Who Are You?

Chapter 1


Who Are You?



Themes to Consider



image Understand your current attitude, and the reasons for your attitude.


image Explain the benefits of being organized.


image Develop a plan for managing your time.


image Differentiate between honesty and integrity.


image Define adaptability as an effective change strategy.


image Recognize that flexibility can lead to positive results.


image Identify the impact of dependability.



Adopting a Positive Mental Attitude



What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.


—Napoleon Hill




Learning Objectives for Adopting a Positive Mental Attitude




Whether you’ve ever had a job or not, you already have an attitude toward work, and it is likely the one that you have toward life in general. Your attitude began forming when you were very young. It was created by the messages you got first from your parents and later from your teachers and friends and other influential people in your life. Now that you have an attitude, you constantly reinforce it with your self-talk—what you tell yourself every minute of every day. Your attitude expresses, both inwardly and outwardly, who you think you are.


The only question is whether your attitude is positive, negative, or somewhere in between—and whether or not you would like to change that.



Mental Attitudes


Abraham Lincoln once said, “In the end a man is more or less as happy as he makes up his mind to be.” You might think that your attitude is a result of your experiences, and there is some truth to that. But mostly, your attitude is the result of your interpretation of your experiences.


Certainly, experiences that cause mental trauma or are accompanied by strong emotions, especially fear, can have a lasting effect. Victims of child abuse or neglect, for instance, have a lot to overcome on their way to personal achievements and satisfying relationships. Trust, once lost, is hard to recover, and without trust in others, we lack a basic tool in our quest for a satisfying life.


Fortunately, despite the fact that everyone has negative experiences in their past, most people can find ways to rise above their circumstances and live a happy, positive life if they really want to.



Negative Mental Attitudes


How many people would you predict face each day with a negative mental attitude?


Surveys suggest that at least 60% of people have a negative attitude toward their job. These people, of course, justify negative attitudes. Their supervisor doesn’t like them. The work is demeaning. The pay is low. Various situations are unfair. The list goes on and on.


Still, some people in the exact same situation have positive attitudes. You may have noticed that unhappy people always have explanations for why other people are happy and they are not. For instance, happy people don’t have the stresses that unhappy people have. In reality, happy people experience the same challenges as everyone else, including job losses, problems with their children, money troubles, and disagreements with their loved ones. The main difference between happy people and unhappy people is attitude.



image What If?


How would you respond to someone at work who is extremely negative?


One thing is for sure. Whether you are a happy person or an unhappy person, you see the world from your very own unique perspective, conditioned by your deep-set beliefs, experiences, and attitudes. These attitudes belong to you. Whether you know it or not, you act very aggressively to protect your attitudes because they are a big part of who you are. Everybody naturally rationalizes all of their experiences and circumstances in life, coloring them to fit in with their view of the world, their attitudes.


It is easy for people with negative attitudes to achieve their expectations, because they are so low. Failure has already been “pre-rationalized.” Usually the blame for this supposed inevitability of failure is laid at the feet of other people and circumstances: My parents liked my sister better. My brother was mean to me. My teacher put me in the lower class. I came from a bad neighborhood. I didn’t go to college. The system is rigged.


Surprisingly, many people with negative attitudes fear success. They may be afraid they will fail, or make things worse through their efforts. They may fear that opening doors to new opportunities may mean closing doors to comfortable options they have become used to; they focus on possible negative consequences rather than probable improvements. This can stop them from taking a few easy steps that would make their life better. Failure inevitably happens to everyone once in a while, but for people with negative attitudes, each failure serves to reinforce their fears: I shouldn’t have tried. Of course I failed; things always backfire when I step outside of my comfort zone. There is something wrong with me. This negative self-talk reinforces their feeling that they have some imagined deficit or are undeserving. If something good happens, people with negative mental attitudes often attribute it to luck, rather than something they earned and deserved.



Positive Mental Attitudes


Just as we’ve seen with negative attitudes, a positive mental attitude is also a self-fulfilling prophecy. As the quote from Napoleon Hill at the beginning of this chapter says, “What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” This thought isn’t naïve or magical: successful people do have to work for their success. What Hill was suggesting, though, is that you have to fervently believe that success is possible before you can work for it. In other words, for hard word to lead to success, your attitude must be expectant, hopeful, resilient, persistent—in a word, positive. Of course, this is easier said than done. But the first step is to decide that you want to be positive, successful, and happy. Then, believe that these things are possible for you.



