then try to use thatto motivate myself to do the
things that are on my list.
So again, it's not perfect,but it works for me.
Sam (39:36):
On a daily basis, when you sit down in the morning and then you're
plotting your schedule for the day andassigning deep and shallow tasks, are you
then referring back to this to-do listand looking at items that are pending?
Or are you building a new listof like, these are today's
items, or how's that working?
Christina Shenvi (39:52):
Yep.
Typically, if I have a whole day thatyou know, for example, today I have
maybe seven hours of meetings, so Idon't really have any deep work time
today, so it'll be mostly shallow tasks.
So then yes, I'll look at thatlist and say, okay, what are
the most important shallow tasksthat I need to get done today?
Or sometimes they'llcome at me through email.
Often shallow tasks come through email.
So what are the shallow tasksthat I need to get done there?
(40:13):
And then if I have more time in my daythat I'm going to be doing deeper shallow
work, then I'll maybe make a chunkof time for emails and shallow work.
There's a lot of data that, for example,if you check email continuously throughout
the day, you spend more time on email thenif you chunk your email times and say,
okay, I'm gonna do shallow work and emailsduring these times of the day because
(40:34):
we still need to make time to do it,
Sam (40:36):
Yeah.
Christina Shenvi (40:37):
But we don't want to it grow and extend into
all of our day and then not dothose other more important things
Sam (40:45):
So like I'm imagining a future where, you know, some AI, the chat GPT or
Claude or Gemini or somebody I can justturn to and say, Hey, look, I need an
hour today of deep focus on this topic.
Put this into my schedule, andthen remind me when I'm at Publix
that I need to buy some milk today
Christina Shenvi (41:02):
Absolutely.
Sam (41:02):
And just have it do it for me.
Christina Shenvi (41:04):
There are programs out there that are saying they're using AI to
help you schedule and things like that.
I have not explored those yet.
I love AI.
ChatGPT and I are BFFs, but I haven'tused it that much for actually
integrating with my schedule.
So that'll be the next iteration.
Sam (41:20):
Okay so I need, first, better control of my own mind and my own mental space.
Second, I need some kind of system toorganize my deep and shallow focus tasks.
And third, I need to make surethat I am in a distraction free
zone when I'm sitting down to domy deep tasks so that I can't get
(41:41):
distracted and taken off of track.
Does that sound like agood three steps there?
Christina Shenvi (41:46):
Absolutely.
And you can train yourbrain to focus better.
Focus is like a muscle.
So the more that we focus and the morewe train our brains, it can become our
superpower so that then you can make timefor more of the things that matter to you.
And I know, in EM especially, we oftenjoke, oh, I'm so ADHD , and I think
(42:08):
there is actually some evidence that morepeople who do have diagnoses of ADHD go
into emergency medicine because there'ssomething there that attracts them.
Sam (42:17):
The stimulation.
Christina Shenvi (42:18):
Yeah, the constant stimulation, the constant urgency.
However, the challenge is thenswitching gears to doing deep work or
something that requires deep focus.
That can feel really challenging,especially for people who have
ADHD distraction can be even moredetrimental when you're trying to focus.
(42:38):
You know, it varies.
There's a whole variety ofhow it manifests with people.
But for some people with ADHD theyhave an ability to really hyperfocus
on certain things, but distractioncan be even more detrimental.
So I think about it like a train, youknow, it takes a while to get up to speed.
If you're stopping every two miles,you're never gonna really get up to speed.
So creating a long track, working onour engines so that we can get up to
(43:03):
speed and really focus is somethingthat can help transform our ability to
be productive and to then make time forother things that are important to us.
Sam (43:14):
Awesome.
Well, honestly, this hasbeen tremendously helpful.
I don't think I've ever sat down todevote this much attention to the
process of scheduling my day andmy tasks and building the priority
of things that are important to me.
I really, really like this.
So let's say you're one of our listenersand this also resonates with you.
(43:35):
Where can they go to find youmaybe engage you as a personal
coach or take the course?
Tell me more about that.
Christina Shenvi (43:41):
Absolutely.
You know, Sam, this is the lifechanging magic of learning how to
focus and prioritize and strategize.
You can find me on my website, whichis timeforyourlife.org, and that
has a link to my online course,which has about 16 hours or 12 hours
I can't remember, of CME content.
And also you can findhow to contact me there.
(44:01):
I would love to hear from listeners.
Sam (44:03):
Awesome, and we'll put that in the show notes.
Christina, thank you so much for spendingthe time and sharing your wisdom with us.
This has been very helpful for me.
I really appreciate youbeing on the podcast.
Christina Shenvi (44:14):
It's a pleasure.
Thanks for having me, Sam.
Sam (44:15):
And that's a wrap.
Thanks for joining us forthis episode of EMPlify.
I hope you found it informative, and Iwant to remind you that ebmedicine.net
is your one stop shop for all of yourCME needs, whether that be for emergency
medicine or urgent care medicine.
There are three journals, there'stons of CME, there's lots of
courses, there's so many clinicalpathways, all this information at
(44:38):
your fingertips at ebmedicine.net.
Until next time, everyone,I'm your host, Sam Ashoo.
Be safe.
That's great that your family does not pay
you to hang out with them.
I would worry if they did.
Sam (00:04):
But what a cool job that would be.
Christina Shenvi (00:05):
But what a cool job.
Hey, if someone would pay me to hangout with my family, that'd be awesome.
Sam (00:11):
Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Amplify.
I am your host , Sam Ashoo, andI wanna thank you for being a
listener and encourage you to rateus in whatever podcast app you're
listening in so that we can get theword out there to more listeners.
And I also wanna share with you thatthere are only a few days left in EB
Medicine's special $1 for a seven daysubscription to any or even all three
(00:34):
of the journals on eb medicine.net.
That's a great deal.
