Embracing "Unproductivity"
Dr Kenji Tomita (MBBS, BMedSci)
???? Medical Doctor | ???? Biomedical Researcher | ?? Youtuber
Hey guys! ?? I hope you had a great week. For this week's newsletter, I'm taking a more reflective approach and sharing some personal updates. As I sit down to write, I don't have a concrete plan, so bear with me as we dive into this impromptu reflection...
Lately, I've been grappling with a sense of unproductivity that's quite unusual for me. Beyond my regular work commitments, even the thought of hitting the gym or engaging with my YouTube channel has felt like a monumental task. Ordinarily, I relish every free moment at work, channeling my creativity into things I enjoy, such as crafting these newsletters. I can't quite put my finger on the exact reason for this shift, but I suspect it might be linked to the considerable workload I've been managing over the past couple of weeks and the recent change of enviornment…
As some of you may know, I recently underwent a rotation in specialties from psychiatry to psychiatry again– a tale I won't delve into here. In between rotating, I took my last few days of annual and study leave and also had online induction for the new rotation (which I had already completed in the previous rotation). Essentially, I had about 10 days off, initially intending to travel and recharge before the rotation began anew. Unfortunately, circumstances thwarted my travel plans, and as fate would have it, a slew of locum shifts opened up.
The temptation of extra income and the allure of seizing the opportunity to save for future endeavors spurred me on. However, my slight avarice (hehe) coupled with the desire to make the most of the financial prospect led me to take on night shifts and several grueling 12.5-hour days, some back-to-back. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m super grateful to have been able to do this and it has been incredibly lucrative (you can earn more than double your monthly salary with a few locum shifts). Yet, it's left me with an unusual mix of emotions – a persistent sense of melancholy, fatigue and a nagging lack of motivation that's oddly hard to put into words.
My mind's been buzzing with questions like "Am I slipping into laziness?" or "Is my side-hustle career facing a downturn?". While I'm fairly certain these thoughts aren't rooted in reality, grappling with them is a novel experience for me.
Now onto a new rotation, I’m at an outpatient unit for old-age psychiatry. As I type away at 11 am in the doctor's office, my day appears to stretch before me. What I'm grateful for is the prospect of slower-paced days ahead (at least until I dive into on-call and night shifts – more on those experiences in the future). On a brighter note, I'm eagerly anticipating a much-needed getaway during the junior doctor strikes this week. My hopes are pinned on this escape to replenish my motivation and energy reserves, as well as provide some time for reflection and processing lingering thoughts.
A wise soul once told me that while life races at the speed of light, the soul paces itself like a camel. Perhaps my current phase requires some soulful recalibration after these frenetic weeks.
If you've ever navigated through a similar phase or have insightful strategies to share, I'd be delighted to hear your thoughts. Just hit the "reply" button on this email.
Thank you for lending me your ears, and I extend my apologies if this week's newsletter might be a touch less entertaining than usual ??. Speak to you on the next one.
Kenji
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????? Things I’ve enjoyed this week
We Desperately Need Peace of Mind in This Troubled World (Youtube Video)?-?Whenever I have any existential issues, The School of Life is always my go to. Fantastic video talking about how we can deal with this fast-paced world.
Instapaper (app)?- This is one of my most used apps on all devices. It basically allows you save any newsletters/articles that you want to read later. I’ve set my Outlook email out to forward any newsletter I receive via email to go straight here, so whenever I have a minute or two I’ve been able to catch up with the things I enjoy reading.
Portable fan (tech)?- The doctor’s office at work gets really hot during these summer days, so I invested in a small portable fan that I can set beside me on the desk. Game changer!
??? Highlight of the week
Experiences are our opportunities to cash in our other forms of wealth for something memorable. Some experiences cost money, but the most valuable experiences aren't defined by their price tags. I don't remember how much it cost to visit Troms?, Norway. But seeing the Northern Lights? Priceless.
In this stage, patience takes the form of tolerance. You’d rather not spend 8 hours at a job you don’t care for, but you realize what it enables you to do. It gives you the financial breathing room required to work on your craft on the evenings and weekends, and allows you to endure the delay in outcomes. So instead of despising the job, you can embrace it as your patron and tolerate the shortcomings that accompany it. As long as you’re diligently working on your craft in your free time (which is an absolute must), you can be thankful for the fact that you have a job that affords you that creative headspace.
“People don’t need enormous cars; they need admiration and respect. They don’t need a constant stream of new clothes; they need to feel that others consider them to be attractive, and they need excitement and variety and beauty. People don’t need electronic entertainment; they need something interesting to occupy their minds and emotions. And so forth. Trying to fill real but nonmaterial needs—for identity, community, self-esteem, challenge, love, joy—with material things is to set up an unquenchable appetite for false solutions to never-satisfied longings. A society that allows itself to admit and articulate its nonmaterial human needs, and to find nonmaterial ways to satisfy them, world require much lower material and energy throughputs and would provide much higher levels of human fulfillment.”
Resurfaced to me by?Readwise
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