These
days, no one can afford to waste time at work.
Thanks
to widespread downsizing, workloads are piling up. Unfortunately, extra hours
in the day are not.
Maximizing
your time at work can mean the difference between leaving your shift at a
reasonable hour (i.e. holding onto your sanity) and staying late unnecessarily.
You’ve got a life outside the hospital.
Don’t you want to live it?
Don’t you want to live it?
There
are countless ways you waste time on the job.
Sometimes,
it’s unavoidable. Other times, it can be overcome with a minor shift in your
approach. Either way, the first step to addressing time wasters is to identify
them.
Here
are the 10 most common time sucks and some tips on how to defeat them.
Culprit #1: Instant Messaging
While
instant messaging can be a useful tool, its generally informal (and instant!)
nature can also make it productivity’s worst enemy. How many times has a discussion
about something work related quickly degenerated into a half-hour gossip
session? And there’s always someone with a lot less to do who will tempt you
into a chat marathon.
The
solution: If you can’t disconnect completely, at least set your status to
“Busy” for a good portion of the day. This will help deter frivolous chatter.
If someone insists on bothering you with non-work related chit-chat, tell them
(politely) that you are in the middle of something and ask if you can pick up
the conversation another time (maybe during your lunch break?). Don’t feel bad
about it – no one will fault you for your silence if you’ve got work to do. If
they do, you probably don’t want to be chatting with them anyway.
Culprit #2: Over-Reliance on Email
We’ve
all become addicted to email as a form of communication. It’s convenient. It’s
also a great way to keep an electronic trail of your correspondence (helpful if
you’re ever challenged on a decision or occurrence). But a lot of time is
wasted on back and forth emails that would be more easily resolved as a verbal
conversation.
Don’t even get me started on the oh-so-common “reply-to-all”
debacle.
The solution: If there’s something that needs to be discussed, opt for
a face-to-face conversation. Is the person you need to speak to on the other
coast? Call them. And if you still want a written record, write up a quick
email after the conversation outlining where things left off and send to all
relevant parties. On the surface it seems like more steps, but it can mean the difference
between an hour of work and a two-day back and forth email discussion.
Culprit #3: Meandering Meetings
“Meetings
about meetings.” You know the kind –- you get together for an hour and all you
end up with is a list of what should be discussed in yet another meeting. Sure,
staff meetings are an essential part of the hospital; you need to check up on
each other after all. But if run poorly, they can be a colossal waste of time.
The
solution: Meetings should have a purpose; a set of tangible goals you want to
accomplish. This should be realized by tackling a set agenda, which should be
distributed to attendees before the meeting starts. Stay focused on the task at
hand. If there are visual aides, have them set up and ready to go before the
group enters the room. Finally, make sure you really need a meeting: if what
you have to say can be just as easily shared in an email to the group, why get people
up and away from their work?
Culprit #4: Short Gaps Between Meetings
Speaking
of meetings, what about those 15-30 minute gaps between them? What do you ever
really accomplish in that time? Usually, very little. Not enough to go check on
a patient or do something worthwhile. Sure, it gives you a bit of time to
decompress, but it also takes you in and out of meeting mode for no apparent
reason. If you have several meetings a day, that limbo time can amount to a
couple hours of waste.
The
solution: Schedule your meetings back-to-back if you can; you’ll knock them out
more efficiently. The time in between is better clumped together at some point
in the day so it can be used for productive endeavors like getting to your
patients.
Culprit #5: Reacting to Interruptions
The solution: It’s unavoidable – the hyper-connected workplace will
throw constant interruptions at you. The trick is to learn how to react to them
without taking away from the task at hand. If you’re busy, let your phone go to
voicemail. Set aside three times a day where you manage your inbox. Of course,
there are instances where an email demands an urgent reply. But more often than
not, it doesn’t. Know the difference.
Culprit #6: Ineffective Multi-Tasking
Everyone
likes to think they’re great at multi-tasking, especially nurses. And maybe you
are. But there’s a limit to how many things you can do at once without taking
away from the quality of your work and, ultimately, slowing down the process.
Shifting between five different projects at once? You’re probably wasting your
time.
The
solution: Prioritize and then break up your day accordingly. It’s the key to
successfully completing any project. Write down everything you hope to achieve
and assign a set time to do so based on importance. With nursing it’s easy; you
have patients to take care of, doctors to help, and charting to do!
Don’t move
on to the next task until you’ve really completed the previous one. Not only
will you do a better job when you’re focused, you’ll also force yourself to
finish something within the time allotted.
Culprit #7: Disorganized Work space
The
solution: A scattered work space makes for a scattered mind. De-clutter, and
you’ll manage your work more efficiently. Before you leave the office, clear
your desk of cans, cups, food and paperwork. Use that file cabinet for
something other than your box of saltines. Recycle paperwork you’re never going
to use. And don’t add unnecessary items to your files – if you don’t need to
print something out, don’t.
Your company’s shared drive is perfectly capable of
storing documents tidily.
Culprit #8: Personal Communications
The
solution: These days, employers understand that you may spend some time at work
doing personal things (after all, you spend so much time there). Leave your
personal correspondence for your lunch break. You can check your various
accounts all at once, guilt-free. Be firm with your friends and family about
contacting you during work hours –- if they’re not reaching out to you between
nine and five, you’ll be a lot less tempted to check in. You’ll also have a
better time overcoming Culprit #5.
Culprit #9: Web Surfing "Breaks”
You
need to step away from what you’re working on so you search for reviews of that
movie you’ve been dying to see. Before you know it, you’ve got six tabs open in
your browser. You’re looking up concert tickets, shoes, today’s news and the
etymology of a words. No need to ask where your afternoon went.
Your browser
history says it all.
The
solution: Know your limits. If you’re tempted to look something up, wait until
you’ve at least finished what you’re working on.
Preferably, leave this type of
search for your lunch break or the end of the work day. It’s just too easy to
get sucked in when there’s endless information at your fingertips.
Culprit #10: Cigarette/Coffee Breaks
Everyone
needs to step away from their shift every once in a while. In fact, it’s been
said that taking breaks can often make you more productive. But if you’re going
out for a smoke or a coffee run every half hour (sounds extreme, but not
totally unrealistic), you’re reducing your productivity to the bare minimum by
never really getting into the groove of your work.
The
solution: When it comes to breaks outside the hospital, use your best
judgement. We recommend three a day: one mid-morning, one at lunch time, and
one in the afternoon. Taking your full lunch break is key, if you can. As a
nurse If you’re out of the hospital for a solid hour mid-day, you’ll feel less
of a need to step out for smaller breaks. And you’ll be able to get into the
work groove – and stay there! – more often.
This
post was initially posted in nurslink.monster.com