If you're not already a subscriber,go there and take advantage of
this special and check us out.
You will not believe how many coursesand how many issues and how many
hours of CME you will have access to.
It's an absolutely wonderfultime saving and critical to
your practice subscription.
(00:55):
Do yourself a favor and takeadvantage of that special today.
And now let's jump intothis month's episode.
Christina Shenvi (01:03):
Nice to see you again, Sam.
My name's Christina Shenvi and I'man associate professor of Emergency
Medicine at UNC Chapel Hill.
Sam (01:09):
Fantastic.
Thanks for being on the show, Christina.
Today we're talking about focus,but before we dive into that, this
is your first time on the show andI wanna let listeners know what a
fantastically interesting person you are.
So, in addition to being inclinical emergency medicine, you
have a lot of other interests.
(01:30):
One of the biggest ones isgeriatric emergency medicine.
Tell me more about that.
Christina Shenvi (01:34):
That's right and having a lot of different projects in the air
or balls that I'm juggling at one timeis what got me really interested in
time management and then focus and howwe focus our attention and what we do.
One of the hats I wear is in GeriatricEM where I work with the geriatric ED
collaborative to help improve geriatricEM care around the country and now doing
(01:58):
a lot more internationally as well.
Some of the other hats are ineducation and educational leadership
as well as faculty development.
And then I have a lot of other side gigsor side hustles that keep life interesting
and one of those is in time management,and I got interested in that because
time management isn't something we doon the side, it's how we do everything.
(02:22):
And so in order to be productiveto do more of what we care about, I
got really interested in some of thescience behind how we spend our time.
The psychology of things likeprocrastination and focus.
And I created an online courseall about time management.
Sam (02:38):
Wow.
And somehow you're using allof that information for your
multiple interests as well.
And it must be working becauseyou're quite successful.
You have your ownpodcast as well, correct?
Christina Shenvi (02:49):
Yep, I run a podcast.
You know, I can say that it's thebest Geriatric EM podcast in the
world because it is in fact the onlyGeriatric EM podcast in the world.
But also I have the privilege ofinterviewing a lot of experts in
the field and love to share thatinformation with the listeners.
Sam (03:06):
Fantastic.
Well, in addition to being anaccomplished physician, speaker,
and educator, tell me what got youinterested in time management and focus.
Christina Shenvi (03:17):
Well, for about five years I was directing an
office at UNC that supported our800 medical students academically
So I was working with a lot of studentson how to study, how to work well,
and a lot of it came down to thesechallenges of focus and time management.
They would get distracted or theywould put things off, or they
(03:38):
didn't know how to prioritize.
What to work on.
And so I did hours and hours of coaching,hundreds of students, one-on-one, and
then I started putting it together andhow can I make this into a workshop
or a course that I can teach them?
And then I started talking aboutit at national conferences, and it
(03:59):
seemed to really resonate with people.
And I got asked by a physicianup in Canada to create a four
week course for her faculty.
And so that grew into then somethingthat I've run at many different
institutions as well as run on my own.
And then I built it outinto an online course.
So got interested in it through thatpathway, but really just love working
(04:24):
with people and trying to help themget more fulfillment in what they do.
It's not about like, here's a calendar,here's a scheduling spreadsheet,
here's how to track your time.
I mean, those can be useful tools,but it's really the punchline
is it's about managing your mindfirst, and then managing your time
(04:44):
and your attention and your focus.
Sam (04:47):
And is this always specific to people in medicine or
people in all walks of life?
Christina Shenvi (04:51):
I've worked with mostly physicians, but also
other high performing individuals.
So the focus is on people who areprofessionals, high performing, want
to do more of what matters, but alsowant to have time to travel or spend
with their kids or do other things.
Sam (05:06):
And when you're talking about trying to find time to do the things
that you want to do, this can becareer or non-career oriented.
Christina Shenvi (05:16):
Correct.
The skillset is the same.
Sam (05:18):
Awesome.
Awesome.
And when we talk about it to an audienceof, say, emergency medicine physicians who
are listening today or perhaps residents,people in training, we've also got some
people who are other ki nds of clinicians.
There are PAs and nurse practitioners allkind of trying to juggle a busy clinical
practice maybe in training and thenperhaps married, perhaps have children,
(05:40):
perhaps have other outside interests.
How is it that someone goes about tryingto prioritize or categorize all of that
in their life when they're talking aboutthings like focusing on what to do next?
Christina Shenvi (05:53):
Yes.
Well, here is a framework that I liketo use when I'm thinking about focus.
Now we can't cover everythingin time management here in
one hour or one podcast.
But this topic of focus, just gettingthis down, can really be a good entry
point into making a lot of other changes.
So here's my frameworkfor thinking about focus.
(06:14):
It is prioritize, strategize, and focus.
So we can walk through that andkind of unpack it a little bit.
Sam (06:20):
yeah.
Christina Shenvi (06:21):
Prioritizing means first, are you doing the right things?
Are you doing the things thatmatter to you, or are you spending
a lot of time on low value things?
The Pareto concept, the 80 20 concept of,you know, spend 80% of the time on that
20% that really matters the most insteadof kind of spending most of our time on
the 20% that doesn't matter . So, firstprioritizing, and this can take the form
(06:47):
of stepping back and saying, all right,what are all those things that I'm doing?
First, just list them all out.
I'm doing clinical shifts.
I'm running this you know,I'll list some of them for me.
I run a program called Flagship.
That's a nine month facultydevelopment program.
I co-direct the ACEP teaching fellowship.
I'm speaking at these coming, you know,10 things in the next three months.
I have four kids and I have variousthings that they're doing that I want
(07:11):
to be involved in or that I need todrop them off, you know, and, and do.
So these are first, just listall the things that you're doing.
