Time Management
Making Time Work for You
On completing this chapter, you will be able to do the following:
1. Discuss three benefits of time management for an adult learner.
2. Using the four phases of the nursing process as a guide, develop a personal time management plan to be used as a student practical/vocational nurse.
a. List the activities of the various roles you fill in daily life.
b. Arrange the list of various roles according to whether they are high priority or low priority.
c. Keep at least a 1-day activity log to determine the present use of your time, including social networking.
d. Devise a semester schedule and a weekly schedule to reflect present commitments.
f. Carry out weekly and daily schedules for 2 weeks.
g. Evaluate the effectiveness of your personal time management plan and modify it, if necessary.
3. Identify right-brain techniques to use in time management.
Invest your limited time carefully in the fast-paced PN/VN program. Not only will you be preparing for a successful NCLEX-PN® experience, but you will also have some time to enjoy yourself during your student year.
Have you noticed at school and in your personal life that some people seem to get more done than others? Worse yet, some of the busiest people are the ones getting the most done. To add insult to injury, all of us are given the same amount of time—168 hours a week—in which to get the job done. How can some individuals get the job done and some not? The answer does not lie in the fact that some people have fewer responsibilities and less to do in a week’s time. The answer lies in their ability to manage their time.
Why can’t i get organized?
There are several explanations for being disorganized and managing time poorly:
• Trauma in one’s personal life: Organizing may be the last thing on your mind if you have experienced a divorce or a death in the family.
• Disorganized upbringing: Disorganization may be the style one grew up with, and this style may be a source of comfort.
• Lack of commitment to be a practical/vocational nurse: Disorganization could be a symptom of discontent with your choice of career.
Regardless of the reason for disorganization, millions of dollars are spent annually to hire time management experts to help people get organized. Millions more are spent on gadgets and devices that promise the same organization. This chapter contains free information and tips that can help you get organized and manage your time more efficiently and effectively. If you follow the suggestions, they will help make what could be a challenging year more tolerable for you.
Self-test of time management
Time management is a major skill that contributes to learner success. It is also a necessary skill for practical/vocational nurses to better manage their time in the clinical area to meet patient outcomes. To start this chapter, take a self-test of time management so you will know how you stand with regard to this important skill. If you are going to be responsible for managing clinical time, you need to be able to manage personal time.
The answers to the self-test are the ones suggested by time management experts. Although different time management techniques work for different people, these suggested answers reflect basic techniques that could help you succeed in the practical/vocational nursing program.
Self-Test of Time Management
Answer “yes” or “no” as you read each of the statements, and apply them to your personal use of time.
1. I keep a semester or course calendar to reflect requirements and due dates of work for all my classes.
2. I keep a weekly plan of everything that must be done at school and in my personal life.
3. I keep a daily list of things I must do at school and in my personal life.
4. Daily I list and rank in importance my priorities for using school and personal time.
5. After listing and ranking my daily priorities for school and personal life, I stick to the list.
6. I use my best working time during the day for doing high-priority schoolwork.
7. I plan to do lower-priority schoolwork before higher-priority schoolwork.
8. I start school tasks before thinking them through.
9. I stop a school task before I have completed it.
10. I spend the few minutes before class talking to my classmates about anything other than the class.
11. I have trouble starting a major task for school.
12. I become bored with the subject I am studying.
13. I have a hard time getting started when I sit down to study.
14. Sometimes I avoid important school tasks.
15. I find myself easily distracted when I study.
16. I always try to get everything done in my personal life that must be done.
17. I frequently engage in social networking instead of doing schoolwork.
18. I manage to turn a short coffee break into a long coffee break.
19. I study nightly for my classes.
The following are the suggested answers to the self-test:
Count the number of statements you disagree with and plug yourself into one of the following categories:
| 1–5 Disagree with | You deserve the Alan Lakein* award. |
| 6–10 Disagree with | Hang in there! With a little guidance, you will get on the right track. |
| 11–20 Disagree with | We know you must be exhausted, but keep on reading—quickly! |
*Alan Lakein is a famous time management expert. In 1973 he first published a very readable book entitled How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life. Except for technology, the key to using time wisely has not changed since the first edition was published.
Benefits of time management
Time management is a technique designed to help you not only do the things you have to get done but also the things you want to finish in a definite time period. Time management can put you in control of your life rather than making you a slave to it. You will have to give up some of the things you were accustomed to doing before you became a practical/vocational nursing student. Time management techniques can help you gain some personal time for your family and yourself so you will not feel that there is time only for school. Time management can help you work smarter, not harder. It will not give you more hours in the week but will help you use what hours you do have more efficiently and effectively. Efficiency will help you get things done as quickly as possible. Time management does not deal solely with efficiency like the efficiency experts of the 1950s. The efficiency of the 1950s can bring images of robot-like individuals working to get every task done in the shortest time possible in a machine-like manner. Efficiency needs to be balanced with effectiveness. Effectiveness involves setting priorities among the tasks that need to be done and doing them the best way possible and choosing the most important task to do and doing it the right way. Efficiency involves doing things as quickly as possible.
