How to triple your manuscript productivity

0:00 Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients. When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research program. Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit. However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

0:40 For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene. Welcome to today's episode. I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and we are talking about how to triple your manuscript productivity. So in case you are not aware, we are enrolling our first cohort of coaching clients on August 28th. If you're interested, sign up on our website, ClinicianResearcherpodcast.com. Okay?

1:22 So today we're talking about how to triple your manuscript productivity. And I will tell you that when I started my faculty career, I was a binge writer. What is a binge writer? A writer who needs eight blocks of time or eight hours of time to be able to produce anything kind of worthy of writing. And so I have a manuscript goal or I have a grant that I need to do, and it's like, where can I find eight blocks of time? Usually in the middle of the night. So I pull the all-nighter, get the writing done. In the morning, it's like done. And I did keep going with that for a while.

2:03 One of the things I discovered is something that's called a keystone habit. So the keystone habit really of writing consistently. And I want to talk first about the keystone habit. So the principle of a keystone habit I got from Charles Juhigg, and he's the author of the book, The Power of Habit. And he talked about the keystone habit. So you think about a keystone habit as a key that unlocks other doors. So essentially, the keystone habit is a fundamental behavior that once you adopt leads to other habits forming as well. So it's kind of like a chain reaction type of habit. It's the one habit that gets you to the next habit that gets you to the next habit. Take for example, working out consistently.

2:44 If you went to the gym every day, seven days a week, it changes everything about you. It changes a lot about you. Not everything, but it changes a lot about you. Because when you go to McDonald's and you're in the drive-through window about to order the Big Mac, you're like, wait a minute. Goodness, I just worked out for the last seven days. Should I really be eating this Big Mac? It changes the way you think about your eating. It changes the way you think about your activity throughout the week, so you've been active for like seven days. And then you start to ask, well, should I be vegging out in front of the couch for the next seven hours? So exercise is one keystone habit.

3:24 Not just exercise, but consistent exercise that leads to many changes, including changes in the way you eat, changes in your activity for the rest of the week, and changes in other things as well. So exercise is an example of a keystone habit. What I discovered is that another keystone habit that's central to your identity as a clinician scientist is writing. Writing is a keystone habit. Writing is a habit. And I'm not just talking about binge writing. I'm not talking about the kind of writing I was doing, which is the binge writing where I just would churn it out in a matter of days and be like, whoa, look at what I did. I'm talking about consistent daily writing, a writing habit.

4:07 See, I'm talking about habits. I'm talking about a consistent daily writing habit. A consistent daily writing habit is a keystone habit that unlocks many doors as a clinician scientist. And what it does for you is helps you triple your productivity. It triples your productivity. Now, I will tell you that what you do every day is more important than what you do every week. It's more important than what you do every year, and it's more important than what you do every couple of years. So when we think about the things we do every day are more important than the things we do once in a while, and they'll be more important than the things we do once a year.

4:52 So maybe once every couple of months, you have a big writing thing where you're like for three days straight, you're just writing and writing and writing, and you produce a ton of writing. Great. Good for you. But it's really the story of the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise keeps going. And because of that, the tortoise over time will cover a lot more ground compared to the hare who's like bound, bound, bound, I'm tired, bound, bound, bound, I'm tired, bound, bound, bound, I'm tired. And the quality, the quality of the work is always higher when it's done consistently because over time it gets better and better and better, and the work gets sharper and sharper and sharper.

5:36 So how do you do this? How do you triple your writing productivity? How do you triple your writing productivity, turn it into manuscripts that are published, right? At the end, you want your work to be published. You don't want to just be writing for writing sake. You want your work to be published. So how do you triple your writing productivity so that you triple your manuscript productivity? So the secret sauce, secret sauce, I've given it away already, but the secret sauce is consistency. Now here's the rub. As clinicians, we are busy. If we're not busy seeing the patient, we're busy following up on the patient.

6:17 And if we're not busy following up on the patient, we're busy calling the patient. We're busy looking at the patient labs. We might be busy scheduling the patient. I hope you're not scheduling your own patients, but you might be busy scheduling your own patients. And if you don't have your own patients to schedule, I bet there's somebody else's patient who you could see too. There's always, always something to take up your time. I mean, we haven't even talked about the committees that you're on or all the other things that you do, but you are busy. And how do you create time in your super busy schedule for writing productivity? I'm going to tell you that the solution to a lot of your busyness is a consistent writing schedule. Okay.