And one framework I like to use when itcomes to prioritization is the framework
called Ikigai, which has become morepopular these days, but it's the idea,
if you can imagine a Venn diagram ofwhat you love, what you're good at,
(07:35):
what the world needs, and what you'rebeing paid for or can be paid for.
So think about that Venndiagram with overlap.
And what I like to do is thenmap onto it all those things
that I listed that I'm doing.
So some of them fit right in the middle.
I love it.
The world needs it.
Meaning like it's making an impact orit's important, it's making a difference.
(07:56):
So I love it.
The world needs it.
I'm good at it.
I'm, you know, working in my strengths.
I find that flow state when I'm workingon it and I'm being paid for it.
That is the perfect centerwhere everything aligns.
I wanna do more things thatalign with all those circles.
Now there are many thingsthat we may do and love.
(08:16):
Maybe it's, you know, coachingyour kids little league or
soccer practice or something.
Does the world need it?
Okay.
Yeah.
Broadly speaking, you're makinga difference in kids' lives.
Are you good at it?
Well, you don't have to be thebest soccer player in the world
to coach your kids' soccer team.
Do you love it?
Yes.
Will you be paid for it?
No.
But it could be a really highvalue thing for you because
(08:38):
it meets those other criteria.
S o for me, just listing those thingsout then helps me understand what
are those really high value thingsthat I care about versus what are
things that are low value to me.
Maybe it's a committee that I'm on thatI really need to gracefully exit from, or
(08:59):
maybe it's certain personal administrationwork, like home administration work that
I really don't like, or maybe it's workadmin tasks that I want to then say either
outsource or some things maybe I can'toutsource I wanna do them as quickly
and efficiently as humanly possible.
(09:19):
Or maybe if I can, I wanna takethem off my plate altogether.
So first is just sitting down,understanding yourself, understanding
what you're doing, and understandingwhat you want to be doing, and that's how
you can start to big picture prioritize.
Which then can feed you intokind of prioritizing your day.
(09:40):
So I'm curious for you, Sam, whatwould that look like for you?
What are those things that like map rightin the middle of the circle for you?
Sam (09:47):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a great question.
I mean, things I'm involvedwith, obviously this podcast in
EB Medicine, which is somethingI thoroughly enjoy doing.
And then , there area ton of other things.
You know, I enjoy the martial arts.
That's a hobby.
I get to do that with my children.
It's definitely somethingI'm not getting paid to do.
But I'd say that's a prettyhigh priority for me.
(10:07):
Spending time with my family is,I think, at the top of the list.
Again, not something I'm gettingpaid to do, but something
I find of great high value.
The administrative stuff yeah, there'sa lot of that kinda administrative,
nonclinical medical stuff that I dothat I don't really have a passion for.
(10:27):
But it pays the bills and so,it can be challenging sometimes
trying to build a priority list.
So I've got a lot ofthings that I enjoy doing.
I've even got some things I enjoydoing, I just don't have time to do.
Playing music is one of them.
You know, I would say I valueit, but not above anything else
that I've already mentioned.
And so it often falls off the list, but ifI could, I would spend more time doing it.
(10:50):
Yeah, so then if I've got all of thesethings that I value and some I want
to be doing, some I maybe would chooseto do less of, but they pay the bills.
Then, what would be thenext step in that focus?
Is it better to kind of check off theones that are maybe not of high value and
(11:11):
get 'em done as quickly as possible, orto put those off until the end and spend
more time doing the things that I enjoy.
Christina Shenvi (11:18):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
So you've got your priorities.
Check.
And that's great that your family doesnot pay you to hang out with them.
I would worry if they did.
Sam (11:27):
But what a cool job that would be.
Christina Shenvi (11:28):
But what a cool job.
Hey, if someone would pay me to hangout with my family, that'd be awesome.
So you've got your prioritiesand this is now where focus
can help you unlock more time.
Because let's say you sit downfor your day and you've got
all these things you could do.
Well, now you need to strategize,well, what am I going to choose
(11:49):
to do of all these things.
You could plan your next podcast.
You could go hang out withyour kids and skip off work.
You could do your chartsand your admin tasks.
Well, now you need to strategize.
What are you going to do?
And this is where focus can really help.
First of all, focusing just todo that executive functioning
of planning your day.
But then second of all, let's lookat, for example, a high value task.
(12:12):
Like maybe for you that's planningout your podcast or something, you
know, content that you're creatingfor EB Medicine that you love.
If you can focus really well and do thatwork in two hours, focusing, using all
your attention, you can maybe get thatdone in two hours as opposed to not really
(12:32):
focusing, kind of also checking youremails, also bouncing around to different
things, and then it takes four hours.
One of my favorite books about focusis Cal Newport's book Deep Work, and
in that book he gives this equation.
The high value work that youproduce equals time spent
times intensity of focus.
(12:52):
So I could spend four hours with lowfocus and get the work done, or two hours
in high focus and get that work done.
So that's just the first broadidea for how you can apply it
to your deep, high value work.
But then all these shallow taskslike, you know, for me, submitting
reimbursement receipts, planningmy travel, you know logistics and
(13:15):
hotels, all those types of things.
Similarly, if I can take those lowvalue tasks, let's say I have four
hours of low value tasks to get done.
If I can do each hour's worthof work in 45 minutes, in four
hours, I've saved an entire hour.
So those small changes inefficiency, because most things
(13:37):
that you do in an hour, an hourlong meeting, an hour of emails.
If I can really focus and work quickly andget it done in 45 minutes, that doesn't
seem like a big shift, but in eighthours, that's two whole hours of your day.
So that's pretty incredible to me.
So, all right, Sam, we'vegot your priorities.
Now you're gonna sit downand strategize for the day.
(13:58):
Okay.
So one approach is to write down all thethings that you could do that day, and
then look at them and say, all right,which things require a deep focus.
Which things really are gonna requirelike more than 45 minutes or so.
