Transcript
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Have you ever found yourself organising the medicine cabinet when you should be updating patient records?
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You're not alone.
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This sneaky form of procrastination called displacement could be sabotaging your productivity.
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Stay tuned and find out how to recognise and overcome it.
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Stay tuned and find out how to recognize and overcome it.
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Welcome to the Vet Stuff podcast, the place where veterinary professionals can top up their resilience tanks, get their heads screwed on straight and get excited about going to work on Monday mornings again.
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This is episode 196, and I'm your show host, julie South, certified disc trainer and resilience coach.
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Last week, in episode 195, we looked at how to stop wasting time and energy at meetings by focusing on strategies to make meetings more effective and productive and to watch out for this thing called bike shedding.
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If you missed it, then I highly recommend that you go back and have a listen, as it could make the difference between staying focused on the big things at your clinic rather than getting distracted by the little things.
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Today, we're looking at the psychological activity of displacement.
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It's procrastinating when we're not procrastinating because we tell ourselves we're busy doing other things.
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The VetStaff podcast is powered by VetStaff Limited, the recruitment agency dedicated to helping vet clinics recognize, retain and recruit dream teams.
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In New Zealand we show clinics, vets and nurses how to crack the communication code that's unique to them, so resilience skyrockets and people want to join and stay at your clinic.
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You can find back episodes of the VetStaff Podcast at VetStaffPodcastcom.
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So what exactly is displacement activity?
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Well, it's when we avoid doing a particular task by doing something less important, usually something far more trivial, and we justify to ourselves that we're still being productive.
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For example, it can range from cleaning your desk or sorting out the autoclave when you should be working on that important report, to organizing files instead of making critical phone calls.
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It's a form of procrastination, but with a twist, because it often feels productive, even if and even though it's not not.
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Displacement activity is actually quite insidious, because it looks like useful work, it masquerades as useful work.
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We tell ourselves we're too busy to tackle the big tasks because we're caught up in these smaller, seemingly necessary things to do.
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But they're not.
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So why do we do this?
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Well, the main reason is psychological discomfort.
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Sometimes, maybe, just maybe.
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Tackling the big, important tasks can be intimidating or even stressful.
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That's usually because they come with a higher chance of failure and none of us like to fail right or they may require a level of effort and concentration that we're not always ready or able to give right at that time.
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So instead, we divert our attention to something less important, because it's easier and it gives us a quick sense of achievement.
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And accomplishment.
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That quick dopamine hit.
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Dopamine, the pleasure-seeking, satisfaction-craving neurotransmitter.
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That's what kicks in when we complete tasks and achieve something.
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It reinforces the original behavior that led to these accomplishments the procrastination.
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Therefore, when we complete something small, less important, we get that quick dopamine hit and it makes us feel good, even if and even when the task doesn't contribute significantly to what we were meant to be doing in our goal or our day.
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And this can create, ultimately, what's called a feedback loop.
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And that's where we then start prioritizing these smaller, less important tasks over the big ones, because they're the ones that give us the quick and the frequent dopamine hits.
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Imagine, for example, the vet who needs to update medical records but instead spends time reorganizing the medicine cabinet.
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The cabinet might end up looking great, dopamine hit, but the necessary task of updating the records, which impacts patient care, don't get done.
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Or perhaps the vet nurse who needs to check stock levels but instead tidies up the autoclave.
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The autoclave Everyone oohs and ahs about how organized the autoclave suddenly is and what a pleasure it is to find everything all tidied up and dated.
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Dopamine hit kicks in.
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But the flip side is that when stock levels aren't managed, it means that the clinic could be at risk of running out of bandages or something else equally as important.
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Both of these situations the tidy medicine cabinet and the tidied up autoclave are examples of displacement at work.
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Now, displacement isn't always a bad thing.
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A bad thing.
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Sometimes we need to take a break because we don't have the mental bandwidth to do the big thing.
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So taking a small break, doing something small and trivial and significant, it can help clear our minds and lower our stress levels a tad.
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However, it's when it becomes your MO, your habitual way of avoiding important things, important tasks, doing important tasks.
