82. How Academic Physicians Can Start the Week with Intention—Not Stress

Are you an academic physician who starts Monday with big plans—only to end Friday wondering where the time went? If your week keeps running you instead of the other way around, it’s time for a simple reset strategy that actually works.

In this episode of The Academic Revolution Podcast, I’m showing you how to start your week with intention—so you can lead it instead of just surviving it.

You’ll discover the 4-step reset strategy I teach my coaching clients to shift from reaction mode to purposeful progress:

1. Make a clear plan – Block time for professional goals, personal priorities, and non-negotiable boundaries.
2. Preview your week – Anticipate challenges so nothing blindsides you.
3. Set your weekly intention – Anchor your energy on what excites you and visualize your Friday wins.
4. Identify cautions & triggers – Stay ahead of distractions, emotional drama, and unexpected roadblocks.

When you lead your week with clarity, you protect your mental energy, move your most important projects forward, and finish Fridays feeling accomplished.

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You must book your session by August 31 to lock in the summer rate, but you can schedule it for any available date through September.

👉 Reserve your spot now before the August 31 deadline: https://calendly.com/ingahofmann/laser-coaching-session-for-physicians

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Book a call here and let's chat 👉 https://calendly.com/ingahofmann/coaching-discovery-call

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Transcript

0:00

Hey friend, let me ask you a question. Did you set intention for your week this past week, or did it kind of just hit the ground running and hope for the best, you know, the spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks and then everything results in total chaos? Well, I have totally been there, and that's what we're gonna talk about in this episode. So stay tuned for after the music and we dive right in. Well, welcome back to another episode of the Academic Revolution Podcast, this week we're gonna talk about how to set an intentional. Weekly plan so you don't just survive your week but actually can thrive. So that will be a real reset strategy for you as an academic physician to be more productive and just set the intention of the week. What I've found with myself and with coaching clients I've worked for the last, probably nearly a decade now, is that often we kind of just hit the ground running each week. But we don't actually set our intention, and so we typically. Hope for the best. And of course, because we have clinical responsibilities, at least many of my listeners do, and you're kind of like, oh my goodness, I had such good plans to actually work on this project, to work on my manuscript so I don't have to work on nights and weekends. And then, you know, the yogurt hit the fan and you're just. Pick up the pieces on Friday and you take walk home. So this episode is all about setting your intention for the week because I know this, that most physicians that I have met and that I've coached that come to me and say, Inga, I really need some help, tend to live and reaction mode. We tend to put out fires running between meetings. Barely catching a breath. And it becomes really difficult to actually get the meaningful and important work done that gets you published, promoted, and also the stuff that you actually enjoy, which is typically your research, your passion projects, or even if it's just clinical work, but that you don't feel like you're constantly behind. And what I hope to do in this episode is that you really walk away with some more clarity because I know this clarity is power and how we start our week sets the tone for everything else that follows. So setting intention is clear. There could be so many things we could talk about when we talk about setting intention for your work week. So I'm not gonna touch up on all of them, just really on one key thing, and this is actually setting intention for your work week and how to have the right mindset and some practical steps to guide your intention and your purpose and your focus for that week. And I broke it up for you into. Essentially four simple steps, so let's go through them. Step number one, make a clear plan. So look at your calendar and block time with intention and purpose. And I have a whole process how you can go through your weekly plan and your monthly plan and actually recorded that in just the prior episode. So if you have not listened to episode number 81, I'm gonna put that episode in the show notes so you can go back and listen to that where actually my system and process that I use to plan my week to set my intention so I can stay focused on my goals and not just. Throw spaghetti at the ball and hope something will stick. So the first part is just to very briefly recap some key items here. Make a plan. So that means look at your calendar, block your time. So what kind of meetings to have scheduled, either recurrent meetings or ad hoc meetings. What are the meetings that are scheduled for the week? Have those on the calendar. Where is your space for professional goals? So for example, you have a goal for this week. You won't need to write on your manuscript. Well, maybe you are just like, Hey, I wanna start a research project. I'm interested in this question. How do I get started? So you have maybe a couple things you wanna do there, like brainstorm, do some literature, research, whatever it might be. So have some space for your professional goals that could be writing, planning, project planning, or even leadership training. Thinks you wanna do, create some space for that and block that in your calendar. And then also. Make sure you have some time for personal goals and boundaries. We don't go into detail in this episode today, but at least I want you to be clear and have an intention. You know, when I'm I planning to get out of the hospital or the lab or wherever you're working, when am I actually gonna leave for home? Now, for some of you that might be dictated by. When you have to pick up your children from daycare or from camp or wherever they are right now. So make an intention and plan for it because if we don't plan for it, it's not gonna happen. And you have to have a clear what's