Time Management skills

Time management is something that everyone can always improve upon. If you don't carefully look at how you spend time, you may wind up wasting it and coming up short on getting things done because you ran out of time. I have two areas that I focus on - work and home. At work, my schedule is usually jam packed. I usually get 30 minutes to treat a patient and a full hour to evaluate a new patient. In that time I have to also write up my documentation. An eval takes a little longer to write than a regular treatment note. An an eval can go south very quickly if you don't keep the patient on track. For some reason some patients think that my treatment table is like a psychiatrist's chair and will tell me everything I don't need to know. It's these people that I will cutoff (politely) and redirect them to give me information that I need. If that doesn't work, I start my physical exam quickly and then ask questions as I go along. Many patients cannot multitask and talk while they do things so it keeps the excess conversation down. Win-Win. I get the info I need, they get a diagnosis quickly. Hopefully there's time left to write the note. Otherwise, I sneak time throughout the day to type my notes.

I've been doing better getting my evals typed before I go home. Tomorrow will be a challenge. They crammed in 5 evals into my schedule and one was squeezed into part of my lunch hour. As soon as I saw it I went to the receptionist and demanded my hour for lunch. I need that time to eat, catch up on paperwork, and get out of the office to decompress. She was able to adjust the schedule for me. Phew.

When it comes to time management at home, this is a challenge. I work 40 hours a week and when you add in my commute, it comes out to ~50 hours a week dedicated to work. I will use the time in the car to listen to podcasts on training and racing. I am trying to find more time between workouts and working to study for my CSCS exam. I have my weekends to study, but I also need to spend time during the week studying as well.

I've cut down my TV watching dramatically. I will watch TV during my early morning workouts. I get up either at 5a or 6a (depending upon my start time at work) and try to workout before work. Then I shower, eat and then drive ~50 minutes to work. The earliest I get home at night is usually 6p 3 nights a week, the other two is 8p so trying to workout at night is tough. The night workouts are dedicated to swimming. It's been a struggle trying to fit it all in. I want to have a good balance of a life and work. It's a work in progress and hopefully I will find that balance soon.