Maybe it's, you know, planninga presentation or creating some
(14:20):
content, writing an article, writinga grant, something like that.
Those you're gonna call deep work.
And then other tasks that maybe don'trequire all your focus, maybe lower impact
tasks, we're gonna call shallow work.
So now you can think aboutarchitecting your day so that
you can apply your focus best.
So for me, for example, what I'll dois write down the things that I could
(14:44):
do that day, like things that maybeare coming up that are due or things
that you know, somebody's emailedme and I need to respond to and do.
And I'll categorize themby deep or shallow work.
And then I'll prioritize them.
So with that deep work, what are thetop three or four things in order
that are most important to get done.
(15:05):
And you could think about that with,you know, a two by two matrix of
what's urgent and what's important.
Or you'll just have a senseof, okay, this is due soon.
I need to get this done.
This is high priority.
You're gonna prioritize them.
And then I know for myself, I workbest kind of first thing early to
midmorning, like from when I startwork, if that's 9:00 AM 9:00 AM to noon.
(15:29):
I can get a good solid three hours ofwork done there, so I'll prioritize
my deep work during that time.
I know I've worked with some peoplewho say they work really well at
5:00 AM before their family gets up.
So they will get up at 5:00 AMfrom five to seven they'll get some
deep work done, more power to them.
That is not me.
I know that from nine to 12.
That's my like sweet spot.
(15:50):
So I try to protect that time,not scheduling meetings for that
time if possible, and I willthen prioritize that deep work.
And then you still need to havetime to do the shallow work.
So that might mean, you know, forme, one approach is when I'm eating
lunch around noon or 1230, thenI'll shoot off some of those emails
(16:13):
or do some of that shallow work.
But by looking at your work throughthat lens of what requires a deep focus
and what is high priority, then youcan start to time block in your day.
So from nine to 10:00AM I'll work on this.
10 to 11, I'll work on that.
Or maybe it's a bigger project,it'll take two or three hours and
you can start to time block out,this is what I'm going to aim to do.
(16:35):
So that's one approach.
How do you think that would work for you,looking at what you have on your plate?
Sam (16:40):
So I like it.
But I'm wondering now, howmuch time are you spending in
the categorization process?
Like every morning you sitdown and do this, or are you
just projecting out a week?
Or how do you go about doing that?
Christina Shenvi (16:51):
It varies kind of depending on how
much time I have in a day.
And here, for this purpose, we'renot talking about clinical work.
We're talking aboutlike those other things.
If you have a whole day or a half daywhere you're like, okay, I'm going
to get all these other things done.
I will, if I have a whole day ahead ofme, sit down at the start of the day and
write out, you know, deep work, here'sthe four or five deep work tasks that
(17:13):
I could do, and now let me prioritizethem, and shallow work, here's the
three or four shallow work tasks.
And the nice thing about that is thenif something pops into my head, like,
oh shoot, I've gotta email Sam aboutthe podcast we're recording, then I
can add that to my shallow work tasks.
And when I come to the shallow work, Ican knock it out so that when I'm deep in
the deep work, if something pops into myhead as a reminder, I don't have to then
(17:37):
do it right away or keep it in my head.
I can write it down and do it later.
So that's one approach.
Or if I know oh, I have Tuesday afternoonfree, I have Thursday morning free, then
I can, you know, block out ahead of time,maybe the week ahead, what I'm doing.
It really doesn't take that much time.
Sam (17:54):
And when you're deep in the deep work, this is like time where
you've silenced your phone, put thataway, no one can get to you unless
it's an emergency kind of thing.
No distractions.
Christina Shenvi (18:04):
Perfect.
So we've prioritized, we've strategized.
Now, how do you actually focus?
So if you've set aside, all right,Tuesday morning, you're gonna work on
that podcast or you're gonna work onthat grant, how do you actually focus?
And part of it is definitelyreducing distractions . There's a
lot of literature on distractionand procrastination and psychology.
(18:25):
Even I've read some literature fromkind of the IT world about this.
It's really fascinating.
And in thinking about it,why do we distract ourselves?
Why do we get so distracted?
We check our phones on average, thisis from twenty twenty four, three
hundred and forty four times a day.
Sam (18:44):
Wow.
Christina Shenvi (18:44):
When we are in the office on email, we check
our email every two minutes.
What is going on?
I think there's several things.
One is that often we wannaavoid the negative emotions that
may come up with other work.
So for example, let's say we're workingon that grant and we're like, Ugh,
this is really overwhelming, or thisis frustrating, or this is boring.
(19:08):
Or maybe we're writing a paper andwe're like, Ugh, why am I doing this?
It's never gonna get accepted.
We have a lot of self-doubt.
We want to avoid those negative emotions.
So what do we do?
Sometimes we go to TikTok orInstagram or Facebook or whatever.
Other times we go to, let mejust knock out a few emails.
Sam (19:27):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (19:27):
So most often when I've worked with now hundreds of physicians
and other professionals, when I talk withthem about what do they do when they are
seeking distraction, often it's shallowwork, so they'll go to their emails
because there's a sense of satisfactionfrom knocking out a few easy emails.
That feels a lot easier than thehard work of writing that paper,
(19:50):
writing that grant, writing that bookchapter, creating that PowerPoint.
So sometimes we avoid things becausewe want to avoid the negative emotions.
Sam (19:58):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (19:59):
Other times though, we feel like, you know, it's productive.
I get a sense of being productive if I cancheck off a few items on the to-do list or
emails, and that's not bad, but it becomesmaladaptive if we are then not ever
getting to the deep work that we wanna do.
Sam (20:15):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (20:16):
There's also a commodity, there's a
price tag on our attention.
There's a saying that if youare not paying for something,
then you are the product.
Your attention is whatis being bought and sold.
