62. How Busy Physicians Can Prioritize Their Week Without Burning Out

How Busy Physicians Can Finally Make Progress Without Feeling Overwhelmed

Do you ever end your week wondering where all your time went?

You were busy. You worked hard. But somehow, the things that mattered most still didn't move forward.

If you've ever felt like you're constantly reacting instead of leading your life with intention, this episode is for you.

Last week, we talked about prioritizing with God. Today, we're getting practical.

I'm sharing the same four-step framework I've used personally and taught physicians for nearly a decade to help them move from overwhelm to focused, consistent progress.

In this episode, you'll learn how to:

• Write a compelling vision for where you're headed.
• Set SMARTER goals that actually get accomplished.
• Break big projects into manageable next steps.
• Build a simple weekly planning rhythm that keeps you moving forward.

These aren't complicated productivity hacks—they're simple habits that can transform how you approach your work, your calling, and your life.

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If you're longing for a deeper integration of faith and medicine, I'd love to invite you to the inaugural Heal The Healers Physician & Healthcare Conference in Boston, October 30–31, 2026.

Together we'll explore healing, miracles, prayer, and the integration of faith and medicine through both biblical depth and scientific rigor.

Early Bird registration is now open:

HealTheHealersConference.com/Boston2026

Ready for Personalized Support? Looking for a physician coach and mentor?

If you're looking for personalized guidance to clarify your vision, overcome overwhelm, and accelerate your growth as a physician leader, I'd be honored to work with you.

Learn more about physician coaching and mentorship in the links below.

https://ingahofmanncoaching.com/

Are you a Christian physician or healthcare professional longing for a deeper walk with God and a supportive community that truly gets it?

📍 Mark your calendar: October 30–31, Boston, MA
The Heal the Healers Conference is coming.

This is more than a conference—it’s a space to encounter God, be restored, and be equipped to live out your calling in medicine.

This event is for physicians and healthcare professionals!

Early Bird Registration is NOW open until 7/31/26. A limited number of tickets are available. Sign up today.