A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.


—Winston Churchill


To change the messages you may be sending yourself, stop and ask yourself this: “What are you thinking?” Everyone has chatter going on in their heads, conversations with yourself, personal observations, judgments, opinions, commentaries. This is your self-talk. Self-talk can reinforce negative attitudes or positive attitudes. So begin by becoming aware of your own self-talk. What are you saying to yourself? In general, is your self-talk critical, mean-spirited or judgmental? Or, in general, is it tolerant, generous or forgiving? Are you suspicious of people and their motives, or do you trust in people and believe their intentions are largely good? People with positive attitudes are not burdened by self-limiting beliefs; instead, they focus on giving and receiving positive messages; they seek out contact with other positive people. Typical positive messages can be seen in Box 1-1.



Box 1-1   Positive Messages




If you’ve been exposed to a negative environment, it’s not too late to shake things up. When there is a choice to be made about the people, circumstances, and opportunities in your life, you don’t have to be a prisoner of your upbringing. You can choose to be positive.



You see things; and you say, “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?”


—George Bernard Shaw



image What If?


How would you respond to someone at work who is extremely positive?


If this feels new to you, start small. Sometimes it is incredibly easy to get what you want with a positive mental attitude. For instance, if you smile and greet someone, chances are good that you will get a smile and a greeting in response. If you make a habit of smiling at others, you’ll begin to build your own positive reinforcements. Then, in general, you’ll begin to notice that people with a sunny disposition attract other positive people. The positivity that goes with a great mental attitude brings many things into your life, including friends, opportunities, promotions, and happiness.



Negative Realities at Work


Certainly, there will always be aspects of your work that you dislike. You will have to perform tasks that are not your favorites, and you may not agree with every managerial initiative, or everything your supervisor says. You might have co-workers you don’t care for. In this imperfect work world, you will have to accept some things you don’t like. Let’s examine these negative realities of work a little more closely.



Lack of Control


Life is full of things you cannot control, including many aspects of your job. You may be able to exert a minimal amount of influence upon, but cannot control, the leadership above you, the physical facilities, or the mix of patients seeking treatment. What do you do about the things you have little or no control over? First, recognize which elements are out of your control and accept them. Finally, seek elements you can control, and concentrate on them.


So what can you control? Virtually everything that pertains to yourself. You have already chosen your education, your friends, your aspirations. Options are liberating. When you recognize you have a choice and make a choice, you regain control. One choice you always have is how you choose to see and interpret your circumstances. You can be understanding or surrender to your emotions. You can be tolerant or prejudiced. You can be happy or you can be unhappy. You can forgive or hold a grudge. It’s really up to you. As Castaneda said, it takes the same effort either way.



We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.


—Carlos Castaneda




Personality Clashes


Very few of us get to choose our co-workers, and nobody gets along with everyone. However, you do have to work effectively with everyone, regardless of your personal likes or dislikes. To deal better with co-workers you don’t like, or who don’t like you, try to analyze the situation. What is it about a particular person that you don’t like? Then ask yourself whether there is anything you can do about the annoyance. Even if the annoyance is within your control, is focusing on it worth your attention, energy, and time? Alternatively, you could reframe the situation in the context of your generally positive attitude. Your responsibility is to work effectively with this individual. Can you acknowledge, then minimize their annoying qualities, and move on with the business ahead, reminding yourself that you only have to tolerate them at work?


If you are concerned that a co-worker seems to dislike you, try to find out why. Approach the person and explore the issue with him or her directly. “We don’t seem to click,” you might say. “Is there something I do that annoys you?” You are being straightforward, but not confrontational, seeking to understand your own behavior and how it may be creating unnecessary problems between the two of you. You may be surprised about how this exchange can open up the basis for a more positive relationship. Frequently, you may even be surprised to learn that the other person doesn’t dislike you at all. If the other person identifies an issue, however, you will have to decide whether you can change that aspect of yourself. Again, the choice is yours to make.