And that is very true about socialmedia, which I'm gonna harp on because
that is one of the big distractors.
(20:37):
When you look at, for example, so I'mgonna pick on our phones for a minute.
Sam (20:42):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (20:42):
When you look at how much time we spend on our phones per day,
on average , what would you guess theaverage time spent on a mobile device?
And I'm not go nna make you pull up yourphone and show us your weekly average use.
Sam (20:57):
yes,
Christina Shenvi (20:57):
That's between you and God.
What do you think isthe average in the US?
Sam (21:02):
I'm gonna guess like,
sam_1_07-18-2025_120148 (21:04):
uh,
Sam (21:04):
five hours.
Christina Shenvi (21:05):
You're pretty spot on.
Yep.
The average is five hours and 16 minutes.
And if you look at baby boomers,currently the average is like
four hours and 20 minutes.
It increases if you're a Gen X,four hours, 48 minutes, gen Y or
millennial five and a half hours andGen Z, six and a half hours per day.
Now I hear you say, okay but I am usinga lot of that time for productivity.
(21:33):
Well, maybe, but the data would arguethat actually the sliver of time
that we spend being productive on ourphones is actually relatively small.
So from some really interestingdata on how we spend our time on our
phones only, what percentage wouldyou guess we spend on productivity?
Sam (21:53):
Oof.
20%.
Christina Shenvi (21:55):
5%.
Sam (21:57):
Gosh, you're killing me 5%.
Ugh.
Christina Shenvi (22:00):
Now there's lots of other great things we do.
17% is on streaming audioor music, so I love that.
I listen to tons of audio books ormusic while I'm at the gym or driving.
So , I'm okay with that use of my phone.
Productivity also can behelpful sometimes, although
there's some caveats there.
But we spend a whopping 37% ofthat five and a half hours or
(22:21):
five, and a quarter hours on socialmedia and 25% on entertainment.
So we need to take an honest look atour phone use and our distractions.
And it's interesting, Sam, so I went onlike a nice deep rabbit hole about this.
Why are we accessing social media?
The number one reason is boredom.
Sam (22:45):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (22:45):
when we are doing tasks that are maybe boring.
What do we do?
Well, five minutes intothe task, what do we feel?
We feel like this tingle in our brainsand our brains are like, this is boring.
I don't like boring.
I like interesting.
You know what's interesting?
My phone.
And so I encourage you to try this, liketry just moving your phone somewhere
(23:09):
where you can't reach it and sitthere and work on something and just
start a timer and notice how long isit before you reach for your phone.
Sam (23:19):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (23:19):
So , there are lots of things out there, lots of reasons
why our attention is under siege.
A lot of people are making a lotof money off of our attention.
The other thing about social mediawithout going too deep into this,
is it has a variable reward system.
Sam (23:37):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (23:38):
So you know, back to those experiments with mice or rats or
whatever, where they would press a lever.
And if you press a lever and you alwaysget a reward, it's not that addictive.
If you press a lever and younever get a reward, well you're
gonna stop that pretty quickly.
But if you press a lever and sometimesyou get a reward, like a slot machine,
that is the most addictive and thatis exactly how social media is, and
(24:01):
it's designed that way on purpose.
So we sometimes seek distraction becauseof avoiding those negative emotions.
It's easy to look at.
It's entertaining.
It gives us some dopamine.
Sometimes it's productive, right?
Sometimes we find that good deal or thatnew idea or that good book recommendation,
and it also avoids the burden of choice.
(24:24):
It avoids decision fatigue.
So hear me out with this one.
When we are working, we have todecide what am I gonna do next?
You know, we talked about that already.
Prioritizing our day.
What am I gonna do?
What am I gonna write next?
What am I gonna say in this email?
It's just constant decisions,whereas why are reels that just
(24:45):
continuously scroll so much easier?
We don't have to choose what to look at.
It's just fed to us, whichis so easy on our brains.
So that becomes a habit, thatbecomes an addiction and here's
what scares me straight eachtime from Cal Newport's book.
He says, if you spend enough time infrenetic shallowness, you can permanently
(25:09):
reduce your capacity to perform deep work.
Sam (25:12):
Wow.
Christina Shenvi (25:13):
Isn't that frightening?
Sam (25:15):
That is scary.
Good grief.
Christina Shenvi (25:16):
And I'm like, frenetic shallowness.
Oh my goodness.
That describes my day sometimes.
Sam (25:21):
Wow.
So let's say I'm already super distractedby my phone and checking it a million
times 'cause it sits on my desk right nextto me while I'm trying to do my deep work.
And it is consistently going offor consistently trying to draw my
attention away from what I'm doing.
Or if I'm doing something boring.
I'd imagine this takes some trainingand practice to develop as a skill then
(25:44):
just like anything else I'm going to do.
Christina Shenvi (25:48):
Absolutely, 100%.
Sam (25:48):
I mean, I can already feel the anxiety of putting down my phone somewhere
away from where I can't see it and notknow that something else is going on.
Christina Shenvi (25:56):
There's an aphonaphobia.
We're worried if we don'thave our phones with us.
Yes.
So here's where it starts with our minds.
So in order to focus, yes,there's lots of strategies.
I'll give you strategies, but first weneed to clear our mental environments.
So I think about, makingthe desired behavior easier.
Like let's say you're on a diet,you're really trying to cut out carbs
(26:18):
or whatever it is, you're cutting outfat, I don't care, whatever it is.
Let's say you're trying to eat healthier.
You wouldn't leave a buffet ofdonuts, cookies, and, you know,
whatever is you're poison of choice,on your kitchen counter, right?
Sam (26:35):
Right.
Christina Shenvi (26:35):
Because every single time you go by your kitchen
counter, you're gonna be tempted.
No, my kids know if there are candiesout, I will forget and I will just eat
them without even like, consciouslythink- it's like a reflux, you, you know,
walk by and I'm just gonna grab one.