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Transcript

0:00

Did you ever end a week wondering where all your time went? You worked really hard, you were busy every single day, but somehow the projects that matter most still didn't move forward, and somehow you still didn't get to your quiet time or maybe even to church. And if that is you, this episode is totally for you. Last week, we talked about how to prioritize with God and how to seek His direction before rushing into another busy week. But today, we're getting super practical. I'm going to share the exact framework I've taught physicians for nearly a decade to move from feeling overwhelmed and reactive to becoming intentional and focused. We'll talk about why you need to write a vision down, how to set goals that actually get accomplished, why breaking big projects into tiny steps changes everything, and how a simple weekly planning routine can dramatically reduce stress and help you make consistent progress. These are the same principles I've used personally and coached dozens of physicians over a decade. So grab your notebook because this episode is full of practical tools you can get started using this very week Hey, welcome back, wonderful physician. I'm so glad to have you here and to spend some time with you again this week. Last week, we talked about something that has been on my heart for quite some time, how to prioritize with God instead of simply trying to squeeze every ounce and every minute out of the day in trying to squeeze more into an already overflown schedule, because you already know that's not working very well, is it? And if you haven't listened to that episode yet, I encourage you to go back and start there because today's conversation builds on that foundation. Although you can totally run with this one right now, just go back, listen to the other one. In that episode, we ask a simple question, but one that is very important. What if the reason you're overwhelmed isn't because you have too much to do, but because you're carrying things God never asked you to carry? And today, we get really practical. Over the last decade, I have coached many different physicians from all sorts of career path, largely in academic medicine, early career faculty to leaders and chiefs of their programs, department leaders, physician scientists, and so forth. And one thing I learned from this and my own journey is being busy is certainly not the same as making progress and being productive. But a lot of physicians struggle with: how do I make the right choices? And we're gonna talk about that today. What I found is that physicians who consistently accomplish meaningful goals aren't necessarily the ones who work the longest hours. They are the ones who learn how to prioritize intentionally and create systems around their life that work for them to keep moving forward on what matters the most. So in today's episode, I'm actually gonna walk you through some very practical steps that I use personally, that I teach to my coaching clients, and that will help you getting out of that feeling from being overwhelmed and running on a rabbit track all the time to becoming focused, intentional, and making steady progress. These are not really complicated productivity hacks. Anybody can do them. So these are just simple habits. And if you practice them consistently, you can make real changes and real progress. And so I wanna just dive into that conversation today. But before we do a couple really quick things If you have listened to this podcast for a while, and if you are longing to make a deeper integration of faith and medicine, I w-want to personally invite you to join me in Boston on October thirty and thirty-first for the Heal the Healers Physician and Healthcare Conference. This is the first conference like this of its kind, and it will be amazing. We will be gathering physicians, healthcare professionals, scientists, researchers, biblical scholars, ministry leaders from all across the country to explore healing miracles, prayer and the integration of faith and medicine, both in real biblical rigor and depth and theologic honest discussion, but also scientific rigor. Let me be very clear. At this conference, we are not leaving the brain at the check-in desk or leave the medical training behind us. No. We're gonna say, "What have I learned? What have I seen? And how does this fit into the biblical narrative, the biblical storyline, and how can I integrate faith and medicine?" Specifically focused in this conference will be on healing and miracles. And I can already tell you, you will be amazed. People are already in shock and emailing me. A bunch of people emailed me when they saw the announcement, and they're like, I'm so excited. I'm just blown away." The caliber of speakers that are coming together and the combination of scientific rigor, scientific exploration, physician scientists and biblical scholars and ministry leaders, and they're like, "How did this even happen?" I can tell you, this is the Lord's work. But really my prayer is not only that you will be wonderfully equipped, but my prayer is that you leave refreshed, spiritually encouraged, that you really feel like you have encountered the Lord in a deeper way that helps you walk your faith out in practical steps and your calling as a physician or a healthcare professional. This conference is for physicians, scientists, dentists, nurses, advanced practice practitioners, pharmacists who- whoever I'm missing, counselors, people in the healthcare profession that are in a professional role in healthcare that are passionate about the kingdom of God, about faith, medicine, and how it works all together, and how they can be a part of that. So I invite you. Early bird registration is now open. You can learn more in the link in the show notes. Go to healthehealersconference.com/boston2026. So again, Heal the Healers for-- healthehealersconference.com/boston2026. No matter where you are in medicine, if you're juggling different roles in medicine and healthcare, I want to just encourage you, grab a notebook if you're not driving, because today's episode is packed with super practical strategies that you can start implementing this week. So let's dive right in So in order to really get out of this part of the overwhelm of the different tasks to do there are four key steps that every physician can take and that I would encourage you to just tune into and see specifically what can I take away from this today and what step can I implement. So I'm gonna share with you four practical tips that you as a physician can take to prioritize your busy life so that you don't get stressed out. And that you can take practical action steps from the last podcast and say, "Okay, the Lord wants me to focus on these multiple things, but how do I actually get it done?" And that's very much where I find myself and to be honest, I juggle home, family ministry, a coaching business, organizing this conference, volunteering at my church many-- a multitude of things, most of which I'm not even thinking about right now. But there is a lot on my plate. I sometimes joke that I'm so much more busy than I used to when I was working full-time as an academic physician and the leader of the bone marrow transplant program because I just do a whole lot more things. I was a professional coach for ten years and worked as a bone marrow transplant physician and led the bone marrow transplant program for a number of years here at my university. But things don't get less busy. They tend to get more busy, don't they? So I wanna give you these four tips. So dive right in, pen and paper ready. So the first one, number one, start with a vision. That means you should write out your vision of what is needed and where you are going. So write out those