Need advise on how to manage my time

[luci2424]

I,m a new grad working nights on a very busy medical/surgical floor. I'm in my last week of a 18 weeks orientation program. Through the whole program I have been struggling with managing my time. I have been struggling the most with keep up with documentation. It is the one thing that t always take the back burner to my other nursing tasks. Through out my shift I never feel like I have much time to chart, what ends up happening is that I usually get so focus on completing my tasks, that I wait until my shift is almost over to do the documentation. this has been causing me to not leave work on time. almost everyday, I have to hear from my unit manager that I need to improve on my time management and leave work on time. so I just need some advise on managing time.

[AnneS]

I'm a fairly new RN and I have found that its helpful for me to make a task sidebar on my brain for each patient. For example, i need to assess, i need to make a care plan, document education...etc.. Through out my shift i will try and knock off one of the charting tasks. I don't try and do it all at once, because I find there is too much other stuff going on, but my checking off one charting task every 30 min or hour or so, I get it all done. Also, if I am calling a doctor or performing another task that should be documented, I try and do it then and there and not wait until the end of my shift to reenact what happened.

[MJB2010]

I have the same problem. I have really been working on grouping my tasks, so when I go into a room I do it all at once instead of having to run back & forth. I still struggle with delegation and find myself doing a lot of things the tech could do, and it is eating up a lot of time. I am getting better. I have stopped asking "can you take so & so to the br" because I always got an argument of why they couldnt. Now I just tell them to do it. I think they realized I mean business now. I am trying to work smarter instead of harder and it is a struggle every day. Try to anticipate if the pt will want pain med or water etc if you know you are headed in the room.

[Mutts Wife NP]

I had the same problem while working on a telemetry stepdown unit. Here are a few tricks I found:

1) Go off somewhere quiet, where your patients and family can't see you if possible, and make yourself do some charting - even if you don't have time to do it all. This way you can get it done quicker w/o interruptions.

2) If you are doing a blood transfusion, take your charting into your patient's room if possible, since you should be spending the first 15 minutes with the patient in case there is an adverse reaction.

3) Don't let your patients talk your ear off; this is time you can be charting. Same goes with co-workers.

4) Don't be too hard on yourself. As you get into a routine and do the same procedures over and over, the speed will build and allow you more time to chart. Many, many nurses have this same issue.

Hope this helps. :)