the end of the day goal? When am I actually closing shop here? So again, for a detailed process, how I go through planning my week, listen to episode number 81. But the final tip here is we have to make sure it's on the calendar, otherwise it's not real. That means it could be a paper calendar or planner, but I would suggest have an electronic version as well. We live in an electronic age. I love my paper planner, but especially if you work with admin, you wanna make sure that you block your. Outlook or whatever system you're using at your workplace accordingly, so that other people cannot just schedule meetings where you actually had planned to put a writing block for your grant in. So just as a site note, make sure you have that actual blocked as busy. You don't have to explain to people what you're doing, you're just not available. That's it. Step number two. Preview your week. So every time when I plan my week, I typically do that on Sunday. Sometimes a little bit on Saturdays, but Sunday, that's actually my routine. I review my week, I plan my next week. I look back and how did it go this week? What are the goals I hit? What are the misses? What can I learn, et cetera. And I would suggest that YouView your week. Now, this could be the same time that you're planning, or it could be a Sunday night or a Monday morning kind of thing, that you just take a look and glance at your schedule. What is happening this week? What am I anticipating? And this can be actually really helpful to set you in the right state of mind. So you know, hey, this is gonna be a pretty busy week. I have a lot of meetings, so let me not be overly ambitious with all these other goals I set for myself. Or perhaps. There are some things that you're really excited about. So preview your week. You already know what is going on, what's gonna happen, so things don't hit you by surprise. And that preview is actually really helpful to set our mind in the right state to focus on what's ahead of us. So what's coming up, what am I excited about, what do I care about, and make sure that you have made time for those top three goals that you did in your planning process. Otherwise, they will just not happen. That's just the reality. For many of you, this might actually be very helpful to do it Monday morning as your start up routine, as you start the new week, as you start your morning. To say, let me review my week so I know what's ahead. That's actually a beautiful way to start your week. So I strongly encourage you to do that. That's what I like to do. When I was still mostly working in the office I really enjoyed sitting there on Monday morning after we had our clinical conference and we do our sign out oftentimes, I actually did it before I spent like 15 minutes and say, okay, let me review what's ahead and set my intention for what I planned to do in step one. So step two, preview your week. Now the next step is step number three, set your weekly intention. And this is more a mental exercise. Reflect in this previous process, what am I excited about this week? And I find that such a helpful, powerful question to may even journal on and say, wow, what am I excited for this week? What gets me fired up? You know, sometimes that might be a meeting, like you're meeting your collaborators or ongoing collaborators and you're discussing research data and that will be really fun. Maybe there is something you're like, wow, I actually managed to set aside time for writing. I have an afternoon where I can just focus on getting some writing done. I'm excited about that. So reflect on what you are excited about. This helps us set our energy and our mental space on the positive things and get us kind of fired up. And that's a good thing. You wanna put your attention your energy on those things that are exciting to you. And then also in that process, visualize Friday afternoon. What do you want that Friday afternoon to feel like? What would it feel like to have actually completed the things you set out to do? How would you celebrate? So that's really helpful to already see the end in mind and visualize, Hey, this was a good week, this was successful, because it puts your mental focus on executing in this direction. The next thing I encourage you to kind of just reflect our journey on, okay, what's my anchor here? What's my why for this week? Because whenever we remind ourself, why am I doing this work this week? Oh, yeah. I'm excited about getting this grant out. Or maybe you just need the finances to fuel your research and have your job security. That's all good, right? Make sure you understand in your heart of hearts, why am I actually doing this? Because a lot of times we sort of do things a bit aimlessly and we, we just running so fast that we don't pass and say, what's actually the purpose and what excites me behind this? Because that mental energy will help you execute. And then just as a bonus to remind yourself. That your job for this coming week is to show up for yourself, not anyone else, but to show up for yourself first. Meaning if you made a commitment to yourself to do a certain task, that you say, I'm committed and I'm gonna follow through, and I'm gonna show up for myself just as much as I show up for other people. So just to recap, make a clear plan, then preview your week, and then set your weekly intention. Really reflect on what excites you and while you're doing things. Now, step four, I want you to. Take a moment and name your cautions and your triggers. I've found this incredible helpful What do I mean by that? You wanna spend some time, at the outset of the week, to ask yourself this. What am I worried about for this week? What are some things that could be potential obstacles to block me from achieving my goals? And whenever I reflected on these questions, I could already then proactively and preemptively identify, oh, I know there is a pitfall coming here on Wednesday where I planned to. Spend some time on this project, but where I know if I'm not careful, I will end an email land, or in clinic even. I don't have a patient scheduled or something else. When you reflect and name those things, and again, I would encourage you just even write it on a sticky note or write it in your journal. Okay. Just by anticipating it, you just raised your level of awareness and you can guard yourself better to not fall into these pitfalls. The other thing I would