Certainly, if there is a truly serious problem with a co-worker that interferes with your ability to work in a productive and positive manner, you have resources at work. For example, if a co-worker acts unethically, uses drugs, or tries to humiliate and intimidate you, then you need to present the problem to your supervisor and, if necessary, the Human Resources Department.



Changing Negative Realities to Positive Realities at Work


Fortunately, you will find many aspects of your work to be quite positive and enjoyable. As a health care professional, with distinctive knowledge and unique skills, you will enjoy much of what you do at work every day. You are likely to find meaning in your everyday duties of helping others with health problems. You will also probably look forward to seeing your co-workers at work everyday. There will be fun events, morale-building activities, celebrations, and team meetings to look forward to (Figure 1-1).


image
FIGURE 1-1 A group of health professionals celebrate successful results at a team meeting.

Your positive approach, your willingness to work hard, be friendly, offer solutions to problems, and accept others will cause your co-workers to enjoy your company and will vastly improve the quality of your own day-to-day work experience. The big takeaway here is that you can choose the attitude you adopt and use to face the world’s challenges and your personal problems.


You are in total charge of your attitude. That reality is very liberating!



image Journaling 1-1


Since you can choose the attitude you want to adopt, write in your journal a statement that describes the attitude you want to choose.



Create Positive Expectations


Many people miss out on opportunities because they walk into work or into meetings with no particular expectations, positive or negative. Whatever happens, happens. This passive approach to the events of your day leaves you out of control of the results and, amazingly, there are things you can do to exert some control over the outcomes of future events.


For one thing, you can expect things to turn out positively. More important, you can plan for positive outcomes. Ask yourself what you know about, for example, an upcoming meeting. You know the topic and the agenda. You know the people who will be attending, the purpose of the meeting, how long it will last, and what the results could possibly be. Then, based on this advance knowledge, do the following two things:



* First, plan for the meeting. Make sure you get the agenda and look it over. Is there any research you can do ahead of time, to be better prepared or actually contribute to the meeting? Consider who is coming. Ask yourself, who will lead this meeting, and who will be influential there? Are there some people who always think alike, or others who usually disagree? Who are the positive people, and who are the negative people? Is there anyone who is likely to try to sabotage the meeting? You are a health professional partly because you value relationships and have insight into others.


* Second, plan your own actions, involvement, comments, and role. This process is called visualization (Figure 1-2). Use your perceptual senses to imagine how the meeting will go, and how you will behave there. Smell the coffee, see the overhead lighting, hear the murmurs and chatting as people arrive, see the leader’s body language and meeting materials. Then plan for your own role and what outcomes you would like to see. The meeting will not go exactly as you visualized it, but you will be amazed at how much it turned out to be similar to your visualization, if you have done the preparation based on what you should know and understand your role in making desirable outcomes reality.


image
FIGURE 1-2 The process of visualization.


The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.


—Malcolm X


This process of planning and visualizing future events applies to every aspect of your day, such as sending your children off to school, encountering patients, dealing with a difficult co-worker, getting to know the new employee over lunch, working through the after-lunch slump, and mapping your commute home. Having positive expectations and a carefully visualized plan will improve the quality of your life and eliminate the negativity of passively letting things happen without your involvement.



Embrace Change


Many times, impending change generates a swirl of rumors. If you hear a rumor that concerns you, it is perfectly appropriate to discuss this rumor with your manager. This not only puts your mind at ease but also helps your manager be more effective in managing the change; either by debunking the rumor or providing information about the rumor that will make the change easier for everyone to accept. Box 1-2 explains the stages people typically go through in the process of accepting change. You may notice that, since change involves loss, the stages are not unlike the stages of grieving.



Box 1-2   Six Stages of Change Acceptance




1. Recognize that change causes anxiety, disruption, and other negative emotions. You are losing something you liked or felt used to.


2. Whenever you experience a loss, you are likely to feel anger. Choose to withhold judgment rather than lash out and say or do something you will regret later.


3. Recognize that the new way will take practice, learning, reinforcement, and habit change. Some people will stall, refuse to cooperate, or try to sabotage the change, but this will only make a difficult process worse.


4. Determine the positive aspects of the change.


5. Don’t look back. Experience the benefits of the change, and start to see the change as the “new normal.”


6. Integrate the change into your life. Look at how you have changed yourself, and become more versatile and resilient, as a result of accepting the change.


