Drumroll please . . .
I’m going with TUES / THURS / FRIDAY!
After a thorough analysis I think this will have a few benefits, which I will detail below. I will be taking my lighter day (it’s like 2/3 of a full day, which is proportional to what my colleagues get) on Thursday mornings most weeks, which I think will be nice because whatever has accumulated on Wednesday can be dealt with during that time.
POSITIVES:
+ NOT rushing to clinical work on a Monday – slightly less stressful start to the week.
+ NOT rushing back to clinical work after a weeklong vacation!! AND, being able to catchup on nonclinical work post vacation on Monday.
+ NOT working my post-call Mondays. I probably won’t be that productive but honestly the Tuesdays after call (post working 8 days straight) aren’t currently that productive either. It will be so nice to just chill for a bit after signing out to a colleague on Monday morning.
+ At the same time, I’m usually feeling pretty productive and ready to go on Monday, so I think this will work in my favor with my creative work on that day
+ If I take just a Tuesday off, I can manufacture a handy little 5 day weekend. That is a nice stretch and could come in handy on occasion.
Here I see 6, not counting winter / spring / TGiving break.
NEGATIVES:
+ There are a number of Monday holidays where the kids have off and I would previously have been working in the office. There’s actually one almost every month! I probably will not be as productive those days at home. However, that doesn’t mean I will be entirely unproductive. Plus, I will eliminate the automatic loss of PTO on Labor Day / Memorial Day, so that’s two Tuesdays I could randomly take off to counteract this (perhaps during my busier fall season).
+ Doing a Thurs/Fri/Sat type of long weekend (the kind I often do with Laura) would eat through a lot of PTO. Maybe we’ll move to a Tuesday night –> Thursday night configuration, or even Mon –> Weds.
+ Thanksgiving will eat through 2 days PTO – but I often take Weds/Fri anyway so that isn’t really a change
+ Coming in on Tuesdays I probably will arrive to a bit of a backlog, but technically it’s only one business day so shouldn’t be TOOOO horrendous. I will assume that Tuesdays might be my longest days, but that’s okay — perhaps Josh can even drive that morning so I can get in a little early (tends to be his most flexible day).
Thank you all for your feedback/ideas!
Other Follow Up Etc
A enjoyed her first gymnastics team training session. I still can’t get over the length (3.5 hrs!) but she said it wasn’t boring as they changed activities a lot throughout the session. I guess I did have 3 hr (?) cheer practices when I was in high school, so this isn’t THAAAT much longer.
(It still seems long! I’m both excited for her and nervous that it’s just a lot.)
During the school year, these sessions will be something like 5:15 pm – 8:15 pm 3x/week. ANDDDD I just found out yesterday that for next year C’s soccer practices will move to 7:15 pm, finishing 8:15 or 8:45 depending on the day (previously were 5:45 – 7:15!!). So basically – our evenings will be really full next year. Josh is planning to use that soccer training window as his running time, which would work really nicely.
(Soccer dropoff/pickup would be fine except that when the lightning alarm goes off it’s kind of bad if you aren’t there so usually we wait, especially in the bad weather months. We don’t live quite as close to soccer, either — it’s most like 15 minutes than <10.)
Blogging
I liked Elisabeth’s post yesterday on her experiences blogging! I loved her pro tip of using the “save for later” feature in Feedly to mark posts that she wants to comment on when reading on her phone. I need to do this! I’ll often have something I want to leave in the comments but then not do it because I’m on my phone or my work computer (comment sections are often blocked by a firewall).
I really enjoy blogging. It remains the one part of my ‘creative career’ that just does not feel like work. I’m not saying that I don’t ENJOY the other parts (podcasts, courses, speaking, other writing) but they do feel like work. FUN work, but work.
Writing here just feels natural. That might be because I have been doing it for 20 years but I also think it’s the community aspect — it feels like sharing with friends. I always write with the idea that anyone I know could read this — because they can (and some do!). This doesn’t bother me but is just always in my mind. I’m generally more concerned with oversharing others’ stories (the kids) than my own.
15 Comments
Your plan for your work schedule makes total sense! I hope it works super well for you. If not, you can always change it next year!
I thought of you yesterday when I did the first Caroline Girvan fuel workout. You had said her workouts felt super intense so I was going to suggest that you try her iron series if you ever want to give her another shot. That series is 100% ST. There is no jumping or HIIT type of stuff, etc. Fuel is more like the other series I did (epic heat) which was great during the winter when I don’t run (unless we don’t have snow/ice). But I think Fuel is more cardio/HIIT-like than I need during my peak running season.
I will absolutely keep that in mind. I do like her a lot (her overall vibe) and just think she is amazing!
A thought on soccer – can you switch off with some other parents that one commits to staying at soccer in case of a lightning warning? Then you don’t need to be there for every practice. This is what we do, and one parent just has 3 or 4 girls in her car for the duration.
VERY good idea!! Esp this year since we now know a lot of the other parents.
I’m confused that you have to take PTO for holidays like labor/Memorial Day! Is your office open? Or even if it’s closed it requires you to use pto? I’m a family med physician and we get those days off as holidays – not drawn from our pto allotment.
Yep! For us a day off is taken out of pto whether it’s a holiday or not. Example- if you get 29 total days (I think this is what FT physicians get, obviously I get fewer as part time), you will use 1 for Memorial Day , 1 for Labor Day, etc. Now if you are on call then you would not use them. It sounds weird but I’m used to it and actually think it’s fine since probably the total number of days given is the same.
I’m guessing this might be a peds thing since many families want to take their kids to the dr on holidays since then parents don’t have to take a day off of work. Where I work we get 30 days total, though AND get Memorial Day, Labor Day, and July4th off. No MLK day, Juneteenth, or President’s Day though, and let me tell you the ORs are hopping on those days. Interestingly, I was hearing from the surgeons that many are not allowed *any* days off during the summer because of the surgical case load. Most do take a week or more around the holidays though, so we don’t have the end of year insurance rush that happens with adult surgical patients.
Oh yeah I myself am guilty of this! Totally always try to book my kids for eye appts on a holiday when there is no school. 30 plus holidays is nice! I have heard there are radiology groups that give like 8-12 weeks of vac. That would make full time almost feel like part time (though I know the days can be super intense like yours are too)
8-12 weeks is a private practice thing. The tradeoff is 70h weeks including post-call days on the weeks you are working. I don’t know any academic centers doing that these days.
Oh and no summer days off for peds surgeons – that is kind of rough since I’m sure many of them have kids …
Yeah one was saying that she felt veeerrrrryyyy guilty about having to take maternity leave during the summer since it was the second year in a row that she had to. Also, if you’re RVU based (as many surgeons are) I’d imagine there’s some incentive to take as little vacation as possible in some groups. Sounds like no fun at all!
Yay welcome to Team Tues/Thurs/Fri – it’s worked really well for me for 17 years (eek!) and gave never felt the need to change it 🎉
I think your work schedule sounds great. There will be drawbacks with whatever you chose, but this seems like the best option.
I’m cringing on your behalf at those later night activities. And I don’t even go to bed as early/wake up as early as you! I just don’t like being out and about like that on school nights… but I’m sure you guys will make it work.
I didn’t know your blog was also 20 years old… way to stick around! I really enjoyed Elisabeth’s post about blogging too and I am trying to be better about reading and commenting in “real time” (right now I do batch reading/commenting on the weekends to get my Feedly down to zero LOL).
YES! We are squarely in the ‘old blogs’ club – yours is even older than mine though which is amazing!!!!