When you tell people "I'm busy"
do you really mean "I'm swamped"?
It's nothing to be ashamed of.
Time management is one of those skills that many people
claim to have but few people seem to master. The image
of the haggard, harried physician rushing from clinic
to hospital is deeply ingrained in medicine. But it
doesn't have to be this way.
Unfortunately, while most physicians
are exceptionally skilled at medicine, precious few
are skilled managers. But since you're providing a service,
when time slips through your fingers you're doing your
patients a disservice. Luckily there are some quick
fixes out there to help get you back on track.
1. More haste less speed
Doctors are always under pressure to spend more time
with each patient. But that's a luxury most practitioners
don't have. This leads most docs to size up a patient
right away and make a diagnosis based on that initial
assessment
Time management whiz Steve Prentice,
of Toronto-based corporate consultancy firm Bristall
Morgan Inc, says if you allow a patient more air time
before jumping in to give your assessment, you may come
away with more information and save yourself time in
the long run. "A lot of diagnoses happen when you take
the time to listen to a patient and you put their complaints
in context," he notes. While you're not necessarily
shaving minutes off of each patient encounter, you are
making each one more meaningful.
2. Work less. Your job depends
on it Another effective way to get more done is
to work less. Set a maximum amount of hours that you'll
put in every week and schedule regular breaks. "The
more you want to get done, the more you have to address
your own needs," Mr Prentice says. "If you're a physician
who's burning out, that's no good for anybody."
3. Get a life Many professionals
fail to find a balance in their lives. It's a key message
that Mr Prentice, who studies the impact that stress
has on people, tries to deliver. Give yourself permission
to step away from your work.
That doesn't mean cutting your
work week in half. But it does mean being engaged in
activities outside of work, even if they're related
to medicine, such as networking events. And a regular
vacation is mandatory.
Mr Prentice reports his own doctor
takes a one-month cruise every six months. "I know what
he's doing guarantees 10 months of top quality work
rather than 12 months of mediocre quality work." It
doesn't have to be that dramatic, but taking regular
breaks and resting adequately will make you more efficient
in the long run.
4. Wake up, sunshine! "How
much time do you give yourself in the morning to get
up, get ready and go to work?" wonders Mr Prentice.
"Most of us vastly underestimate the time it takes to
do that and we end up rushing." Most people would agree
that isn't a good way to start the day.
If you show up late for work and
you've already got a backlog of patients, it causes
a great deal of stress that will carry forward for the
rest of the day. Being realistic will help you get a
good head start and will give you a few moments to breathe
between patients instead of running from one to the
next.
5. Peak condition Another
easy trick is to figure out when your energy level peaks.
That's when you want to take care of the most important
tasks of the day. "If there are certain things that
have to get done, like administrative work, you might
find you can get it done in half the time in the morning
than if you leave it to late at night when you're fatigued,"
Mr Prentice says.
6. Make a list, check it twice
Setting priorities is something that's taught in those
Introduction to University Life courses for wide-eyed
freshmen.
But if you find yourself cramming
in those ostensibly menial administrative chores between
patients or at the end of the night, it might be a good
idea to set aside an hour during the day when you can
finish them, uninterrupted. Or, if you absolutely can't
do it, then delegate to your support staff. After all,
that's why you're paying them the big bucks.
7. Just say no to 'Crackberry'
It's no longer just Bay Street types who have one
hand glued to their Blackberry. The constant need to
be connected has spread to other fields, including medicine.
But stopping what you're doing
to check your email or text messages is extremely distracting.
"It tends to pull people away from the most important
things, and each message has a ripple effect of distraction
as your mind changes gears again" Mr Prentice says.
"Try not to fall prey to the knee-jerk reaction of having
to respond to email immediately."
That alone should give you one
hour of your day back and make you more effective at
the task at hand: helping your patient get better.
In your business, that's the bottom
line.
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