Las 5 D's

The ‘5 Ds’
By Dr Roger Henderson
With my patients’ consent, I sometimes video my consultations for appraisal by fellow doctors.
After showing one such clip, I asked my colleagues, ‘What was the firstthing you noticed?’ To my
astonishment, they all agreed on the same thing - how tidy my desk was. Later, I dug out a video from
my earliest days as a GP and was interested to see my desk overflowingwith papers. What had
changed? I puzzled over this, then remembered a seminar on time management I had attended some
years previously. There I had heard about the ‘5 Ds’; a tool for managing stress atwork. I must have
absorbed the concept.
• Do
• Defer
• Dump
• Delegate
• Discuss
These ‘5 Ds’ represent the five possible responses to any piece of work, mail or personal or office
problem. Do, dumpand delegate are decisive, whereas defer and discuss require definite deadlines
leading to completing actions. The categories may seem artificial initially, especially if you even hoard
junk mail‘just in case’. However, once you get used to selecting your course of action, you will find it
is liberating and less stressful to make decisions and stick to them.
‘Do’ means what it says - sort it out,there and then - no prevarication, no time-wasting; a simple,
complete process, whether it is sorting out a piece of paperwork, or launching yourself into a bungee
jump. Job done.
‘Defer’ gives somebreathing space while you await further information, or think about your best
option. It is not an excuse to run away from your problem, or put it off indefinitely. After only a day or
two, you mustthen ‘do, dump or delegate’ - that is, work out what the paperwork actually means to
you, or listen to what your head thinks about jumping off a bridge attached to big rubber bands.
‘Dump’ simply meansbin the paper, the action or whatever. Face the fact that you never want to
bungee jump, not ever, and go and find something more interesting to do. This decision is final!
‘Delegate’ is a subject...