encourage you to ask is who or what might trigger me? This could be people, places, spaces, conversations, that kind of thing. The coming week has maybe some meetings coming up that I'm like, ah, I am excited at bomb part, but I know there's this one person maybe that always rubs me the wrong way, and I get agitated about it. What this does for you is if you anticipate triggers, you can be proactive about managing your mental energy and your response and not be so reactive and just being aware And then set your intention, how you want to respond and react to situations. You might already know, oh on Thursday I have clinic. Usually things get pretty crazy and I easily get triggered and I get in reactionary mode because clinic workflow is not very smooth. And it just leads to friction, whatever it might be for you. I want you to be careful to set your intention and how you will respond so you're not just reacting and here has sort of a, a little mini truth bump for you. You don't have to be at the mercy of other people's energy. What do I mean by that? Just because somebody's grumpy or having a bad day or maybe not super friendly or maybe ing you the wrong way, number one, doesn't mean they always do that out of malicious energy. Most of the time people just have their own problems and they're all stressed out themselves, but you get to choose how you respond to that. And just because the energy and the mental space and the stress level in clinic or in the lab or in your academic leadership setting might not be on par on where you would like to be, meaning at a higher, more positive level. That does not mean you have to come down to that level of energy, so you can tell yourself, i'm not going to match the energy. I'm gonna stay in my lane. You can take the high ground. And that is not just true for leadership conversation, but that is also true for your mental space. So even somebody has a bad day doesn't mean you have to have suddenly a bad day. So these emotional triggers and reactions are really important for us to be aware of because what I have found working with people for. Nearly a decade in a coaching space is that we tend to very easily get involved in emotional drama, and oftentimes that derails our whole well laid out plans. Because we suddenly got sucked into a vortex of drama and emotional energy that isn't very helpful. And therefore our mental space and capacity has now dropped to a place where we cannot. Be as creative anymore. For example, writing problem solving, et cetera. So how you manage your energy is critical. I could talk so much more about that, but I just wanna give you these handful of tips so you can just kind of slowly shift your focus on how you approach your week. So just to recap, you make a clear plan. Every week what you actually gonna do, what you're gonna accomplish, have things on your calendar so that you know what's going on. The next part is you preview your week, either Sunday night or Monday morning. You look and see what's coming up. And just know basically that the overview of the week and make sure and double check you actually have set some goals for yourself and set aside time to do that so that you are not jumping in Monday morning and you're just suddenly scrolling and your email inbox or in your inbox for your EMR and. The day kind of floats away and already you are behind So that's step number two. The third step is set your weekly intention. What are you excited about? What's coming up? What is your why? And make sure you show up for yourself. Step number four is be aware of your cautions and your triggers. Meaning what are you worried about? What could be some triggers, people, or places or conversations? Also anticipate obstacles to accomplish your goals. These are really the key steps. So I promise you if you start doing that, it will take a little while to get into this routine, but start doing that. I have found this incredible transformational and really helpful, and I could not. Live without that routine to plan my week, then review it and kind of know what's going on. So really important. All right. I hope this was helpful and I'm excited to chat with you next week again, so if this resonates with you and you kind of say, wow, this is amazing, but I know I need some extra help to get laser focused on my goals, now is the perfect time for the month of August only because I know fall is coming around and summer schedules are crazy and people often get off their rhythm and routine. And it's hard to get back into a clear workspace because of the semi schedules. So for the month of August, I wanna help you guys out and I'm offering single sessions for laser coaching. They are one hour, and that basically we will spend one hour to deep dive just into one specific problem that you have, not your whole life story, not your whole 10 year vision, career plan, just one specific area, one specific problem that we can address in an hour. We can make a lot of progress, but I cannot solve your whole life in 60 minutes. I promise you we can walk away together after that hour with you, have a clear action plan clarity, and this is great to test out coaching on your own for just a one hour laser coaching session. You clearly get a result and something actionable out of it without the long-term commitment. So if this sounds great to you. Then book your coaching session using the link below. I put a link in the show notes where you can book and pay for that session. Again, that is only through August and it's just a special thing I'm doing right now. So go book your session and I'm excited to meet you and looking forward to talk next week. Final encouragement. Remember, you don't need to spin your wheels. Just set your attention. Lead your weak. You are in charge and if you need support, book a call. I'm just one call away. Thank you so much and have a great day. Thank you so much for listening to the Academic Revolution podcast today. If you've gotten value from today's episode, I would love for you to share it with your friends and colleagues and help create a movement that changes the future of academic medicine forever. Also, don't forget to follow me on Facebook, Instagram. Or LinkedIn and visit inga hoffman.com for more information on how to work with me. Links are in the show notes. Until then, be well and see you on the next episode of the Academic Revolution Podcast.