goals. If you haven't done that really in the first step when you had your meeting with the Lord and you prayed into, "Okay, Lord, what do you want me to focus on?" Write those things down. That's really important, right? Habakkuk two, two says what in the scripture? It says, "Write the vision, make it plain on tablets so he may run who reads it." That's a really powerful verse. I know it is in a book about prophecy, and there's a bunch of other stuff to teach there. But I like this verse because it reminds us that it is important to write a vision down, whether it's a vision, an instruction from the Lord, whether it's a revelatory thing, but also very practical. If you listen to the last podcast and you're like, "Okay, I sat with the Lord. I have an understanding, or I think I have a nudge I should move in this direction. He gave me these next steps, but it's still also overwhelming." The first step is write it down and make it plain. And here is why that is actually really important and practical and helpful. Because what you have on paper versus in your head suddenly becomes real. You can look at it. You can read it. That's why it says make it plain, right? It is right there in black and white it is in front of your eyes. And that is actually already a huge step to get out of overwhelm. A lot of times when I coach physicians and mentor even people in their spiritual walk with the Lord there is a lot of stuff fluttering around in our heads, right? Many thoughts we try to capture and we waste a lot of energy by holding all these thoughts together and not forgetting anything versus just writing it down. I know it's plain and simple, but not everybody does it. So write it down so you can see it and get it out of your head, and that literally releases you from some burden to have to carry all that stuff and try to remember it and worrying about whether you forget some of those things. So write it down. I encourage you to actually use a pen and a paper or a whiteboard, a journal, something. Yes, you could write it on a computer and there is space and time for that. There is though a lot of research, personal experience that writing things by hand, there is this active involvement of your physical senses when you do that creative part of writing that actually, number one solidifies that in your memory that makes it more real. And also, let's be honest how often do we look at some of those computer files? I have so many digital notes, I rarely go back to them, I have to say. But I do go back to my paper, to my notebook, to my journal, because I have also established a process for that. So write it down. Because it helps you get things out of your head onto paper. This could be literally a simple brain dump. Don't put too much judgment of if this is gonna work or how you're gonna do it. Just write it down. Don't worry about grammar or organization. Just literally put what is in your head to paper. So step number one, start with a vision. Make a plan by writing it out. Number two, turn the vision into specific goals so that you know what needs to happen next or what are the steps that are involved in this. So what I like to do when I set specific goals, that word specific is very important. You might be familiar with SMART goals. A lot of people use that framework. It stands for, specific, measurable, actionable I think realistic and time-bound. And I personally this is a good starter, prefer a little bit of a different framework that I've learned over the decades and adapted that focuses on SMARTER goals and essentially that stands for having something specific And that is really important, so having a very specific tangible outcome so that you can refer back to did I do it or not? Because the specificity helps you gain clarity. And if you need help with that, please reach out. Number two is measurable. You need to be able to measure that you make progress on that specific outcome. It needs to be actionable, meaning there needs to be specific action steps that are being prompted by this goal to put you into action, and that will actually help you get motivated. I like in terms of the R, smarter, I like risky versus realistic yes, there might be times when I not achieve those goals and they were a little bit too stretchy, but I also know that a goal that is a little bit more risky and stretches or challenges me makes me just achieve a little bit more than something that is very realistic. Having said that, if you're like, "I'm already overwhelmed, I just need something a little bit simpler," go with realistic. And there's actually times where you should go for that, especially if you're feeling overwhelmed. The next is the T. You want to have time-bound timestamps in there, meaning when specifically is this thing gonna get done? You want to set yourself a deadline. We all know that if we have real deadlines, let's say you're writing on a grant or manuscript or an abstract, you have a very tangible deadline for a lot of those and you know they get done. But a lot of times we have to set our own deadlines, and I know in theory they're movable, but if you don't put any date on them, trust me, you will continue to push it to the side. So give it a time and a date when this should be done. Or with some habitual kind of goals, you might want to put a frequency on there. Let's say right now my goal is I go to swim for twenty, twenty-five minutes every day rigorously- every day of the week. So that is a time bound every day of the week, and I have a specific thing on my schedule for that. The next one for SMARTER is E is for exciting. You should be excited about these goals, especially as they are pertaining to your personal, but even professional goals. There should be something, put something in there that actually gets you excited because we do need motivation, otherwise we just fizzle out and not do it all together, especially when obstacles come against us. And then of course, R, it needs to be relevant. Meaning, does this matter? Does this matter to me personally, my personal or professional goals? Or perhaps it is something you are asked to do as part of your job then that's relevant too, right? Because we are to serve well in our jobs. SMARTER is the framework that I prefer. Other people for the R use redirect, which means sometimes you want to redirect, readjust, reassess how are things going. But for now, I would stick with the SMARTER framework I just gave you and go with that. So take what you have written down in step one and create a specific or maybe a number of specific goals using the SMARTER framework. Here's my caution, and I you can tell I'm excited, I could talk a lot about this already. My caution is that you don't pick too many goals. If you're just getting started, pick one goal. At the most two, one professional, one personal. Personal could be family related or health related, but I encourage you have a spiritual goal for yourself as well. So that is number two, set a clear goal so that you know the direction you're going, what needs to happen. Number three That is key. Chunk it down, which means likely you have a goal in front of you that still might be a bigger goal. It might be a monthly goal. What might be something you wanna accomplish this year or this quarter. The next part is chunk it down into very small tangible steps and really think about, okay, if I have this goal, let's say I wanna write this abstract for a conference by date X, what needs to happen? What are the f- first three steps I could take? So chunk the big goal down in small tangible action steps. What's the smallest next step you could take, for example? If you have worked with me in a coaching capacity, in a mentoring capacity, you often hear me say, "Baby step yourself to success." That's one of my mantras. The reason why I believe