6:57 I'll talk about it at the end. But first, how do we triple our writing productivity? Number one, number one is you really got to believe in yourself and your ability to create what you want. Actually, I'm going to restate that. You want to rekindle your belief in yourself and your ability to accomplish the impossible. I will say it again. You want to rekindle your belief in yourself and in your ability to achieve what's impossible. Now why did I say rekindle it? Cause you're like, wait, I don't even believe I can't, but you can. You've demonstrated it over and over again.

7:39 So number one, you got into medical school. Can I just tell you how remarkable a feat that was? Let's just pause, take a step back and recognize how hard it is to get into medical school. So think about the thousands of pre-meds across the country every year who start in their freshman year saying, I'm going to become a doctor. I'm going to go to medical school. And the thousands who don't make it. But you are one of the few, the bold, the brave, the proud, the beautiful. You're one of the few who made it in. And that is a sign that you put in the work and the effort to make it happen.

8:22 Because people don't get into medical school by accident. You just can't roll out of bed and get into medical school. If you're going to do it, you're planning for a minimum of a year, but you're planning for actually probably three, four years at a minimum to get into medical school. Because you got to make sure you have the right classes. You got to make sure you have the right grades. You got to make sure you have the right MCAT score. So you are working towards all these things so you can get into med school. You put in a lot of work to make that happen. You really achieved something that many people could not achieve. And then you went from medical school into residency. You made this impossible transition from medical student.

9:04 I don't really know how to take care of a patient to intern. Holy cow, I'm the doctor. You did that. Nobody did it for you. Your program director didn't come and make it happen. Oh yeah, they put structures in place so that you could get the experience that lets you there. But you did the work. You did. You got there by yourself, who acquired all the knowledge that was necessary to be able to become the confident third year physician who was able to take care of the patient and actually just call the attending as an FYI. Like yeah, I need to discuss this patient with you, but I already have the plan. I'm done. I've already done this. I've done this.

9:44 I've done that. You did that. You went from medical student to intern to resident leading the team. Holy cow, you're so amazing. And then if you went to fellowship, you crossed over from I'm so good. I know what I'm doing to holy cow, this is a new field and I've done nothing like this before. To the end of fellowship where you're like, yeah, yeah, I'm hot stuff. You did that. And so now as a faculty member, like why wouldn't you believe that you're the same person who can make a career happen as a clinician scientist? Okay, yeah, you've been clinical for the last 10 years. Okay, so yeah, you haven't had many publications.

10:25 So okay, you don't have experience submitting grants. So you have demonstrated over and over again that you can do things that other people can't do. You've demonstrated your staying power. You've demonstrated your commitment. There's nothing you can't do. And so you know this about yourself. I'm not telling you a story you don't know. How is it that you're struggling to believe that you, a clinician, can make the transition to clinician scientist and do it well? How is it that you are struggling to believe that? That's why the first thing you've got to do is rekindle your belief in yourself.

11:08 Because when you do, when you know that the moment you start to put in the work, you're going to see the output, then you're ready. Until you know you're not ready. But I know because of your phenotype, I don't have to know you to know at the moment you make up your mind that you're going to achieve something, you do what it takes. And so that is the first step is rekindle your belief in yourself to remind yourself that you are the kind of person who can accomplish impossible things. Number one. Number two. Actually, we start the writing and we start writing for short periods every day, no questions asked.

11:50 Take a time, 10 minutes, and write for 10 minutes every day. Maybe more realistically, 20 minutes. I'm going to write for 20 minutes every day no matter what. Yes, I start the OR at 630 a.m. and I go all the way to 5 p.m. I'm going to find 30 minutes, 30 minutes to do some writing. 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there. 30 minutes every day. Every day, just start writing. And what do I mean start writing? Start writing. And by writing, really, it's everything that leads you to that published manuscript. Start writing. Just 30 minutes a day. You have things to write. You do. And what will happen is the more you write, the more you find to write. And the more you write, the more you create to write.