Based on your understanding of the change, you may decide to seek some training or personal development to help you grapple with the change and make yourself a more effective, versatile, and valued employee. For instance, you might decide to become an expert with the new software or medical equipment, so you can serve as a resource to others; or you may decide that you need to develop some better soft skills in the area of resilience or change management.



image Journaling 1-2


Reflect on some unplanned changes you have experienced in your life. Maybe you had to change schools frequently and leave friends behind. Pick a change you disliked at the time. Now, ask yourself what positive outcomes occurred for you as a result of that change.


Whenever you undergo a major role change at work, you may experience a sensation called the “Imposter Complex.” This is especially true when you start a new job, get promoted, or undertake new responsibilities. It takes time to make these adjustments internally. You may fear that you are not fully competent in the new role, and that everybody knows it. Actually, other people don’t feel the insecurity you feel unless you project it by expressing it, appearing nervous, being reluctant to make decisions, and so on. Your best move is to “fake it till you make it,” acting as if you are completely confident in your new role. Soon, your initial feeling of being an “imposter” will fade away.



Convert Negative Self-Talk Into Positive Self-Talk


Monitor negative feedback in your self-talk. For example, suppose you often say to yourself, “I don’t deserve to be treated so nicely.” Next, put these words in the mouth of someone you know really cares about you—your supervisor, your mother, your best friend. Imagine your friend saying to you, “Heidi, you don’t deserve to be treated so nicely.” How would that sound? That would really hurt! Why is it all right for you to say that to yourself?


Next, think of someone you don’t particularly like. Imagine that this person said, “Heidi, you don’t deserve to be treated so nicely.” If this happened in real life, you would likely argue with this person. You would defend yourself. You deserve every good thing that happens to you. You would not tolerate this person saying something negative to you. Why would you tolerate saying it to yourself? What if somebody said such a thing to someone you love? You would be outraged. So, again, why would you say such a thing to yourself?


You don’t bask in negative self-talk because you think it’s a good idea. You do it because it is a habit, a bad habit. Most of the time, you are not even aware you are doing it. These are old, deeply ingrained messages that were driven into you a long time ago and which you now repeat to yourself almost unconsciously. These messages are not even true! So dare to argue with yourself. Whenever you notice negative self-talk, reject it. Tell yourself that you will not be accepting these messages unchallenged anymore. Instead, every time you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts, replace them with affirmations about the best parts of yourself.



Tell yourself that you’re not pretty. Look at you, you’re beautiful.


—Natalie Merchant



image Journaling 1-3


Write a list of the ten most positive things about yourself.


Finally, tell yourself not to take everything personally. If someone cuts you off in traffic, were they targeting you, specifically? Probably not. It’s much more likely that they had something on their mind or got distracted and made a mistake. Maybe they’re just a lousy driver. In any case, if you carry around anger and resentment all day long, then you have made yourself the victim. Even if someone was rude to you, ignored you, or made a mean comment, it was about them, not you.



Keep a Journal


Self-talk is one way to have a conversation with yourself. Your journal is another way, and it has the advantage of being written down, which reinforces your thoughts and determination. Throughout this book, we challenge you to keep a journal, to preserve your thoughts. By keeping a journal, you can map your journey of change and then revisit significant moments along the way, remind yourself of your aspirations and your strengths, and build on your earlier insights. At the end of this term, your journal will serve as a living change document to guide you in your future development. As a start, 10 steps to a positive mental attitude appear in Box 1-3.



Box 1-3   10 Steps to a Positive Attitude at Work





Case Study 1-1   Shifting Gears


Claudette Wilson was born with a lot of disadvantages in her life. Her father disappeared shortly after her birth, and she doesn’t know who he is. She has six half-brothers and half-sisters, all with different fathers, long gone. When she was fifteen, she dropped out of high school to help her mother take care of her younger brothers and sisters. As Claudette says with a laugh today, “I came from humble beginnings.”


A year later, her mother decided that, more than anything else, they needed money, so she asked Claudette to get a job. She began working evenings at a nearby nursing home. She didn’t have any education or training or certification, but she did have a natural ability to work with the elderly. She liked them and tried to make them laugh. She was concerned about their comfort, and she worked hard to help them bathe, change their clothes and linens, and make sure they got plenty to eat. Claudette had the patience for this kind of work. She had a big personality and loved to talk to people. She tried to get the patients to talk about their early days, and she loved it when the stories came tumbling out.


