organization?

caliotter3 · Jan 25, 2008

If you are doing visits rather than shift work, you have to be able to change your plans on a dime and be able to track and organize your visits to best suit your schedule and driving area. If you have 11 patients to be seen in a two day period, you have to decide when to see which, call them up and arrange the appointments. when you go to the appointments you can't waste time chit chatting or you will be late to your next visit. You have to think ahead of time what your goals for that visit are and stick to them unless you encounter a problem that takes priority. This is the biggest area in organizational skills that most encounter. Another is doing your paperwork. You can't procrastinate too long. The paperwork is due when it is due. Even if you use computers, the reports are due when they are due. Some nurses have a bad habit of leaving seven days of work to do at the last minute to get it in before each week's deadline. This obviously is not a good practice. Then, if you do shift work, like in any shift, you must organize your time around the tasks, treatments, med administrations, and other items that must be done during the shift. You can't sit around spending the whole shift visiting, although you also can't ignore the psychosocial needs of the patient, and leave all your work for the last hour and expect to get your charting done too. Things come up in shift work also. So it is best to get things done as early in the shift as you can, then you have time to work with problems later. HTH.

cny4rn · Jan 26, 2008

I think everyone adapts their own style. I am less organized than some but my system seems to work for me. Actually being less anal has helped me I think. You have to be ready to go with the flow, cause your schedule may change at any time.

Today I got handed an admission I wasn't expecting so the two recerts I had planned had to be pushed back a little later in the day. You just learn to expect the unexpected.