12:32 I told you writing is a keystone habit. But the first step is just start it. Just start a habit every day. Today is Monday. I'm going to write for 30 minutes. Today, tomorrow is Tuesday. I'm going to write for 30 minutes. And don't even do more than 30 minutes for like a week, two weeks, three weeks. And then you're like, well, you know, I did 30 minutes. I've been doing 30 minutes consistently for the last three months. What if I upped it to 45 minutes a day? Okay. Start it. 45 minutes. Where can you get the first 15, the next 15, the next 15? Start writing consistently every day. And by every day, I'll tell you that I don't write on the weekends and I don't believe in writing on the weekends because I take time off for my brain to rejuvenate and rest and relax.

13:18 So when I say write every day, I really am saying write Monday to Friday, but I'm also recognizing that some of us don't have a Monday to Friday schedule. Whatever every day looks like for you without like thinking that this is what you're going to be doing seven days a week, write every day. Every day consistently. Take a time. The minimum I'm telling you is 20 minutes. Every day for 20 minutes. Find 20 minutes. Can you find 20 minutes in your 24 hour day? Can you find 20 minutes to write? And if you can, actually you can. Do you want to is the real question. And if you want to, find those 20 minutes and write every day consistently without fail for the next three months.

14:03 That's the first step. Create the writing habits. You got to create the habit. Times are hard to form, but you got to create it and you make it a habit as something that you do daily and consistently. Create the writing habit. Write for short periods of time every day. Number three, build writing time into your daily schedule. So you write every day. It doesn't have to be on your schedule, but the next step towards really tripling your productivity is to make it part of the schedule. You know how you look in your Outlook calendar for those of you who have Outlook or other calendars, whatever it is that you use, and there are blocks of times for meetings.

14:49 Yes, there should be a block of time for your writing meeting. Okay, we've already established the habit. We're writing for 30 minutes every day. Can we find the consistent time of day in which you write? So is it 8 a.m. every day? You're like, oh, I have clinic at 730 a.m. on Tuesdays. Okay. So on Tuesdays, is it a little bit earlier? Is it at the end of the day? Realistically, when in your schedule can you do that writing? Or do you say, I'm going to be 30 minutes late to see my first patient so I can get my writing done. Do you do that? I don't know. You've got to decide for yourself. But put it on the schedule. It's on the schedule like there's a meeting on your schedule. Put it on your schedule.

15:29 Okay, Monday, what's on your schedule for writing? 30 minutes, put it on your schedule. Tuesday, put it on your schedule. Wednesday, put it on your schedule. Thursday, put it on your schedule. Friday, put it on your schedule. Oh, I'm going to challenge you to go further than that. I'm going to challenge you to put it on your schedule as a recurring meeting. Yep. Don't wait until Friday and then you look at your schedule for next week and you're like, oh, the schedule is full. Create a time. Put it on your schedule. Maybe it's 730 to 8 a.m. Maybe it's 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Maybe it's 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Maybe you're an afternoon writer, so it's 2 to 3 p.m. I'm saying just 30 minutes.

16:11 But if you can put more, sure. But 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, whatever you are choosing, consistently writing, put it on your schedule like you have meetings on your schedule every day. Okay, so you have rekindled your belief in yourself. You started writing for short periods of time. You built writing time into your daily schedule. Number four is to honor your agreement with yourself. So you've put it on your schedule. It's a meeting and invariably someone's going to call and say, hey, you know, there's the only time that this meeting can happen is at 12 p.m. on Monday.

16:51 Oh, and that is your writing time. You're not free because you already scheduled a meeting. Are you going to honor that commitment to yourself or are you going to break it? Are you going to say, well, it's just me writing? Or are you going to say, mm-mm, I made a commitment that at 12 p.m. every Monday I write. That meeting is non-negotiable. What else is available? Because if you had, let's say you have a kid and you need to take your kid to the doctor's appointment, the appointment is set and they say, wow, 12 o'clock is the only time we have. You're like, oh, I have a doctor's appointment. I can't go. Or you need to take your dog to the vet. I have a vet appointment with my pet at 12 noon.

17:34 I can't make it. But why is it that when you have a writing meeting with yourself, you think that's negotiable? And to be honest, it's your life. Everything is negotiable. The doctor's visit for your kid, the vet appointment for your pet, it's all negotiable. But which are you going to negotiate out of and which are you going to be consistent about keeping? The commitment you make to yourself may be the most important commitment you make ever. More important than your commitment to a mentor, more important than your commitment to an institution, more important than your commitment to any program of study or anything at all. The commitment you make with yourself that you honor is so important because every time you honor a commitment to yourself, you make a statement to yourself and to the universe that you are the kind of person who honors commitments to you.