Review of personal goals
How did you score on the time management self-test? If you are a typical adult, you are probably reading quickly right now to find out how to improve your time management. Take heart: Very few of us get the Alan Lakein award. Most of us could stand to learn how to use our time more efficiently and effectively. Ineffective use of personal time is learned behavior, better known as a habit. Any behavior that is learned can be unlearned if you work at it, and new habits can be acquired.
If you have set a goal to be a practical/vocational nurse, you are already on the right track in time management, no matter what you scored. This is your long-term goal and the bull’s-eye to which you will direct your efforts for the next year. It would be beneficial to write that goal on an index card and place it where you will see it often, such as your car visor, the bathroom mirror, or the refrigerator door. Be specific when you write your goal.
Getting organized with the nursing process
Data collection
Data collection in time management involves two areas:
Enrollment in a vocational-technical program, whether you are single, divorced, widowed, or married, requires some degree of change in the activities in which you were involved before entering the program. Regardless of your state in life, all the roles you fill can be classified into any of five general categories: school, job, family, community, and recreation.
The activities involved in a practical/vocational nursing program are structured:
When you are enrolled in a vocational-technical program such as practical/vocational nursing, your school day is chock-full. Seldom do you have the choice of when you will take a specific course.
Your Roles and Activities
The same structure as your class day is not evident in four additional roles you have. In these other roles you might be involved in some activities that you either did not plan to do, do not enjoy doing, do not have time to do, or feel do not need to be done. Complete the Try This exercise: My Personal Roles and Activities on Evolve. 
A blank form is included to collect data about your personal roles and activities for the data collection portion of time management.
Your Personal Time Use
You are now ready to document how you actually use your personal time. Ideally, a time log should be kept for approximately 1 week to document how you use your personal time. Because time is marching on, a 1-day time log for a class day can give you a general idea of how you use your time at present. Complete the Try This exercise: Use of Personal Time on Evolve.
Supply one more piece of information, and your data collection will be complete. List below one activity you wish you had time for. The activity could have been listed under your roles, but maybe it was not listed at all. Remember, the sky’s the limit as long as your wish is something that is really important to you.
Before you continue
How students use their time is partly a result of which side of the brain is dominant. Chapter 3 discusses the difference between right- and left-brain dominance. You may note personal brain dominance in your behavior. Chapter 3 gives you the opportunity to assess your specific dominance on p. 23. Time management systems generally reflect the left-brain thinking style. This style is linear (prefers a step-by-step, methodical approach), compared with right-brain thinkers who are nonlinear (see and do in an unstructured manner). Traditional tools of time management are directed to left-brain thinkers because they process information in sequence. Right-brain thinkers look at the picture as a whole. Right-brain thinkers prefer their own tools/ideas for time management and are good at devising them. Neither system of thinking is good or bad. Both sides of the brain work together and complement each other.
Planning
When you have completed data collection, you will be ready to proceed to the planning stage.
• A plan helps to keep you honest. It reflects the face-to-face classes you must attend and the studying you need to do to reach your long-term goal. It is your blueprint for action.
• With a plan you will avoid the roller-coaster phenomenon all too familiar to students: falling behind in school and then trying to catch up.
• Planning helps you include time for friends and family. It helps you avoid overlooking an important part of your well-being: recreation.
• Planning helps you avoid the danger of allowing extracurricular activities to come before schoolwork, which is the major reason for failure in postsecondary educational programs.
• The planning phase of time management will result in a blueprint for action. In this phase you will learn how to plan the use of your precious 168 hours a week.
• Planning involves thinking about setting priorities (most important tasks), but these thoughts need to be recorded in some manner to be successful.
• You need to devise a plan for yourself so that you can program your time on a monthly, weekly, and daily basis. The plan should include the activities that are part of all the roles you fill and not just your role as a student. Your plan needs to reflect the total of your activities.
Arguments Against Planning
At this point some individuals will say they do not have time to plan and will pass off the suggestion about planning their time. Individuals who are too busy to plan are the very persons who need to be planning. If you do not plan, you will overlook priorities and possibly miss some available free time. For the small amount of time planning takes, the benefits are great. Some persons who say they do not have time to plan really do not want to find time to get priority work done. They may use lack of time as an excuse. Some individuals look at planning as leading to inflexibility and loss of freedom. They want to “hang loose” and go in different directions as the opportunities arise. Flexibility of this sort can result in disorganization and the accomplishment of few, if any, important tasks. As imposed deadlines near, guilt, frustration, and anxiety appear. These individuals wind up being a slave to time instead of being its master. A plan developed in accordance with the principles of time management will help you to be a master of time. The plan will be developed with flexibility in mind, and you will be able to trade time with yourself when unexpected events come up.
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