Eventually, Claudette and her boyfriend Bob moved to Rock Island, IL, where Bob got a job at John Deere as a welder in a tractor factory.


There are some things I want in this life of ours together,” Claudette told Bob one night after work.


“A house with a white picket fence?”


“Well, yes, for starters, although I don’t care about the fence.”


“For starters?”


“And I want to get married in a church, with a white dress.”


“And a ring?”


“I don’t care about the ring. But I care about what the ring stands for.”


“Baby,” he said, softly into her ear, “the ring stands for a circle that goes round and round and never ends, starting every day together and ending every day together, and starting over the next day and the next day, no matter what happens, no matter if the days are easy or hard, for all the days of our life.”


“That’s it,” she said. “Here’s a way in, but there’s no way out. If we have children, they will know their father, and if they have children, they will know their grandfather, and that’s the way it’s going to be.”


In Rock Island, Claudette found out about a Job Corps Center across the river in Clinton, Iowa, and she completed her high school education there and got some more training in the area of nursing assisting. Over the next five years, she worked on and off at a nursing home and she and Bob got married and had three children together, two boys and a girl. Congress passed a law that required nursing assistants working in Medicare- and Medicaid-funded facilities to be certified, so Claudette got herself certified. Bob had become a foreman at John Deere, and the young family bought a small house in a nice neighborhood with good schools.


One evening at work, Claudette heard some shouting coming from Mr. Fischer’s room. As she ran to the room, she burst in just as Harry, one of the nurses, threw Mr. Fischer onto a commode and sent him speeding on the commode into a wall. Harry started at Mr. Fischer, swearing a blue streak, when Claudette shouted, “Harry, stop it!”


“I’ve just about had it with this stubborn old coot,” said Harry, and pushed past Claudette on his way out of the room. Claudette went over to Mr. Fischer. He was shaking and crying, asking for his glasses. She got him cleaned up and dressed and brought him to the TV room where his friends congregated after dinner. She got him involved with his friends, and she was pretty sure he had forgotten all about the incident with Harry. Nevertheless, Claudette reported Harry to the Nursing Director the next day.


“That’s hard to believe, that Harry would do that,” the Nursing Director told her.


“I couldn’t believe it either,” Claudette said.


Later that day, Claudette was called back into the Nursing Director’s office. “Harry denies your charge,” the Director said. “Mr. Fischer doesn’t remember it.”


“Mr. Fischer has Alzheimer’s disease. Harry is lying.”


“Well, I don’t know. It’s one person’s word against another. I don’t doubt your word, Claudette. But it’s not easy to get RNs. I’m just going to have to take Harry’s word for it and keep a close eye on him.” She paused, waiting for an argument from Claudette, but Claudette said nothing. “Under the circumstances, it doesn’t seem that you and Harry are going to be able to work together.”


“No, it doesn’t,” said Claudette.


“So I think it would be best for everybody if you just quietly resigned. Give us two weeks’ notice, but leave today, and we’ll pay you for the two weeks and any vacation time you have coming. I’ll give you a good recommendation.”


“Then, I resign,” said Claudette quietly. “I’ll take the money, but I don’t want your recommendation. It would be meaningless to me.”


When Bob got home from work that afternoon, she told him what had happened. “We don’t need the money,” he told her. “The kids are young. Why don’t you just stay home?”


“Yes,” she said. “I’m going to take a break from work.”


They sat in silence for several minutes. Claudette thought back to her childhood in Lexington, where she had sometimes been a victim of discrimination, and where she saw a lot of prejudice and injustice. It had been many years since she had had that feeling, being discriminated against. She felt that the Nursing Director had fired her because that was the easiest thing for her to do, the simplest solution to the problem that Claudette had brought to her attention. She had to tell herself not to let those old feelings intrude into the day she was having today.


Finally, Bob broke the silence. “Today was a bad day,” he said. “What did you learn from it?”


Claudette sat up ramrod straight. “I’ll tell you what I learned, Bobby. I’m going to become a nurse.”


And she did.