18:27 Oh, my goodness. Every time you make a commitment to yourself and you honor it, you are making a declaration first to yourself and to the universe. You're the kind of person who keeps commitments with yourself. And that is so important. If you're going to be the kind of person who leads a research program of any stature, you've got to be the kind of person who keeps commitments to yourself no matter what's happening in the world. I keep commitments to myself. Okay. You make this meeting. You put this meeting on your calendar. You make this appointment with yourself.

19:10 Honor the appointment every time. Okay, number five. Create a plan for your writing. Yes, create a strategic plan for your writing. Now, I didn't start with the plan. And you know, to be honest, if you're a physician, if you're a clinician, you're a planner, you know how to get things done. If you didn't know before your intern year probably taught you, you're like, here's a checklist and I check the boxes. Oh, I love checking boxes. So you know how to make a plan. But I didn't ask you in your writing, I didn't ask you to start with a plan. I asked you to start with a habit. And then you get to the place where you start to create the plan for habit that's already established.

19:53 Because what happens is your writing is that you start to get your projects done. And then it's like, well, what else do I write? And when you feel like you have nothing to write, then you break your habit. And it's hard to come back to it. Because part of establishing a consistent writing habit is to do it consistently. And when you don't have anything to write, then sometimes you have a temptation to say, well, I have nothing to write. I can take a break today. But you do have something to write. You just don't know what it is. And so by creating a strategic plan for your writing, you're like, I'm looking forward to the next three months. This is what I want to accomplish. This manuscript, I would like to revise it and resubmit it. I'd like to start this proposal that's due in four months.

20:35 I'd like to do this. Have a plan. Have a plan. Create a plan. And so you already know. You're already writing every day. It's already on your schedule. And now you know exactly what goes into that schedule. You're not twiddling your thumb saying, hmm, I guess I have 33 minutes. You don't. You don't have 33 minutes. If you're going to be a clinician scientist, you never have 33 minutes. Because your time is always spoken for because you create a strategic plan. And it's not spoken for because somebody else is taking up your time. It's spoken for because you created a plan for your own time. OK. Create a strategic plan for your writing. And what it allows you to do is not guess, what should I write today?

21:16 And then you spend your 30 minutes of writing time or your 20 minutes of writing time imagining how or what you could write about. Don't do that. Do the plan early. And then when it's time to write, do the writing. All right. Number six. Have a weekly plan. OK. You have the overarching plan. I'm going to submit this proposal three, four months from now. OK. Great. I love that you have a strategic plan for the next three months. What are you doing every week? So you've got to have a weekly plan. Tuesday, the day of the week, usually the beginning of the week makes sense. Maybe a Sunday night, maybe a Sunday morning, maybe a Monday morning, maybe even a Friday evening.

21:58 What am I going to accomplish in my 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 45 minutes of writing next week? Monday, I have a block at 12. I'm going to write the introduction. Tuesday, I have a block at 10 a.m. I'm going to make sure I revise the methods. Wednesday, hmm, Wednesday, the block I have is after my clinic. I'm going to be super tired. How about I update the citations on Wednesday? Hmm. Thursday. Wow. Thursday, I actually have two hours for writing. How about I write the discussion? That's the hardest part for me. Hmm. What do I do Friday? I like Friday to be a light day. It's an administrative day, so I don't want to take up the whole day writing. How about I format the manuscript for submission?

22:39 OK. You've got a plan for the week. And guess what? By the week you turn around, the manuscript is mostly written because you planned for it. And then you can look forward to the next week and say, OK, what am I going to do next week? And before you come to next week, you already have a plan for that next week that comes from the strategic plan, the overarching plan that you have for yourself. Number six is plan your weekly writing schedule. All right. What about number seven? Number seven, get accountability. OK, all this sounds good, but are you accountable? Who? Who are you accountable to? Well, I'm accountable to myself.

23:21 I trust myself. You do, because we've established that you're the kind of person who keeps commitments with yourself and you're human. So how do we account for the human factor? I'm like, oh, I'm so tired. Oh, my gosh. I mean, my clinic yesterday was so hard. I deserve a break today. You know what? I deserve a break for three days. That's how hard the clinic was. Who is holding you accountable to getting the work done? You need accountability. If you're a robot, maybe you don't need accountability. If you're a human being, you get tired, you get weary. People ask you to do things and you want to make them happy and you say yes.