So they know any sweets need to go in theoven, like the bottom oven that we don't
use except on Thanksgiving, you know,so everything has to go in the bottom
(26:59):
oven and that way it's out of sight.
I'm not gonna eat it.
We need to make the desiredbehavior easier for ourselves.
And here's three approaches, clearthe mental environment, the physical
environment, and our digital environments.
So I told you it starts withunderstanding and managing our minds.
We can't sit down and focus anddo deep work if we have a lot
(27:20):
of mental trash churning up.
And that could be benign thingslike, oh, I need to email Sam.
Oh, I need to do myreimbursement spreadsheet.
Oh, I need to buy milkwhen I'm at the store.
So all those thoughts, those are likeballs bouncing around in our heads.
We need to have a place to put thoseso we can talk strategies for that.
We need to have a system tocapture all those to-dos.
(27:43):
But then a lot of times there are otherthoughts that are getting in the way,
like oh, this is never gonna get accepted.
No one's gonna like this podcast.
Why should I spend time planning it?
Nobody's gonna listen.
If they listen, they won't like it.
They'll think I'm stupid,or whatever it is.
Whatever things we havechurning in our heads.
So we need to start with a clear mind.
(28:04):
One approach that I like, youknow, some people meditate.
That's great.
I'm not very good at meditating.
What I am good at is writing things down.
So my approach is if I feel likethere's all these things turning
around there to take five minutesand just write down all my thoughts.
Without any judgment or censure.
So write down everything andjust notice what's there.
(28:25):
Oh, interesting.
That's why I am avoiding this 'causeit's really boring, or, oh, I feel
resentful that I have to do thisbecause my department is now making
me do this or that, whatever it is.
So I am avoiding it becauseI feel resentful or I feel a
sense of institutional betrayal.
All sorts of big feelings maybe underthe surface that we don't realize.
(28:47):
So just writing them down or,you know, maybe it's coaching.
I have gotten coaching over the years.
It's been invaluable to the pointthat I was like, this is amazing.
I'm gonna get training and become acoach because it's so life altering.
Or maybe it's therapy, whatever it isfor you that helps you clear your mental
environment so that you can then focusonly on the thing that you're doing.
(29:11):
So that's the first step.
Then the second one, this isprobably the easiest, is clearing
the physical environment.
There's actually a lot of studiesthat having a clear physical
environment helps you focusbetter and make better decisions.
So just having a space, doesn't have tobe a big space, just having a space that
is under your control and is cleared.
Now, the biggest one for us askind of knowledge workers is
(29:35):
clearing our digital environment.
And there's, you mentioned Sam having, youknow, a phone next to you on your desk.
There are studies that show that havinga phone on the desk, not even, you know,
doing anything with it, just havinga phone on the desk next to you makes
you perform worse at difficult tasks.
Sam (29:55):
Hmm.
Christina Shenvi (29:56):
So yes.
Can we multitask?
Sure.
I can drive and listen to a podcast.
I can walk and chew gum, youknow, not to like toot my own
horn, but I can walk and chew gum.
But have you had this experiencewhen you're like trying to read
road signs and you're navigating toa place you weren't familiar with?
I have to turn the music off.
Sam (30:12):
Yes.
Christina Shenvi (30:13):
I can't.
Sam (30:13):
Yes.
Christina Shenvi (30:14):
I'm at that age.
Tell me you're in your mid forties withouttelling me you're in your mid forties.
So I have to turn the musicdown because I need to focus.
So when we're trying to do difficulttasks, like imagine trying to sing along
to lyrics and do math in your head.
No, we can't do two cognitivelychallenging tasks at the same time.
So just stowing your phone somewherewhere it is away from your arms
(30:37):
length reach is a good first step.
Clearing your digitalenvironment means also turning
off any dings or notification.
Sam (30:45):
Mm-hmm.
Christina Shenvi (30:46):
You don't need that in your life.
I would not let a coworker likebarge into my room and tap me on
the shoulder every five minutes.
And yet when we have a ding that'snotifying us, oh, you have an email, you
have a message, that's what we're doing.
Why would you let them do that?
So clearing out any sort ofthings that are gonna notify you
or distract you, close down youremail when you're trying to work on
(31:11):
something that requires deep work.
Sam (31:13):
I like that.
I like that a lot.
In fact, I was just having thisconversation with my daughter the other
day because we are in the same house.
She's a teenager and she prefers totext me whenever she needs anything.
And so I finally had to approachher and say, listen, if you need
something, come and find me.
Otherwise the texting is for when you'renot here in the house or I'm not here.
(31:34):
'Cause I'm, I'm notgonna look at my phone.
'Cause I'll get a text from her andshe'll be like, can I have this?
And then a few minutes later, Heyhello, are you gonna answer me?
I'm like, is this an emergency?
Like, what's going on?
Come find me.
But yes, I can totally empathize withthe whole, my phone is going off every
three seconds 'cause someone is, youknow, teams messaging me personal
messaging, me sending me an email,sending me a work email sending me some
(31:55):
other notification you know, DMing,me, sending me a social media post.
Whatever it is, there'salways something coming at me.
And, although I have stopped the, youknow, the dings and the vibrations
and those kinds of things, they stillpop up on my screen as notifications.
And now what I've found I'm doing isthe phone sits next to me on the desk
and , just the screen lights up and Istart getting distracted and I go, oh,
Christina Shenvi (32:18):
Yep.
Sam (32:18):
What was that?
And I look over and read it andI'm like, I'm really doing myself
a big disservice in that scenario.
So, yes.
Okay.
Christina Shenvi (32:23):
Yeah reclaim your time.
Reclaim your focus.
You know, I had a real realization.
I was speaking on the topic of focus aboutsix or seven months ago, and I realized,
well, this is not the realization, butI realized I will never be a supermodel
or a professional athlete, right?