Down a Dark Road


Frank Kinsey was just about fed up. Ever since the physical therapy practice was bought by one of those giant for-profit hospital corporations, there had been one change after another. “I’ve been through a lot of these changes already,” he would say, “and I’ve been against every one of them.” Now, it had just been announced that the physical therapy practice was going to be moved to a location closer to the hospital, next to the Rehab Center. This would mean a longer commute for Frank and probably a lot of other changes that nobody even knew about yet.


In their staff meetings, Frank raised a lot of legitimate concerns. He asked how many people would have a longer commute, and about half the hands went up. “What about the move itself?” he asked. “How many days is that going to take? How many of our clients are going to have to miss sessions? The medical records will probably get screwed up. The company wants to make money, but they’ll lose money. Think about the cost of the new building, and just the move itself. The phones, the computers—what a mess! We’re going to lose some good people, for sure.”


The practice manager, Elliott Berg, listened to Frank carefully, noting that nobody else was as vocal as Frank about the problems the move was going to cause. Still, he hadn’t thought of some of the issues that Frank was giving voice to. He asked the Human Resources assistant, Melissa, to create a map that showed where all the employees lived and the old and the new locations, so he could see how the move would affect commutes. He saw that the commute would be longer for about half of the people and shorter for the other half. But he shared Frank’s concern that they could lose some good people, so he made sure he knew which people had longer commutes, and he spoke with each one, even Frank, to make sure the burden would not be unreasonable, or a reason to quit.


Elliott arranged for a tour of the new building when it neared completion. Frank raised more concerns. “I don’t know if our equipment is going to fit here,” he said. “The waiting room is too big. Our clients are going to feel like faceless people being treated by a big faceless corporation.” He went on, “These tall ceilings are going to make the place noisy. The elevator is slow—it’s going to take forever to get around here. I’ll bet they’re going to charge us for parking here. Elliott, are they going to charge us for parking?


“I’m not sure yet,” said Elliott, “but I know that’s being discussed and considered.”


“Well, there’s another downside,” Frank said to everyone.


Elliott scheduled a meeting with Frank. “You know, Frank, I’m not the one who decided to make this move.”


“I know, Elliott,” Frank said sympathetically. “It’s a corporate move.”


“Even still,” Elliott said, “I’m responsible for the success of this move, and you’re not helping by bringing up every possible problem and getting everybody more concerned than they already are about the move.”


“I get it, Elliott. I’ll keep my big mouth shut,” he said with a laugh.


The move actually went more smoothly than anyone thought. Even Frank was impressed. “It’s a good thing I brought up that issue about the billing. I actually think they didn’t lose too much money.”


It wasn’t too long before the corporation decided to merge all their systems together, which was going to mean big changes for the physical therapy group.


“What a mess,” said Frank. “Can’t these people leave anything alone? This whole operation is going to crash.”


Elliott decided to call a staff meeting. He said, “We’re going to go around the table, and everybody is going to raise one issue that concerns them about the systems integration. If you don’t have an issue, you can pass. Pam, will you take notes? And Frank, just one concern per person please,” and everybody laughed.


Although everyone worked hard to identify and anticipate potential problems, the systems integration had a lot of problems. It was just a hard thing, the IT Director kept saying. Problems are inevitable. You can’t think of everything. Finally, Frank’s bad feeling about the new corporation paid off. “See?” he said. “I told you so.” He was right. When some layoffs became necessary, Frank was the first to go.




image Experiential Exercises





image Cross Currents with Other Skills








Managing Your Time and Organizing Your Life



The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.


—Stephen R. Covey




Learning Objectives for Managing your Time and Organizing your Life





image What If?


What if everything happened “all at once?”


It’s 11:00, and you have three important tasks to complete: ordering insulin syringes, setting up a room for a minor in-office procedure at 11:30, and preparing blood and urinalysis lab work for an afternoon pickup. At the same time, the pharmacy is on the line confirming the amount of amoxicillin to dispense for a patient.





Organizing from the Inside Out


If someone were to ask you to rate your organizational skills and your time management skills, would you say, “What’s the difference?” Lots of people would. However, organization and time management are two different, but complementary, skills. While organization is tied to efficiency and how smoothly a job gets completed, time management is more about prioritizing and managing tasks, thereby using time effectively. Some people can complete a task in half the time it takes for another simply because of the effective use of their time and their ability to remain organized.


