Kicking The Can Down The Road | How to break up with deciding not to decide

Stimulus | Helping Doctors overcome burnout, excel in leadership, and unlock their most fulfilling careers

"Kicking the can down the road" is a common behavior that manifests in various ways, from delaying difficult patient decisions to avoiding complex tasks. We explore the reasons behind on-shift procrastination and strategies for overcoming it. Our discussion includes practical steps to recognize and address decision deferral, techniques for managing aversion to some decisions, and pre-loading accountability. We also highlight the importance of building decision-making resilience and creating systematic pathways to streamline the decisional process.

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We Discuss:

• What does it mean to kick the can down the road?
• How procrastination shows up on a clinical shift
• Why does procrastination happen?
• It doesn't take much dread for can-kicking to occur
• Avoidance Awareness
• Decisional Interrogation
• Kicking the can because deciding will set off a cascade of more work
• Avoiding the infinite test of time
• Identify how, when, and where you’ll make high-level decisions
• Long term guests | How is it that decisions can finally be made when the shift is over?
• Chunking
• Zero in on your critical decision points
• Kicking the can at work: pick one thing and identify YOUR decision points
• Preloading accountability
• Perfectionists get caught in a tree when they're actually in a tunnel

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4 Free Resources specifically designed to address pain points in medical practice

Scripting your least favorite conversations. The Driveway Debrief. My 4 favorite documentation templates. The quick and dirty guide to calling consults.

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