That's not a major realization, butthe realization was, the only thing I
(32:44):
have going for me really is my mind.
And so I wanna protect Protect it andnurture it as much as I possibly can.
Just like an athlete would exercisetheir body and train their skills.
I wanna train my mental skills'cause that's what I rely on.
That's, you know, what I do andwhat my livelihood relies on.
(33:05):
And so that's part of what keepsme motivated as well as the risk of
eroding your ability to do deep work.
All right, Sam, so I've gotsome practical strategies.
Sam (33:14):
Okay, let's do it.
Christina Shenvi (33:15):
If you're ready.
All right, so clearing your mentalenvironment, one approach is to sit
down and write all your thoughts.
Clearing your digital and yourphysical environment, that's
relatively straightforward.
You also need to have a systemto manage all those open loops.
So
Sam (33:32):
Yeah.
Christina Shenvi (33:32):
let's say you're sitting there doing your deep work, you've
planned, you've time blocked, right?
You can't just do deepwork for five minutes.
That's very difficult.
So you've planned out this hour and ahalf, I'm gonna work on that big important
task, that wildly important task, andyou've silenced your phone, you've done
all the things, and then you're sittingthere and in pops the thought into
your head, oh, I need to buy milk, orI need to send that email to Christina.
(33:56):
Now that thought is drainingyour cognitive capacity.
'Cause cause we're not good atkeeping things in our head while
also focusing on what we're doing.
So we need to have a systemto capture those tasks.
And here's where sometimespeople run into challenges.
They, especially in January,they like to buy the notebook
(34:18):
that will end all notebooks.
Or they download a new app andthey're so excited, I'm gonna
put al the things in here.
Sam (34:25):
I love me a new app.
Christina Shenvi (34:27):
yeah.
And then what happens a month, two monthslater, you're like, oh, I've put all these
things in there, but I'm not really doing'em, or I'm not going back to look at it.
And so I'm gonna delete that app.
That app didn't work for me.
It's gonna go in the graveyardof apps with all the other
apps that didn't work for me.
Well, there is no perfect app.
A system needs three components.
(34:47):
You need to be able to put thingsin, organize them, and take them out.
Right.
That's all it needs.
So that could be a paper notebook.
Sure.
That could be a bulletjournal, that could be an app.
I've tried a lot of the apps.
My favorite ones are Microsoft to do.
That's the one I actually use the most.
Sam (35:03):
Really.
Okay.
Christina Shenvi (35:04):
Or Trello is also a good one.
ToDoist.
There's all pros and cons.
None of them are perfect.
None of them are exactly what I wantthem to be, There's no perfect app,
so stop waiting for the perfect one.
If you wanna use an app, great.
If you wanna use paper, great.
I've, you know, done bothover different times.
But you need a system that can thentake those things, organize them, and
(35:27):
then you can access them at the timeswhen you need it, because you don't
need the concept of, I need to buymilk, when you're sitting at your desk.
You need that when you'reat the grocery store.
Sam (35:35):
Yeah.
Christina Shenvi (35:36):
You don't need, like, I need to email this person,
when you're at the grocery store.
You need that when you're atyour computer or your phone.
So creating a system that works foryou and just continuously adapting
it, you know, whatever works the firsttime is not gonna be your final system.
So find a system that works for you.
Some other action ideas are to usesome time pressure for that project
(36:02):
or thing that you're working on.
One approach that works for a lotof people is the Pomodoro method,
which is setting a timer for 20 or30 or 50 minutes or maybe an hour and
a half, depending on how much timeyou want, using some time pressure.
So if you set a timer then nowyou're like, okay, I'm on the clock.
I've gotta keep moving.
That can help you stay focused or anotherapproach is breaking up big projects
(36:26):
into interim goals with deadlines.
This also helps with what'scalled the planning fallacy.
I don't know if you've ever heard of that.
That was coined by Daniel Kahnemanand Amos Tversky and , one of the best
examples of this is the Sydney OperaHouse, you know, that iconic building.
And that was historically opened 10years later than planned, with a budget
(36:51):
of 102 million instead of 7 million.
Sam (36:54):
Oh
Christina Shenvi (36:54):
So I'm always thankful that I've never done
something 10 years later and millionsand millions of dollars over budget
Sam (37:01):
Yeah.
Christina Shenvi (37:02):
But very often I'm like, oh yeah, I'll do this thing
in an hour, and then an hour goes byand I'm like 20% of the way through.
So if you break things down into substepsand sub categories, then you realize, oh
just this first step will take an hour.
And then the second step,how long will that take?
(37:22):
So that can help you betterstay motivated and also better
estimate the amount of time.
Sam (37:29):
So what I'm hearing is you need to design your own app so
that we can all benefit from that.
Christina Shenvi (37:36):
I don't know, man.
You know, if anyone wants to designan app with me, I'm, I'm there for it.
Sam (37:40):
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
Ladies and gentlemen.
You heard it here first on EMPlify.
It's coming to your app store immediately.
Okay, so, I need to find a system.
I'm curious now, you said you've tried allkinds of apps and all kinds of systems.
How long did it take before you found yourideal system or whatever it is you use?
Christina Shenvi (37:57):
You know, I really loved just a paper system for a long time.
And that was working well for me, butdecided I wanted to move to a digital
and I'd tried out things like Trelloand I think Todoist, maybe Google tasks.
I can't remember.
I tried a bunch of them just so Icould be familiar with them, landed on
Microsoft To Do for several reasons.
(38:20):
One is you can make differentcategories of lists.
So I have like personal things which I'llstore, for example, books to read, books
that people have recommended or you know,things that I might wanna write about.
And then I'll have my work tasks,which has various lists, some
of which are shared with otherpeople, if it's a joint project.
