The Pomodoro Method

A friend of mine who is a mom and a freelance writer/novelist recently told me that she uses the "pomodoro method" to stay focused. She said that "pomodoro" means tomato in Italian and it refers to the wind-up kitchen timers that are in the shape of tomatoes.

The method, she said, was that you start the timer and then you have to stay on task for a certain amount of time before you can take a break. If distracting ideas pop into your head (like having to go to the grocery store or needing to email your old college roommate), you jot them down on a piece of paper but then stay on task. Then after x amount of time, you get to take a break. I just googled searched for it and there is a whole website about it (http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/). I don't know all of the "official" rules of the method, but I got the idea.

At the moment, I am giving myself a twenty minute break to write this post. This morning I sat for ninety minutes and worked on my licensing papers. Hurray for me! I have a personal blog that I've been using during the last two years while I've been at home full-time. I have kept some of my goals (personal, domestic, and professional) on lists that appear on the side and make links to websites I need to use frequently.

One thing I did this morning was entered a post with links to all of the websites and documents I need to submit for changing my license from "active - administrative medicine" status (new category in our state for fully licensed docs who are not doing clinical work) to just regular "active" status. Yesterday while I was on my elliptical, I was surfing the web (multi-tasking whenever possible) and found a document on the AMA website that describes everything that counts as AMA PRA credit. I was delighted to find that scientific conference abstracts and first-author publications in peer-reviewed journals both count as a lot of type I CME credit. I never knew this. (One thing I need to submit for my "reactivation" application is a summary of my CME activities.)

I am very excited about this news because it will increase my totals by quite a lot. I also found out that getting medical-related degrees (like my MPH that I did during my preventive medicine residency) count for large amounts of type I credit.

Most of my recent CME has been very clinically-oriented, primary care and internal medicine mostly. From a practical standpoint, that type of reviewing will be what is most important for changing from "administrative medicine" to regular active status. Nevertheless, I am thrilled that my CME hour totals for the period I have to report about are going to be way higher than I thought. That is certainly going to make me look better on paper than I thought I would.

I have less than two minutes left on my timer, so I'm going to go ahead and post this now.

I raise my glass to the pomodoro method and to "staying on task".

My husband is coming home tonight too, so "cheers" to that as well.

I am at my son’s piano lesson right now. Later today we are planning to go to the pumpkin patch. One soccer game finished this morning and one more to go tomorrow.

I have been working on summarizing my CME activities for the last five years. I passed my preventive medicine boards five years ago, which adds about sixty CME units for that year. In the subsequent years, the publications through my research job will count as well. I have not been documenting any “type 2” activities, but really most of my time during my days at my research job were reading and critically appraising scientific articles. I am going to meet with my former boss for lunch soon, so I will talk with her about estimating how much time I spent in type 2 activities. I can at least provide the Board with an approximate number.

I also spent a lot of time reading textbooks during these last two years that I have not been recording. Note to self: write down the time I spend reading medical textbooks until further notice. [Note to any mom MDs who may want to take time off: consider keeping a log of everything medically-related that you read.]

That is the work I’ve done documenting my past activities.

Equally importantly, I am looking for all of the upcoming primary care and internal medicine live CME programs in the upcoming months that are within a reasonable driving distance. I have found a couple of relevant options.

Piano lesson is over. Time to go. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Our eighteen year old kitty died today, so we are sad.

I'm taking the night off from studying.

Ah, my blog. Let's see, it's been a few weeks since I last wrote.

So, our cat died a few weeks ago, which was sad for all of us. I had to keep ploughing on though, with my CME and licensing reactivation paperwork. That was pretty depressing to do in the context of feeling bad about the cat dying. I finally did stop and try to do some more fun things like making Halloween costumes for the kids and some shopping for myself.

I got my direct CME credit from the AMA for passing my specialty board (60 hours) and for two first-author publications (10 hours for each)-- and that brought my average category I CME up to over 30 hours/year over the past five years. That is the period our licensing board wants me to report on for the reactivation form. (I had to pay the AMA $150 just to send me the CME certificates though, which added to me feeling depressed!)

I also had a visit from my sister, which was fun.

I got all of my licensing paperwork submitted last week. Both my regular renewal and my reactivation (i.e., my status change request).

I had to get several forms notarized, which I did at our local UPS store. In the process, I learned that our UPS store owner's father was a physician and that his uncle eventually became a public health officer in a nearby county. He said he didn't get the medical genes but that his son is getting his R.N. degree.

I feel like I'm "outing" myself a bit. It's been a while since I've worn my doctor hat around in public.

Today is rainy and grey. My husband left for a business trip early in the morning and then the kids and I had a series of unlucky events involving getting locked out of the house, missing the school bus, both kids being tardy, and me having to drive around all over town without having eaten breakfast. Also, our dog did not want to go to the bathroom outside this morning because of the rain and so I left her at home. I was worried that by the time I got back she might have ended up having a potty accident.

It turned out fine though. She was sleeping by the front door when I returned, about an hour later than expected, and hadn't even eaten her own breakfast yet.

We have both eaten now. I offered for her to go outside again, but she took one more look at the rain and decided to just curl up and go back to sleep

I am trying to catch up on some self- and home- care this week. Got my desk cleaned up, helped my daughter hang some pictures on her walls, finished a sewing project, am caught up with my meal plan for the week and with groceries. Not bad. The cleaning people came yesterday too, so there are no dustballs in the corners and the bathrooms are clean.

I am also getting in some medical reading. Yesterday I spent about three hours reviewing one topic. It is nice to just read and not be constrained by structured CME activities. I am making a point now to log what I read and how long I spend. I always keep a notebook, but I am being more precise about the dates and times of my notes. If I'd been doing that over the last two years, I would have a better idea of how long I spent reading.

I haven't decided yet what I am going to do next while I wait to hear back from the medical board.

I have a few more errands and things to catch up with around the house, so I'm going to do those first. After that, we'll see.