Orginazational Skills

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Does anyone have any good suggestions on how to organize your patient care in clinical/hospital day? I am also trying to find a book on nursing prioritizing or organizing. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

hi, roziepig!

here are three previous threads on this very topic:

https://allnurses.com/forums/f31/comfortable-delegating-180203.html

https://allnurses.com/forums/f50/critical-thinking-help-116630.html - has a link to a book on amazon.com

https://allnurses.com/forums/f50/delegation-priority-help-179178.html

i am aware of a couple books on this subject that have been published by nursing educators. i do not know the name of them, but you can find them by doing a seach on amazon or barnes & noble's sites for "nursing prioritizing" or "delegation in nursing" or phrasing something like that.

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Thank you so much for your help. I truly appreciate your time and suggestions. Thank you!!

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If you are still doing your clinical rotations I would suggest you talk to your clinical instructor about organizing your day. Make sure you already have an outline of some sort and time frames for each action (assessment, passing meds, charting, etc). See where you spend most time and if the instructor has any suggestions to improve and speed up you tasks. You can also talk to a more experienced nurse on that floor or just observe her/his routine. When you start working as an RN your preceptor should help you with organizational skills and as you keep practicing you will gain speed and experience.

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Specializes in LTC.

THis is what I need help with, organizational skills.

How do you nurses keep organized, what are some techniques that you use in particular?

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

  1. I have developed a regular routine that I try to follow. When I first started out as a nurse, I used to write the routine down on the back of my "brains" so I wouldn't forget anything.
  2. I know that I am going to get distracted from my routine throughout my shift. This is a fact of nursing. I have trained myself to constantly ask myself, "now where was I on my list of things to do?" so I can get back on track.
  3. I developed my own little secret set of marks and abbreviations--a kind of shorthand--that works for me that I use on my "brains".
  4. There are some things that I just don't trust to my memory and I mark on my "brains". That includes completion of charting for every patient and checking each of my patient's charts for one last time for doctor's orders. As I accomplish those very last tasks before leaving my shift, I mark them with big red hash marks that end up forming a big "X" over a patient's room number on my "brains" when both tasks have been completed.
  5. I take down any verbal or telephone orders by a patient's name on my "brains" and circle it a couple of times to draw my attention to it. As soon as I write the order on the order sheet and charted on it, it also gets a big red "X" so I knew it has been completed.
  6. I use colored inks on my "brains" a lot. Red stands out. So, does blue when you are primarily writing with black ink. I will also use yellow highlighters to highlight lab tests and x-rays that need to be done. As they get done, they get a heavy red line or red "X", or I get on the phone to find out what the delay is.

By the end of my shift, my "brains" look like a big mess of scribbles and doodling to the unknowing, I'm sure. To me, it makes all the sense in the world. It's taken me years to develop this little system for myself. I rarely, fail to miss charting on a patient or checking for physician orders. Perhaps some of these ideas will be useful for you or have given you some ideas.

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  1. I have developed a regular routine that I try to follow. When I first started out as a nurse, I used to write the routine down on the back of my "brains" so I wouldn't forget anything.
  2. I know that I am going to get distracted from my routine throughout my shift. This is a fact of nursing. I have trained myself to constantly ask myself, "now where was I on my list of things to do?" so I can get back on track.
  3. I developed my own little secret set of marks and abbreviations--a kind of shorthand--that works for me that I use on my "brains".
  4. There are some things that I just don't trust to my memory and I mark on my "brains". That includes completion of charting for every patient and checking each of my patient's charts for one last time for doctor's orders. As I accomplish those very last tasks before leaving my shift, I mark them with big red hash marks that end up forming a big "X" over a patient's room number on my "brains" when both tasks have been completed.
  5. I take down any verbal or telephone orders by a patient's name on my "brains" and circle it a couple of times to draw my attention to it. As soon as I write the order on the order sheet and charted on it, it also gets a big red "X" so I knew it has been completed.
  6. I use colored inks on my "brains" a lot. Red stands out. So, does blue when you are primarily writing with black ink. I will also use yellow highlighters to highlight lab tests and x-rays that need to be done. As they get done, they get a heavy red line or red "X", or I get on the phone to find out what the delay is.

By the end of my shift, my "brains" look like a big mess of scribbles and doodling to the unknowing, I'm sure. To me, it makes all the sense in the world. It's taken me years to develop this little system for myself. I rarely, fail to miss charting on a patient or checking for physician orders. Perhaps some of these ideas will be useful for you or have given you some ideas.

Thanks for all of that. Can I ask what form your "brains" are in? Mini notepad, loose sheet of paper?

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Specializes in LTC.
  1. I have developed a regular routine that I try to follow. When I first started out as a nurse, I used to write the routine down on the back of my "brains" so I wouldn't forget anything.
  2. I know that I am going to get distracted from my routine throughout my shift. This is a fact of nursing. I have trained myself to constantly ask myself, "now where was I on my list of things to do?" so I can get back on track.
  3. I developed my own little secret set of marks and abbreviations--a kind of shorthand--that works for me that I use on my "brains".
  4. There are some things that I just don't trust to my memory and I mark on my "brains". That includes completion of charting for every patient and checking each of my patient's charts for one last time for doctor's orders. As I accomplish those very last tasks before leaving my shift, I mark them with big red hash marks that end up forming a big "X" over a patient's room number on my "brains" when both tasks have been completed.
  5. I take down any verbal or telephone orders by a patient's name on my "brains" and circle it a couple of times to draw my attention to it. As soon as I write the order on the order sheet and charted on it, it also gets a big red "X" so I knew it has been completed.
  6. I use colored inks on my "brains" a lot. Red stands out. So, does blue when you are primarily writing with black ink. I will also use yellow highlighters to highlight lab tests and x-rays that need to be done. As they get done, they get a heavy red line or red "X", or I get on the phone to find out what the delay is.

By the end of my shift, my "brains" look like a big mess of scribbles and doodling to the unknowing, I'm sure. To me, it makes all the sense in the world. It's taken me years to develop this little system for myself. I rarely, fail to miss charting on a patient or checking for physician orders. Perhaps some of these ideas will be useful for you or have given you some ideas.

Yeah great advice, thanks.

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Make a plan.

When interruptions come, and they most surely will, prioritize.

Re-prioritize PRN.

Accept that Nursing is a series of interruptions, interrupted by interruptions and you will do fine.

In other words, don't expect things to go according to plan. But if you have a plan, you will be able to go back and finish everything without being completely thrown off by the unexpected interruptions.

I prefer to carry extra things that I might not use (like for dressings) and then return them to stock, than to need something in the middle of a dressing change and have to go trotting for it, and maybe do the extra trotting several times. Much easier to just put it away later if unused.

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