Organization begins on the inside: learning to think in an organized fashion about a goal. When you organize internally first, the rest of your outer world will line up, including your work space, tasks, and objectives. This involves thinking ahead before starting a task or project, perhaps creating lists, prioritizing tasks, and pre-thinking the activity.


Organization is thought to be a function of the left side of the brain, while creativity is believed to be a function of the right side of the brain. Depending on your particular brain dominance, you may be naturally organized or struggle with managing tasks, projects, and meeting deadlines. Box 1-4 offers some tips for organizing and managing your day.



Box 1-4   Tips for Remaining Organized and Managing Your Day





Being Productive versus Being Busy


Can a person really manage time? When you think about it, in the deepest sense, time is not what you are managing, but rather, you are managing your behavior within a specific timeframe. Self-management is the best time manager. Let’s say you assist a dentist with patient care from 9:00 to 5:00. How you choose to start your day will determine whether you see patients on time and whether you have enough instruments for every procedure throughout the day. If you are not prepared well in advance, you will run around all day. In the end, you will feel busy, but unproductive—and there’s a big difference between the two. Being busy means you ran around all day and completed some tasks, but you did not accomplish a major objective like providing effective patient care or producing an outcome like developing all the patient radiographs. Being productive means all your actions resulted in the completion of the major objectives for the day.



image Journaling 1-4


Write about a time you visited a health care facility that was completely disorganized. What was the main issue and how did you feel as a patient?



Either you run the day or the day runs you.


—Jim Rohn




Visualizing Your Perfect Day


How would your workday look if it were perfect? When you visualize your perfect day, you see in your “mind’s eye” the outcome of your day before you reach it in reality. You won’t necessarily see the specifics of your day, but you will see it holistically, and how it will play out. Michael Jordan was known for visualizing himself making the play before he executed it. He saw the end from the beginning. This is a result of visualization. It’s about seeing where your day will go before the day happens. When you start your day with visualization, it helps you prioritize your goals and responsibilities so that conditions point more favorably toward your end goal.



image Journaling 1-5


Keep track this week of where the bulk of your time is going by logging your daily activities in a journal. Be sure to include the amount of time involved with each activity. Separate each activity into two columns: proactive and reactive. Write about whether your day turned out the way you visualized it or whether your day “just happened to you.” How does a day that you visualized differ from one that you did not visualize? Do you feel more purposeful and accomplished at the end of a day in which you began with visualization?




Strategies for Working Efficiently


You can prepare ahead to eliminate many of the time-wasting hassles that you know crop up each day by (1) organizing your work space and (2) developing your visualization and anticipation skills to help you accommodate the inevitable interruptions.



Organize Your Work Environment


Working in an organized and efficient manner requires a work space and environment that is neat and organized so that everything has a logical place and is easily accessible. For example, patient records in a private practice should be located in cabinets that are secure and accessible to the front office staff so they can be retrieved when patients call. These records should also be in order either by patient account or last name. Similarly, medical supplies should also be stored according to a logical and consistent system so that items can be retrieved quickly and accurately from the same cabinet or shelf every time. To maintain this, your restocking and reordering these supplies should be systematic so that you never run out. Avoid constantly moving items so the rest of your team can’t find them. If you share a work station, be sure you put things exactly where you found them so that the next health care worker can access them.


Whether you work in a cubicle, a hospital work station, or an office of your own, strive to keep your in-box empty, either on your desk or in your email. Once you read mail, either take action immediately or categorize it for follow-up action. If you allow mail or email to pile up, you will feel overwhelmed trying to get on top of correspondence. You will spend more time sorting tasks instead of using that time to move forward with more pertinent goals.


Be sure to label your files appropriately. For example, label your email folders so they correspond to the email that is in the folder. Finally, keep only current projects on your desk. This will prevent you from being distracted and starting several projects at once.



image Journaling 1-6


Write about a time you were so distracted by interruptions that it caused you to forget something or someone else. What could you have done differently to prevent the outcome?



