Dr Noreen Akram — NHS Internal Medicine Trainee

The problem

Specialty medical training is two jobs at once.

The first is clinical. Ward rounds, acute takes, referrals, patients. It fills the day completely and then some.

The second job is everything else. MRCP revision. Portfolio entries. Audits. Reflective logs. This is the stuff that's hidden and often more as important. But crucially, there's hardly any allocated time to complete these activities.

For Noreen, whatever was left was not enough. Admin piled up. Portfolio work drifted. MRCP revision happened in fragments, squeezed between shifts that ran long and days off that disappeared. She knew what needed doing but it was very difficult to find a reliable system for getting it done.

What she tried

The problem with most productivity tools is they assume you have a stable week. Noreen does not have a stable week. Her rota changes. Her shifts overrun. The clinical work does not negotiate.

Task lists did not cut it. Good intentions did not cut it. She needed a way to fit a second job around a first job that has no fixed hours.

What changed

Noreen started time blocking with Aftertone.

MRCP revision got a fixed slot each week. Portfolio entries got scheduled like clinical commitments, not treated as things to do when time appeared. Admin that had been drifting for months finally had a place in the calendar.

The planning view made the difference. Before the week started, she could see exactly when the non-clinical work was happening. Not hope it would happen. See when.

On the ward, quick capture meant tasks that surfaced mid-shift went straight into Aftertone. Nothing rattled around in her head waiting to be forgotten.

The weekly report showed her, honestly, where her time outside the ward was actually going. The first time she read it, it was uncomfortable. That was the point.

The result

Noreen's portfolio is current. Her MRCP revision happens consistently. The admin that used to follow her home is dealt with.

She is not less busy. Specialty training does not get easier. But she starts each week prepared rather than behind. The clinical work and the training work finally coexist instead of competing.

"I finally feel prepared," she says.

Aftertone users get an average of 5.3 hours of focused work per day, versus the national average of two. Noreen got there in two weeks.

Send this to Noreen, get her to correct anything that's wrong, and pull a real quote out of her reaction to it. That quote goes at the top and makes the whole thing land.