Bike Shedding for Physicians: Avoiding Trivial Time Wasters
An earlier version of this article appeared on this website in August, 2023
Your time is a precious commodity, but if you’re like many physicians, you give it away freely. In all likelihood, you're juggling multiple priorities at any given time, trying to get it all done while striving to stay on schedule and keep your patient satisfaction scores high.
Sometimes it’s the most trivial issues that seem to claim the most attention. But as a physician, the work you do has value, and your best work often takes time. Protecting your attention is critical. That’s why it's important to be able to focus on the things that really matter, and avoid getting dragged down into the weeds.
In thinking about the way you use your time, it can be helpful to consider the phenomenon known as bike shedding. The concept isn’t new, but it may be unfamiliar if you don’t hang out with business gurus. The term was coined by C. Northcote Parkinson, a British management expert and naval historian, in the 1950s. In introducing the idea of bike shedding, he described a committee meeting that is called to discuss a specific financial agenda. On the agenda is:
a nuclear power plant costing tens of millions of dollars
a bike shed for the plant costing a few hundred dollars
a coffee budget amounting to about twenty-five bucks
The nuclear power plant is way out of anyone’s comfort zone, and no one wants to look ignorant or ask too many questions. So they quickly approve the budget and proceed to focus on the more familiar topic of the bike shed. After extensive discussion, argument, and finally compromise and agreement, they complete the deliberations over the bike shed with a feeling of satisfaction. They round out the meeting with an hour-long debate over the coffee budget, a topic on which they all have a strong opinion.
How Doctors Fall Victim to Bike Shedding
In a nutshell, bike shedding is a term used to describe the tendency to spend disproportionate amounts of time and energy on relatively minor issues, while neglecting more important but complex concerns. If you’ve spent any time in hospital committee meetings, you can probably relate to this phenomenon. Issues such as EHR functionality and staff management can sometimes fall into this category.
But bike shedding can also happen in your personal life. For example, you might spend hours researching the perfect running shoes, instead of focusing on your training plan. Or you might spend days agonizing over the color scheme of your living room, while putting aside more important but complicated family issues at home.
It’s natural to want to escape from stressful decisions by focusing on things that don’t really matter. And the importance of taking time to step away from the chaos of the day cannot be overstated. But spending that precious time perseverating over things that are not meaningful can be counterproductive.
The bigger problems are still looming. What’s worse, these are the issues that tend to build up steam the longer they are ignored. Eventually you may find that you are pushed or dragged into action, whether you feel ready or not.
From Spinning Wheels to Forward Motion
So how to shift gears and get back on the road? Here are some tips to help you identify and avoid bike shedding, whether at work or at home:
Identify your priorities
🚳What's most important to you? Once you know your priorities, you can make decisions more easily and avoid getting bogged down in trivial matters and unnecessary conflicts.
Delegate
🚳If you can delegate tasks, do it. Delegation is important both at home and at work. This will free up your time so you can focus on the things that matter most
Remember the big picture
🚳When you're feeling overwhelmed, take a step back. What are your long-term professional goals? What do you want to achieve in your personal life? How can you break that down into achievable steps? Keeping your goals in mind will help you to stay focused on the important things.
Set boundaries
🚳It's important to set boundaries so that you spend your time purposefully. This could mean saying no to extra work commitments with little upside so that you can make time for yourself and your loved ones. Or it could mean giving up your spot on the neighborhood committee that causes you stress and lost sleep, when you’d really rather be gardening.
It’s natural to default to bike shedding. It’s a way of avoiding stress and putting off difficult questions. But it's something that you can learn to recognize, navigate, and redirect.
If you find yourself getting caught up in bike shedding, tap the brakes and ask yourself if it's really worth your time and energy. If not, let it go and move on.
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