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One of the jobs during the sabb is to revisit the ‘perfect week’ project, which is where you design your perfect week, or what it would look like ideally, and then try and fit all the pieces of your life into that to see how close (if close at all) you can possibly get to it.

The funny thing is, with having a significant time out of work or time away from the proper hamster wheel, is that you realise that contribution is a real big part of your life and if you take it away, the purpose of what you’re doing and why you’re here seems to fade away and it becomes a little bit difficult to motivate yourself.

So in terms of the perfect week for me, it has to include large parts of what I think are contribution because that’s what keeps me on an even keel.

Contribution doesn’t have to be work, it can also be your kids or your family or anything else you choose it to be. But while I’m in the process of doing this I thought it would be cool to put down a rough outline of what mine looks like because it might stimulate you to try and figure your own out and that might make you feel a little bit better.

Note – this is the perfect week planned from February 2019

Monday 

Up at 6:00am

Walk the dog

Eat breakfast (prepared the night before – smoothie)

Cycle to work the long way

7:10am: Arrive at work

Shower and change

7:30am – 1:30pm: implant surgery session – restricted to implant surgery cases

1:30pm – 3:30pm: joint session with Beatriz, including case discussions, joint surgery and joint consultations as required

3:30pm – 4:30pm: complete admin

4:30pm: ride home from work (1 hour)

After 5:30pm Family

(one Monday a month – cinema club with Stuart Reekie. Possible other Monday evenings – meet up with other friends)

Tuesday 

None clinical day

Up at 7:00am

Walk dog

Eat breakfast

Help with domestics

AM bike 2 – 4 hours depending on the time of year

Remainder of day - work at home catching up on important projects for work, teaching etc.

5:00pm: finish

Tuesday evening – crazy domestic night – dancing, football, swimming for the kids

Wednesday

(No training)

AM – 2 Wednesday mornings a month mentoring and developing implant dentists. 2 Wednesday mornings a month admin sessions and meetings including finance and marketing meetings at work. Light training those days.

1:00pm – 2:00pm: Multi-Disciplinary Team Meeting at TCC (excellent)

2:00pm – 6:00pm: 4 new patients

After 6:00pm Family

Thursday

Up at 6:00am

Walk the dog

Eat breakfast (prepared the night before – smoothie)

Cycle to work the long way

7:30am – 1:30pm: general patient list including 2^nd consultations, diagnostics, extractions etc.

1:30pm – 3:30pm: practice admin – planning, reporting etc

4:00pm: ride home from work for 1 hour

After 5:00pm Family

Friday

Admin day

Up at 7:00am

Walk the dog

Breakfast

8:00am: bike 2 – 4 hours depending on the time of year and what happened on Tuesday

Free ‘buffer’ day for meetings, admin, planning, teaching, research etc

4:00pm: close down for the week, jobs passed over to next week, emails finished, football training planned

5:00pm: family time including 6:30pm – 7:30pm Mustangs training

8:00pm: finish for the weekend

Saturday

Up at 7:00am

Breakfast

Kids swimming

Possible bike

Callum football

Sunday

Up at 6:00am

7:00am – 9:00am: bike ride with 'The Squirrels'

Mustangs football match

Sunday PM – free

6:00pm: prepare for Monday

There’s no chance I will ever stick to this to any great degree but it provides the outline structure of what my week can look like.

When there’s teaching during the week for the academy it changes the plan, when there’s external lecturing it changes the plan.

In the Summer there are no Mustangs games or training or much extra curricula activity. There are other things in the evenings to do with work that get in the way which have to be scheduled in. But the basic spine and outline of the perfect week exists and when you get anywhere near it (whatever your perfect week is) it feels like you’re winning.

Blog Post Number: 1893