(38:40):
And you can assign tasksto different people.
There I'll keep track of, for example,upcoming talks that I'm giving that I
need to write, and when the due datesare for submission or just random tasks
that come into my head when I'm, youknow, about to fall asleep or walking
or driving or something, and I'll addthem to that to-do list for quick tasks.
(39:02):
And then when I'm doing my shallowwork, I can knock some of those out.
It's again, not perfect.
I like that you can organize it well,and when you check off a task, it gives a
very satisfying little ding for me, whichthat is, you know, I think in medicine
we got very programmed during residencyto have check boxes and check them off.
(39:24):
So I use that to my advantage.
I love having a checkboxand I love checking it off.
So I then try to use thatto motivate myself to do the
things that are on my list.
So again, it's not perfect,but it works for me.
Sam (39:36):
On a daily basis, when you sit down in the morning and then you're
plotting your schedule for the day andassigning deep and shallow tasks, are you
then referring back to this to-do listand looking at items that are pending?
Or are you building a new listof like, these are today's
items, or how's that working?
Christina Shenvi (39:52):
Yep.
Typically, if I have a whole day thatyou know, for example, today I have
maybe seven hours of meetings, so Idon't really have any deep work time
today, so it'll be mostly shallow tasks.
So then yes, I'll look at thatlist and say, okay, what are
the most important shallow tasksthat I need to get done today?
Or sometimes they'llcome at me through email.
Often shallow tasks come through email.
So what are the shallow tasksthat I need to get done there?
(40:13):
And then if I have more time in my daythat I'm going to be doing deeper shallow
work, then I'll maybe make a chunkof time for emails and shallow work.
There's a lot of data that, for example,if you check email continuously throughout
the day, you spend more time on email thenif you chunk your email times and say,
okay, I'm gonna do shallow work and emailsduring these times of the day because
(40:34):
we still need to make time to do it,
Sam (40:36):
Yeah.
Christina Shenvi (40:37):
But we don't want to it grow and extend into
all of our day and then not dothose other more important things
Sam (40:45):
So like I'm imagining a future where, you know, some AI, the chat GPT or
Claude or Gemini or somebody I can justturn to and say, Hey, look, I need an
hour today of deep focus on this topic.
Put this into my schedule, andthen remind me when I'm at Publix
that I need to buy some milk today
Christina Shenvi (41:02):
Absolutely.
Sam (41:02):
And just have it do it for me.
Christina Shenvi (41:04):
There are programs out there that are saying they're using AI to
help you schedule and things like that.
I have not explored those yet.
I love AI.
ChatGPT and I are BFFs, but I haven'tused it that much for actually
integrating with my schedule.
So that'll be the next iteration.
Sam (41:20):
Okay so I need, first, better control of my own mind and my own mental space.
Second, I need some kind of system toorganize my deep and shallow focus tasks.
And third, I need to make surethat I am in a distraction free
zone when I'm sitting down to domy deep tasks so that I can't get
(41:41):
distracted and taken off of track.
Does that sound like agood three steps there?
Christina Shenvi (41:46):
Absolutely.
And you can train yourbrain to focus better.
Focus is like a muscle.
So the more that we focus and the morewe train our brains, it can become our
superpower so that then you can make timefor more of the things that matter to you.
And I know, in EM especially, we oftenjoke, oh, I'm so ADHD , and I think
(42:08):
there is actually some evidence that morepeople who do have diagnoses of ADHD go
into emergency medicine because there'ssomething there that attracts them.
Sam (42:17):
The stimulation.
Christina Shenvi (42:18):
Yeah, the constant stimulation, the constant urgency.
However, the challenge is thenswitching gears to doing deep work or
something that requires deep focus.
That can feel really challenging,especially for people who have
ADHD distraction can be even moredetrimental when you're trying to focus.
(42:38):
You know, it varies.
There's a whole variety ofhow it manifests with people.
But for some people with ADHD theyhave an ability to really hyperfocus
on certain things, but distractioncan be even more detrimental.
So I think about it like a train, youknow, it takes a while to get up to speed.
If you're stopping every two miles,you're never gonna really get up to speed.
So creating a long track, working onour engines so that we can get up to
(43:03):
speed and really focus is somethingthat can help transform our ability to
be productive and to then make time forother things that are important to us.
Sam (43:14):
Awesome.
Well, honestly, this hasbeen tremendously helpful.
I don't think I've ever sat down todevote this much attention to the
process of scheduling my day andmy tasks and building the priority
of things that are important to me.
I really, really like this.
So let's say you're one of our listenersand this also resonates with you.
(43:35):
Where can they go to find youmaybe engage you as a personal
coach or take the course?
Tell me more about that.
Christina Shenvi (43:41):
Absolutely.
You know, Sam, this is the lifechanging magic of learning how to
focus and prioritize and strategize.
You can find me on my website, whichis timeforyourlife.org, and that
has a link to my online course,which has about 16 hours or 12 hours
I can't remember, of CME content.
And also you can findhow to contact me there.
(44:01):
I would love to hear from listeners.
Sam (44:03):
Awesome, and we'll put that in the show notes.
Christina, thank you so much for spendingthe time and sharing your wisdom with us.
This has been very helpful for me.
I really appreciate youbeing on the podcast.
Christina Shenvi (44:14):
It's a pleasure.
Thanks for having me, Sam.
Sam (44:15):
And that's a wrap.
Thanks for joining us forthis episode of EMPlify.
I hope you found it informative, and Iwant to remind you that ebmedicine.net
is your one stop shop for all of yourCME needs, whether that be for emergency
medicine or urgent care medicine.
There are three journals, there'stons of CME, there's lots of
courses, there's so many clinicalpathways, all this information at
(44:38):
your fingertips at ebmedicine.net.
Until next time, everyone,I'm your host, Sam Ashoo.
Be safe.
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