One Year in the Black

It has been just over one year since I reached a net worth of zero.  After being in debt for almost ten years, it has been a welcome change to open the Excel file in which I track everything financial and see that my investments finally exceed the balance on my line of credit.

As a medical student and resident, I hadn't thought much about finances.  I was surrounded by people who came from wealthy families, and it didn't take me long to adopt their spendy habits and to accumulate a lot of debt.  I reassured myself that "everyone was doing it" and that the debt was okay, because it would be easily repayed once I became a physician and started getting paid in bags full of money.  I rarely looked at the balance of my line of credit, and whenever I did it was just a quick glance, followed by a nervous chuckle at the ridiculousness of owing the bank such an enormous sum.

It wasn't until my last year of fellowship that I actually woke up to the reality of how much money I owed and started doing something about it.  I went on a budget, and I actually started spending less than I was earning for the first time in eight years.  I didn't save a lot of money in that year, as it was a major adjustment just to start living within my means, but at the very least I laid some groundwork for financial responsibility as an attending.

And then I finished training!  And got an adult job!  And suddenly there was a lot of extra money to put towards savings and debt repayment.  Every day that I worked, I got a little bit closer to the longed for balance of zero.  And yet, my anxiety about money actually got worse.  When my line of credit was ridiculously big, I comforted myself by saying that I could declare bankruptcy if I ever lost my job*, because there was no way I could pay it back on anything other than a physician's salary.  As it got smaller, and my investments bigger, I suddenly entered territory where I would be expected to pay back my loans, regardless of whether I could continue to work as a physician.  And the idea of earning a non-physicians salary but still being $50,000 or $60,000 in debt was terrifying.

Thankfully, I have kept my job, and after ten months of working and saving I got myself back into the black.  I expected that the anxiety about money would resolve instantaneously after achieving that milestone, but oddly enough I didn't take a lot of comfort in being a 39-year old with a net worth of zero.  I still felt vulnerable to the possibility of becoming disabled** or burning out of my career and not having enough money to have good options.  So I kept saving and repaying debt and watching my net worth get healthier and healthier.

In the past year, I've increased my net worth by enough that I could live at my current standard of living for about three years.  While I hesitate to share actual numbers here, I will say that my net work growth breaks down roughly as follows:  10% from growth on investments; 10% line of credit repayment; 30% cash savings (for a down payment on our first home); and 50% long-term savings (RRSPs and a TFSA to minimize taxes). 

My savings vary a lot from month to month, due to a fluctuating call schedule and taking time off work for vacations and conferences, but the overall trajectory of my net worth has been pleasantly positive.  And finally...FINALLY...I am starting to relax a little.  It is comforting to know that I could become disabled and live comfortably off my disability insurance payments.  Or I could burn out from medicine and pursue a different career, and I would be absolutely fine.  For the first time in a decade, I feel like I have some real security and real options.  I'm still a long way from financial independence, but at least I'm sleeping more peacefully at night.

*I only had private student loans, so I think they would have been cancelled out by a bankruptcy.  But don't quote me on that.  And don't be an idiot like me and think that bankruptcy is a good financial strategy!

**Yes, I have disability insurance.  As should every physician.

How To Be Less Stabby While On Call

As a resident, I couldn't wait for the day that I would be an attending and would get to do fewer call shifts.  In my last two years of residency, I did 130 days of call per year, while as an attending I do about 70 days per year.  I anticipated that my attending schedule would feel positively luxurious by comparison, but of course, as with many things in life, that hasn't been the case.  Somehow doing less call makes me less accustomed to it and even more resentful of it when I'm in the midst of it.

Generally, I spend my weeks on call in a self-indulgent funk.  I whine about how busy I am and how long the days are; I neglect anything that isn't work-related (thank all that is holy for housekeepers); and I live off of all the foods that I tell my patients to never eat.  I'm about as miserable and self-pitying as an adult can acceptably be.  Possibly more so.

This call period, however, things seem to have shifted, if only the slightest bit.  I hate my life a little less than normal.  My smiles for patients and co-workers are a little more sincere.  I spread a little less misery everywhere I go.

Being caught up on everything at the start of the call period has probably been the biggest contributor to my slightly less horrible than usual mood.  My state of being on top of things lasted for all of one day after I started call, but at the very least I've only had to scramble to keep up with the additional work of call*, rather than struggling not to drown under call work and leftover work from the weeks before.  There is comfort in knowing that, at the absolute worst, I'm no more than two weeks behind on things.