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That is when it can lead to problems.
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Now, how do we recognize and overcome displacement activities?
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First, awareness, awareness is absolutely key.
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Take notice of when you do these, and you can start by asking yourself is this the most important thing I should be doing right now?
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If the answer is no, it's then time to pull on your big person's knickers and refocus.
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Second thing you can do is practice chunking, and that's when you break bigger tasks down into smaller, more manageable ones, more manageable chunks.
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You know how to treat a herd just one animal at a time.
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So this is chunking or that is chunking, and this is what you need to do with those huge tasks, those mountainous tasks that we sometimes find ourselves landed with.
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We do them just one small chunk at a time.
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If it helps, set small, specific goals and timelines, deadlines for each small chunk, so that you can help maintain your sense of momentum, of forward movement, sometimes you could, or something else you can do, is apply the two minute rule.
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What's the two minute rule, julie?
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I'm so pleased that you asked two-minute rule.
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What's the two-minute rule, julie?
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I'm so pleased that you asked?
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It's when something that will only take a couple of minutes gets done and I mean two minutes, not five gets done straight away, and this helps prevent the small tasks from piling up and becoming huge mountains and then distractions For larger tasks.
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You can use this thing called time blocking instead, and that's when you allocate specific times in your calendar or your diary to focus on those tasks without interruptions.
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During these times, you need to eliminate distractions, which means turning off notifications, it means silencing your phone so there's no dinging and donging and message announcements and social media post updates.
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You need to close all unnecessary tabs on your computer and then you need to let your team know that you're unavailable for however long you have time blocked.
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Another thing that you can do is called batching, and this is when you group smaller, similar tasks together and then you tackle them in one fell swoop.
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It helps reduce the mental switch costs that happen when you jump between different types of work.
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For example, you can batch up all your admin tasks into one session rather than spreading them throughout the day.
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And finally, what you need to do with all of these things is you need to be kind to yourself.
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There's a lot to be said for self-compassion, because it plays a hugely important part.
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Understand, please, that everyone experiences procrastination and displacement in some form at some time or another.
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The key is to not be overly critical of yourself, or even those other people, and to gently steer yourself back on track.
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So let's have a quick recap.
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Displacement activity is when we procrastinate by doing something that's not as important as what we're meant to be doing.
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While it can sometimes help reduce stress, it most often more than likely gets in the way of being productive and doing the important stuff To overcome it.
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Start noticing what you do, by what your form of displacement is, by increasing your awareness.
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Break tasks into manageable parts, use the two-minute rule, time block.
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Batch similar tasks and please always be kind to yourself.
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Practice self-compassion.
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Remember that overcoming displacement, procrastination, like the good things in life, like that old cheese advert takes time, it takes practice, it takes patience and it takes self-compassion.
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When you can take charge of what's going on in your head, you can be more productive, more effective, less stressed.
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All of which sounds good to me.
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What about you?
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Can I ask you to do me a favor?
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Please can you share this podcast with three of your mates or your colleagues, especially with someone or some people who might be struggling with procrastination and productivity?
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The more we can help each other, the better our workplaces will become, which will mean more vets and nurses will get excited about going to work work on Monday mornings again.
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I hope this has helped you understand how you might be procrastinating without procrastinating through displacement and how you can get back in control again.
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I am seriously interested to hear and to know your thoughts and experiences, so please feel free to get in touch with me, julie, at vetstaffconz.
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I promise to reply and I do to every single email, every connection, thank you, and thank you for spending the last quarter of an hour or so of your life with me.
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I really do appreciate it.
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This is Julie South signing off and inviting you to go out there and be the most fantabulous version, productive version of you you can be.
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The Vet Staff Podcast is proudly powered by VetCinicjobscom, the new and innovative global job board reimagining veterinary recruitment, connecting veterinary professionals with clinics that shine online.
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Vetclinicjobscom is your go-to resource for finding the perfect career opportunities and helping vet clinics power up their employer branding game.
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Visit vetclinicjobscom today to find vet clinics that shine online, so veterinary professionals can find them.
