Happy Sunday friends! 💘
🔔 Quick reminder if you're participating in the 2026 Match: The rank order list certification deadline for the 2026 Main Residency Match is on Wednesday, March 4th at 9:00 PM EST 📆. Definitely check out this video on tips for creating your rank list ☑️, and maybe read this short article as well 📖.
Big decisions like building a residency rank list sometimes require out-of-the-box thinking, so keep reading to discover a powerful tool to add to your arsenal 🔨.
First though, I'm gonna come clean about something...I'm not much of a Disney fan 🙈.
Sure, I've seen the movies and shows and I've been to Disney World 🌎, but it was never that big a part of my day-to-day. Recently though, I was listening to a podcast that introduced me to a concept that is reshaping my productivity 🎧.
The podcast was discussing Disney Imagineers; the term Disney gave to creators who used both imagination 💭 and engineering 🧠 to complete projects. These Imagineers were the creative force behind massive projects like Disney theme parks and resorts 🎢, and their process was very fascinating.
That's because Disney Imagineers used something called Blue Sky 🌤️.
Blue Sky means coming up with ideas and solutions to problems without restraints. No budget 💰, no physical limitations 🏗️, no technology out of reach 💻.
At first, this might seem silly. Disney is a huge company, but even they have limits 🤷♂️. They can't just do anything they want!
But Imagineers see things differently.
The goal with the Blue Sky process wasn’t to dream up something outrageous. It was to start at the destination — and then work backward to figure out how to get there 🛣️.
That process allowed Imagineers to design incredible visions, and then engineer the details to make them real 🔬.
This can be a powerful problem-solving and productivity hack, no Disney employment required! 🪄
Lately, when I’ve faced problems that feel unsolvable, I’ve started approaching them with a Blue Sky mindset 🔵.
For example, say you're a first-year medical student with dreams of becoming an emergency medicine physician 🚑...after all, it is the best specialty in medicine 😜.
But you have no idea how to get there 😞. So you start with the blue sky process and envision yourself at the end: You're a successful, confident emergency medicine physician 🏥, able to handle critical patients with ease 🩺. From there you identify the core traits of that physician 🧬 — decisiveness, resilience, strong clinical reasoning — and work backward to build them 🎓. You now have a clear roadmap for what you need to do to become that EM physician! This process can apply to so many aspects of medicine as well as other careers and life in general 🌈.
So the next time you're stuck with a problem and the solution seems cloudy:
Start in the sky. Then build the runway.
That’s Blue Sky thinking 🌤️.
💛 Something I Love: Oats Overnight has been my go-to breakfast lately for staying full and sustained energy on shift. I love eating them with a spoon, but they're great as a drink on the go also!
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