Delegation and Priority Help!!

hi, kate!

i've actually looked for nursing information on this before and not found much. most of the information is in business sections and in time-management. i do have some links you can check out, but remember they were written for business people. you have to do a little tweaking to apply them to nursing situations. as i read through them i find that i follow a lot of the concepts they list.

you have to make a determination and distinction between which tasks are important and those that are urgent. now, for nurses, this can change at a moment's notice. something that was not so important an hour ago can suddenly become urgent. so, you need to have a little group of questions to ask yourself when deciding what you should be doing and when.

1. what is the most important thing for me to be doing right now?
   
2. what deadlines have i got? if deadlines are now then they win. is your deadline negotiable? can you buy extra time and do it later? (see the link below about procrastination.) if the deadline is non-negotiable, stop what you are doing and go do it.
   
3. what happens if i don't do this? (this is the most frequently asked time management question) question the value of everything you do and how you do it. think through your routine tasks or tasks that simply take too much time - are you doing them for a reason or from habit? is this important? is this urgent? do i have to do this? can i do this differently?

http://www.mindbodyword.com/resources/how_to/prioritize_tasks.html - how to prioritize tasks to manage work time. while this doesn't really apply to nursing, the concepts are sound and can be applied to a nurse working on a busy nursing unit. at first make written todo lists on what ever sheets of paper you use for report or note taking. eventually, you can do these lists mentally, but it takes many, many weeks, perhaps months to get to that point.

http://www.time-management-guide.com/prioritizing.html - prioritizing effectively

http://www.ecomhelp.com/kb/inspiration/kb_prioritizing-your-day.htm - prioritizing your day to accomplish more. again, another site for business, but the principles for nursing are there and sound.

http://www.dkeener.com/keenstuff/priority.html - setting priorities.

http://www.ehow.com/how_948_manage-time.html - how to manage your time

http://www.ehow.com/how_2248_break-procrastination-habit.html - how to break the procrastination habit

http://www.ehow.com/how_3812_make-list.html - how to make a todo list

delegation: make sure you read up on delegation. one of the biggest problems i read about in the first year in nursing forum for new grads is their inability to recognize, stubborness about, or lack of knowledge about, delegation of tasks as being important that results in angry co-workers, getting out of work late, feeling overwhelmed because of all the cna work they feel they are being forced to do, and going home from work every day crying their eyes out wondering how it is that they came to hate nursing.

http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/meng/me96/documents/aspects/delegate.html?http://oldeee.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/meng/me96/documents/aspects/delegate.html - delegation. everything you need to know about delegation presented concisely.

http://www.ehow.com/how_3816_delegate-responsibility.html - how to delegate responsibility

http://www.leadershipdevelopmenttraininghowto.com/elements.htm - the elements of delegation