that is important because it is not usually these huge swings of actions that are important. They are difficult to sustain usually. But it's small consistent steps taking every day that accumulate and create momentum and that compound over time and reduce overwhelm. So you want to really make sure that you go from step two, where you have your goals, to chunking them down in tiny steps. They can or should even be so tiny that you're like, "Ingka, this is ridiculous that I'm even writing this down." So for people that are writing manuscripts, like for all my academic physician coaching clients, I will often tell them, "Okay, what is the first baby step you could take?" Sometimes it could be so simple where people are in the middle of writing this complicated research project into a manuscript, and sometimes they feel completely stuck and overwhelmed, and the baby step is, you know what? I should actually open my computer and look at all the files and look at what I actually have. Or somebody was wondering about different grant applications and got really overwhelmed the other week and I was like, "What's the first baby step you could take?" And then they realized, you know what? In order for me to decide if I should even take this other grant on, I should probably look at the application announcement." And I was at first step, it took this person ten minutes and instantly they knew, "You know what? I have to say no to this and table this for later." So that's how that works. One tiny step. And the last one, number four, is critical. Create a weekly routine that you work on your goals consistently. So you have to create a weekly routine that helps you actually make progress. You might put it this way: Win the week before it starts. That means you have to have weekly rhythms of planning. I do that every Sunday. I sit with my calendar, and I go through my priorities, my goals that I've set. I review what went well, what didn't go well, and I set new priorities for the next week. Now we have a quarter just finished and I actually still... It's at time of this recording, the week has passed and it's Monday, but I do have to still sit down tonight and actually do my quarterly review. I was busy this weekend hosting house church and evangelizing here in Madison, Wisconsin. We prayed... Okay, I gotta go on this detour because you're gonna love it. We prayed for a homeless person and led him to Jesus, and the joy on this man's face was just amazing. So I'm behind now on my weekly review and even my quarterly review, but I'm telling you, this is part of my routine, and it rarely ever fails unless, something comes up. So And that's pretty rare that I postpone it to a couple days later. But something I will be working on tonight is my quarterly review and then set goals for the month and for the week ahead. So you need to set systems in place to help you make steady progress. All right. So to recap, four key steps for you to have clear priorities and a clear framework, how to prioritize and how to put those things into action. Number one, start with a vision and write it down. Number two, set goals using the smarter goal framework. Number three, chunk it down, create little baby steps so that you create momentum and make progress. And number four, win the week before it starts by creating weekly planning rhythms and set a task in your calendar and actually schedule them. All right. I hope this was helpful. If anything, at least take one thing from today, from this little podcast and go run with it and start implementing it. You don't have to do it perfect the first week with all four steps, but start somewhere. And for some of you, this might be like, "Oh my goodness, Inga, this is amazing. I need this. I know all this stuff, but I really need some help." And I totally get that. That's why I mentor and coach people and have done it for a decade. I have an academic physician coaching practice for academic physicians, scientists, leaders physician leaders in the medical field, and I've coached people on their goals, prioritizations, on leadership, on creating routines and habits that work with their schedule to create systems to actually make progress towards their goals and success, and also help with mindset issues that we're often struggling with. And you might listen to all of this and say, "Inga, this sounds amazing, and I know in theory what I need to do, but I just feel blocked. I just struggle to make it happen. I don't even know why." Then reach out to me. I coached people for, as I mentioned, the last decade. I would be delighted to help you, and coaching might be the right step. Now we can focus on very much academic physician leadership coaching, but you're also on this podcast, and I will tell you that, My approach is is a very biblical approach. I've learned a lot from personal development and leadership and being a leadership speaker, trainer, and coach with the John Maxwell team, but also just as a Christian physician. You might say, "I need all that, but I also need to have spiritual mentorship. I have questions about my faith and how to integrate them." So just know that when I work with people, no matter whether they are in secular space or in the faith space, how I work with people is very intentional one-on-one work that is tailored very specifically to you. This is not a cookie-cutter program. This is not a coaching program with many other coaches in there. It is you and me working on what is on your heart, your goals, your heart's desire, what the Lord put on your heart, maybe even figuring out your gifting, your assignment, et cetera, and then making it very practical to actually get those things done. So if you desire help with this the easiest way to get in touch with me, number one, you could just send me an email at Inga, I-N-G-A, @ingahofmann.com, one F-two-N's. I put it in the show notes. You can also send me a fan mail through the podcast platform and say, "I'm interested in coaching," and we set up a call to talk. If you're like, "I'm ready to take a next step," I put the link to the coaching application in the show notes as well. There's a short application basically to tell me a little bit about yourself. It is tailored towards academic physicians, so if you are in private practice, but you really want some spiritual mentorship as well, don't worry. So just fill out the application, and we go from there. After I reviewed it, we'll set up a call and see if this will be a good fit, and you can ask questions. With that being said let me close us out and say, just take the first step. Get practical and commit to yourself to work on your personal and professional goals and create systems and structures like we talked about today so that you don't get overwhelmed. There is a better way, I promise you. You might need some help. You can try it on your own for sure, but nevertheless, there is a better way than struggling and drowning. I know for sure because I've been there on both sides and let me tell you doing it in a way that is intentional is much better than putting out fires every day. That's the world's toil system. The Lord does not want us to function in that, and He gave us tools and principles, even in His Word, to not function this way because the kingdom is different, and they work for anybody, whether you're a believer or not, by the way. So anyways, reach out. Also, do not forget to register for the conference. Early bird registration is open through the end of July or until we sell out of that ticket block. There's only a limited number of tickets in that block available, and we already sold a bunch in the priority access registration. So please go register as soon as possible and share it with friends and colleagues. I would appreciate it. You have a blessed day and talk to you soon.