What is All the Fuss About Productivity? Should You Care? Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before. —Franz Kafka

“Making do with less” is a sign of the times. With ever increasing clinical, academic, and personal pressures on radiologists today, the focus on personal productivity techniques is timely.1-3 In this editorial, I share my experience with productivity techniques and make a case why most of us would benefit for incorporating these techniques in our personal lives.

Why Focus on Productivity? Three years ago, I realized that my life had become so busy that it was a constant struggle to complete all the things that I wanted to do each day and balance my family life. My family would often complain how my academic pursuits kept me away from them for extended periods and wanted me to be more “available.” It was a wake-up call for me. Clearly, this is not what I wanted from life, but yet I was sufficiently driven to not let go of my academic pursuits. I embarked on a journey trying to learn how extremely productive and creative individuals managed their time and lived their lives in a way that they found ample satisfaction from their work pursuits, had time for their family, and also gave back to the society in general. Luckily for me, there were numerous books, blogs, and websites that I could go to and educate myself. It was a slow, often a painful, process of changing the very core of how I worked. Even when I considered myself a beginner, the results started to show. I was taking more time away from my “after-hours” work pursuits, taking more family trips, and freed up my Saturdays. I would not be the editor of Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology today, if I had ignored learning these skills a few years ago.

Productivity vs Creativity? Productivity and creativity are often thought of as mutually exclusive concepts. Productivity techniques are focused on getting more done with our limited time, whereas creativity requires that we experiment, allow ourselves time to fail, reinvent, and ultimately create something that is unique. Being creative is often at odds with our work expectations, that are more often than not, driven by metrics. However, now that I have been somewhat productive recently, I am increasingly becoming more creative— pursuing ideas that I would have never dared to pursue a few years

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ago and getting invited at national meetings, such as Association of University Radiologists and American Roentgen Ray Society, to lecture on offbeat topics, such as email management, organization and productivity, and electronic portfolio management.1-5 A balance between productivity and creativity is definitely achievable.

Plan Downtimes Although most of us enjoy our vacations and time away, many of us do not plan for regular downtimes during our busy workweek. Not only does this help to remain fresh, but it also helps us maintain our life perspective and perform a periodic review to remain on track with our numerous projects.

Do Not Be Afraid to Try New Things Productivity is like any other skill that can be learned. The rewards of an efficient and relaxed life far outweigh the time and effort it takes to learn these productivity skills. I receive many emails from attendees of my talks and readers of our published work on how their perspective and workflow has changed after they have incorporated some of these principles in their lives. One attendee at the American Roentgen Ray Society Clinician Educator Development Program went from having an inbox of 13,000þ emails, many of which were unread to getting to 1100 emails overnight! There are many things you can start with—engage with email appropriately; use note-taking applications, such as Evernote, to empty your brain and achieve the “mind-like water state”; etc. Challenge yourself! I encourage you to embark on your own personalized productivity journey. It will change your life! Puneet Bhargava, MD Editor-in-Chief

REFERENCES 1. Bhargava P, Lackey AE. The art of productivity: A radiologist's primer for getting stuff done. ARRS InPractice 2013;7(4):6-8. 2. Lackey AE, Moshiri M, Pandey T, et al. Productivity, part 1: Getting things done, dealing with email, going paperless, scanners, reference managers, note taking applications, and text expanders. J Am Coll Radiol 2014;11(5):481-9 [PMID: 24656443]. 3. Lackey AE, Pandey T, Moshiri M, et al. Productivity, part 2: Cloud storage applications, remote meeting tools, screencasting, speech recognition software, password managers, and online data backup services. J Am Coll Radiol 2014 [Epub ahead of print; PMID: 24674716]. 4. Bhargava P, Lackey AE, Dhand S, et al. Radiology education 2.0—On the cusp of change. Part 1. Tablet computers, online teaching curriculums, remote meeting tools and audience response systems. Acad Radiol 2013;20(3):364-72 [PMID: 23452483]. 5. Bhargava P, Dhand S, Lackey AE, et al. Radiology education 2.0—On the cusp of change. Part 2. eBooks; file sharing and synchronization tools; websites/teaching files; reference management tools and note taking applications. Acad Radiol 2013;24 (3):373-81 [PMID: 23452484].

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What is all the fuss about productivity? Should you care?

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