The slight reduction in overwhelm at work has carried over into not feeling like I want to die when I get home, which in turn has led to me actually doing productive things in the evening.  Where normally I would binge watch Gilmore Girls with a peanut butter chocolate Drumstick** in my hand, I've actually gone for walks to enjoy the beautiful Spring weather.  I've done dishes.  I've paid bills.  I'm actually adulting!

Maybe forty will be the year that I actually grow up?

*Unsuccessfully, of course.

**Immediately after writing this I ate a peanut butter chocolate Drumstick.  Because I'm only human.  I would've turned on Gilmore Girls, but the girlfriend isn't home, and I think watching our show without her is probably grounds for divorce.

Parkinson's Law

Subtitle:  Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion

Just over a year ago, I wrote smugly about how I had gotten caught up on all of my tasks at work and about how wonderful it felt.  At the time, I fully intended to keep up with everything, always and forever, so as to keep the wonderful feeling going.

I think I may have lasted a month.

Inevitably, I got behind during a busy time at work, and then I never seemed to have enough time or motivation to get caught up again.  So for most of the past year, I've left work every day knowing that there were piles of charts and long to-do lists waiting for me the next morning.

For me, the worst part about never being caught up isn't the overwhelming feeling of always having too much to do:  it's the terrible lethargy that comes from doing the same thing over and over again without seeing any progress.  There is nothing quite as demotivating as signing off on a letter, only to be greeted by 50 other letters that need signing off.  For the past year, work has felt like a neverending slog through the same neverending tasks.  Day after day after day.

A few weeks ago, I had a brief but welcome break from the teaching and presenting and administrative duties that fill my non-clinical time.  And I thought to myself "Now!  Now is the time to get caught up again."  So I took the extra time I had and phoned every last patient and dictated every letter and signed off on every chart.  For the first time in way too long, I was caught up.

And I've stayed that way for the past three weeks.  And once again, it has felt amazing.  I feel a little burst of joy every time I open my letter queue and see the words "You have no new letters to sign off".  Or when I look at my empty inbox.  Or when I look at the folders in my desk, and there's absolutely nothing in them.

The second best part of being caught up is that I've regained the efficiency that I had lost.  When I have just a few tasks to do, I can plow through them quickly, knowing that I'm going to get the satisfaction of being done, once again.  And it's much easier to let go of my relentless perfectionism when I know that it's standing between me and being caught up on everything.

The absolute best part?  I get a bonus day off today because I'm done everything!  I was finishing up my tasks yesterday, and I realized that there wasn't anything that needed to be done today, so I didn't have to come in for my usual catch up day in the office.  No dreaded Thursday paperwork day.  I've taken my car in to get the winter tires removed (just a wee bit late), gotten a haircut for the first time in eight months, and now written a blog post.  Next is lunch and then reading for fun.

Life, for this moment at least, is good.

(If you are hating me and my smugness right now, please note two things:  1)  I start two weeks of call on Monday, which is going to destroy everything I just wrote about; and 2) When I say I'm "done everything", I am ignoring the paper I need to write and the CV I need to update and a number of other longer-term tasks that will forever be on my to-do list.  No matter how efficiently I work or how late I stay, there will always be something left to do.)

Exhaling

For weeks (months? years?) I've been feeling overwhelmed by work.  My desk has been covered with charts and lab results, my dictation inbox has been overflowing with letters to edit, and I've been weeks behind on my to do list.  No matter how much effort I put in, it seemed like I was never doing any better than keeping the piles from growing larger.  And I hated it.

About two weeks ago, I had finally had enough of all of the things that loomed over me, so I made it my goal to get caught up on everything.  Everything.  Whenever I had a spare minute, I tackled the things that needed to be done.  I went into work early and stayed late.  I worked through lunch.  I logged on from home when I had extra time in the evenings or on weekends.  I worked my butt off, and I got shit done.  And now?  I'm caught up.  There are zero charts on my desk and zero dictations to sign off on.

All done.

It feels amazing.  I no longer want to scream at my administrative assistant* when she brings a pile of lab results into my office.  I have actual time to do the big picture things, like read journal articles and prepare presentations and (maybe someday) finish the article on my fellowship research.  By getting caught up, it is now possible to keep up with the things that come in every day and to stay caught up. 

Best.  Feeling.  Ever.

The only problem?  I'm so used to existing in a state of chaos and panic that I don't know how to function with the stress gone.  With nothing screaming at me to pay attention to it, it's hard to pay attention to anything.  How is a procrastinator to function once they stop procrastinating?

*I have never done this, because I'm not a jerkface.  Any physician who yells at people in his or her workplace (or anyone else, for that matter) is a jerkface.