Time Management

what type of nursing are you doing? does your workplace do team nursing or are you left alone with your own workload?

when i used to work on the wards i would make a plan for the day, even on a scrap piece of paper. i would go around to each patient, do a quick assessment to make sure they were ok and go through the chart quickly and make a note of times medications were due or other appointment times or procedures such as dressing changes, when IV fluids would be due or ECG's etc. after this first quick round i would number the patients in the order of who had their hygiene cares met first. i would always start with the heaviest (eg the total assist pt who needs a hoist transfer into the shower trolley then hoisted back to bed) and leave the easiest to last. its always good to place the patient on the loo and if they can be left by themselves there id go make their bed quickly while they did their morning business then off to the shower. for medication rounds my ward had a strict protected medication round where no matter what whoever was doing the medications was not to be disturbed. the patients would be made aware that unless it was an emergency they were not to talk to the nurse while they dispensed medications. this reduces medication errors significantly and gets the job done fast because there are no interuptions. if you need to do another nurse's medications, example an IV drug for an EN always make sure you get the EN to do something for you. For every IV drug i had to prepare for an EN I would ask them to do 2 patients observations for me. once all my patients has their needs met & medications done i would do the care plans & notes. i know alot of nurses leave the notes til just before finishing the shift but i always find if i get them over & done with, usually just after half-through the shift that leaves the rest of the shift to attend to other jobs such as patient education or just spending 10 mintues talking to a patient who has had no visitors for awhile. you can always quickly go back & update the chart if something changes. a good general rule of thumb is to prioritize. make sure all your patients are alive and not deteriorating to start with and if they are then that takes priority. for me, obsverations are my number one priority. i like to be assured all my patients blood pressures and O2 sats and pain levels are stable before moving onto something else. medications need to be given on time and takes priority aswell. remember nursing is a 24hr job and as long as you are working hard and not slacking off people wont get mad at you if you dont get everything done within your shift! hope that may help a little bit.

Time management has always been a great thing to have because we are so busy doing so many different things all of the time; especially nurses.  When I was in nursing school, I had to learn time management skills.  In fact, there was a class that taught us how to manage our time more wisely.  I believe the class was called University 100.  What they did was give us a homework assignment on making a chart of our week and putting in all of the things that we have to do in that particular chart.  Then, we look at the chart and see what we have.  When you visualize your time, you can see that you have more time to commit to things in certain areas than others.  I would suggest that you make a chart, make a jot list, or make a spreadsheet of all of the items that you need to do and the time that you need them in. Then, you will know that you can study more on certain nights.   I hope that helps you.  

Time management is the key to surviving nursing school because there are so many different things that must be done when you are a nursing student.  Nursing students have so much to do because there is the classroom lecture theory portion where you must budget your time wisely and focus on what the teacher is asking you to learn and understand the nursing jargon.  Then, there is the clinical rotations that take the nursing that you learn in theory and put it into practice.  The things that will help you in time management are the following:

1.  Make a calendar that will show you what needs to be done each and everyday during your school time.

2.  Highlight with a red or yellow highlighter the most important things that need to be done first.  

3.  Always learn new material in chunks and take breaks in between your studies.

4.  Always reward yourself whenever you accomplish something that can be challenging.  

I hope that this was helpful.  

These are questions I always ask by myself before starting any task!!

• What’s the first thing I am going to do and why?
• Which task or action is more important and why?
• The task which I have done recently were important or not?
• What’s more important for the patient?