24:04 And invariably, your whole plan to finish this manuscript in a week goes out of the window and you got no writing done. Who says, hey, Dr. Lemmona, I saw that this was your plan, but you didn't accomplish it. How come? Who asks you the hard questions? You do need accountability. This whole system, this whole structure of tripling your productivity only happens well if there's somebody to hold you accountable. How do you get that accountability? Well, you can get it in your peers around you who are working towards the same goals.

24:45 You can get it in a near peer who's already doing all the writing and tripling their productivity. You can get it from a mentor, possibly, if you feel confident, if your research mentor is that kind of person who would care actually about your daily writing productivity. Or you can get it from a coaching group. This is where I tell people that you want to be part of a group that holds you accountable to the goals you set for yourself. That's what our coaching programs help people do. If you're thinking that maybe that's a strategy, that's the way you want to go, August 28th is our first cohort. If you miss it, check our website from the next cohort, it's clinicianresearcherpodcast.com.

25:29 Get the accountability that you need so that you can succeed in creating the writing structures that get you maximum productivity. What does it do for you? Writing every day creates a positive feedback loop and you're kind of creating a vacuum because the more you write, the more you want to write. The more you write, the more you see the fruits of your writing and the more you see the products of your writing, the more you want those products. It's like you get what you measure, you get what you invest in. The more you invest, the more you see returns on your investment, the more you want to invest. It really creates a positive feedback loop. So you're like, wow, I got those three manuscripts submitted within three months.

26:12 Holy cow, what else can I write? And then you start working and saying, wow, there's this other manuscript that I had abandoned for the last three years. Okay, well, my mentor doesn't have any writing projects for me. How about I write up this patient that I saw in the clinic? Oh, wow. How about this other writing? All of a sudden you start to find writing projects that you didn't even remember existed. You start to make up writing projects. And I don't mean you're making up a writing project, but you start to look for the data that allows you to create product, that allows you to submit manuscripts. So honestly, this daily writing habit is a keystone habit because it really helps you just produce more and more writing. It's really awesome. It also helps you think about every project you do in terms of productivity.

26:57 So you now stop doing projects that you're like, well, I hope that leads to a publication seven years from now. You stop that. You say, I'm about to commit to this group. What will it get me in terms of my writing productivity? And what it does for you too is it starts to move you away from the people who don't get to writing productivity. They say, oh, yeah, we're going to publish this at the end. Seven months later, no one started the project. Eight months later, wow, what's going on with this project? Oh, I haven't had time. You start to value your time spent in activities that do not produce more writing. That's what a writing habit does for you. And the third thing a writing habit does for you is it forces you to become the leader of your own writing journey.

27:43 So you start out and you're depending on a mentor to give you writing projects, to feed you writing projects all the time. But you become someone who produces writing every day. And you start to ask yourself, well, what writing projects can I lead for myself? That's where you get to become a first author consistently. That's where you start to become a senior author consistently. Because the more writing projects you create, the more opportunities you create for other people to come in and be a part of that writing. Yes, you create opportunity for trainees to be part of your writing because of your writing. A daily writing habit is a keystone habit. And therefore, I invite you to start writing every day. Don't ask, what do I write?

28:23 Don't ask that yet. Just start the habit five days a week. Be the kind of person who honors their commitment to write every day. Don't miss a day for the rest of this week. And if you accomplish that, send me a DM. I'm on Facebook. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram. You can drop me a message or even a voicemail on our podcast website, clinicianresearcherpodcast.com. Send me a message. I want to hear about your success writing consistently for even just the next five days. What would it look like if you wrote for 30 minutes every day, just five days a week, four weeks a month? At the end of the year, you would have consistently produced 120 hours of writing, no matter how busy your clinical schedule is.

29:09 What kind of win would that create for you? You would have consistently submitted 120 hours worth of manuscripts. What could that do for your career as you transition from clinician to clinician scientist? That would be super awesome. So, if this episode's been helpful to you, if somebody else could use information that triples their writing productivity, please share it with them. I'm asking you today to subscribe to our show and to give us a five-star rating because it helps other people find us. More clinicians need this information, but they can make the transition for themselves. I ask you to share it with them.

29:50 It's been a pleasure talking with you. I'll talk with you again next time. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself. Someone else needs to hear it. So take a minute right now and share it. As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.