Avoid Unnecessary Interruptions


Health care professionals are frequently interrupted during the day. Therefore, it is critical to learn to prioritize tasks and know when to say, “I will get back to you within 24 hours.” In other words, you need to discern what is a “now” priority and what is a “later” priority. Know when you should stop what you’re doing in the face of an interruption and when you should not. This usually becomes clear fairly quickly. For example, imagine drawing blood from a patient, and then leaving that patient with the needle in her arm so that you could answer the phone or tend to a patient waiting at the counter. You’ve left the “now” priority to tend to a “later” priority. Not only is this dangerous, but you run the risk of forgetting the first patient altogether once you’ve left her to become caught up in a new task. There are always plenty of distractions and demands in the health care setting.


Prioritizing tasks is not to be confused with procrastination. Procrastination is about putting off what needs to be done today and waiting until the last minute, usually because of an aversion to the task. Remain focused on the task you are handling, especially during direct patient care.



Here is the prime condition of success: concentrate your energy, thought, and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged.


—Andrew Carnegie



Choose a Planner


The longest memory is shorter than the shortest pencil. That is why you need a planner to record all your appointments, commitments, notes, ideas, and aspirations. Paper and electronic choices abound. The advantage of a paper planner is that you can take it with you at all times and update it easily, whenever you need to, without having to turn it on or off or relying on battery power. They come in different formats, but most allow you to record your daily appointments, manage a to-do list, and make notes about the day’s events, along with future appointment planning. The variety is so great that you can find one to fit your needs and budget. On the other hand, electronic planners are highly portable as well but make it easier to switch appointments, order and reorder priorities, and do some brainstorming. Data can be transferred to a computer or another mobile electronic device.


For health care professionals with varying work schedules, a daily planner is essential. Choose a planner that fits your lifestyle, and choose one that you will use!



A Time Management Strategy


Time management schemes go back to the early 1900s when efficiency expert Frederick Taylor conducted time management studies in factories to boost worker productivity and output, later publishing Principles of Scientific Management in 1911. The classic book on personal time management is The Time Trap by Alec McKenzie, published in 1972. It identified common time wasters at work, suggested ways that over-committed people can say “no,” and stressed the importance of setting daily goals. Alan Lakein published his book How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life in 1989, which helped people prioritize their daily to-do lists and “work smarter, not harder.”


The new classic on time management is David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD), published in 2001. Building on the insights of his predecessors, Allen devised a methodology, now followed by millions.


The first step in getting things done is to collect all your incomplete tasks in one central place for further processing. Whether you record everything awaiting your attention in a notebook, on sticky notes, on your computer, or even in a voice recording, the point is to get everything you have to do off your mind and into a central collection device. You might spend a few hours collecting all these “to-do’s” initially, and then get in the habit of recording them whenever they come up or occur to you. Whether it’s your sister’s birthday card, the documentation you have to revise at work, or that Sunday School class you have to prepare for and teach, the idea is to get all these tasks off your mind and into a device you can trust. This practice can be a very liberating part of managing your time and your tasks!


Next, you will need to process all these undone tasks and obligations. You do this by asking yourself, “What is the next thing I have to do to move this undone task toward getting done?” Once you know the answer to this question, then you have something concrete and specific that you can insert into your time flow.


Now you are ready to place your “next actions” into your calendar and organize your life and your time. If something has to happen at a specific time, like an appointment, schedule it for that time. If something has to happen on a particular day, like paying a bill, enter it into that day. If you are waiting on something before you can take the action, like filing a lab test result in a patient’s chart, enter into your calendar when you can expect to receive what you are waiting for, so you won’t forget about it and you can check on it if it’s late. If a next action is not time-critical, put it on your to-do list.


Schedule review periods daily and weekly to keep your schedule up to date. Every day, review and prioritize the day’s events, scheduling time to prepare for them as well. Every week, collect your incomplete tasks, identify their next actions, and schedule these tasks.


Finally, the most important part of your time management system is to do your tasks. Anything that takes less than two minutes to do, such as emailing some lab results, should be done immediately. You don’t want to wonder if you took care of a minor detail which could cause problems for you later if it is not taken care of. Anything that is scheduled should be prepared for and done at the time allotted. Have your to-do list on hand at all times, so you know what the next thing to work on is as soon as you have a break.


The steps involved in a time management system are presented in Box 1-5.



Box 1-5   Summary of Time Management System Steps



Related posts:

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  2. Dealing with Others
  3. Managing Your Emotions
  4. Planning for Career Success

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Apr 8, 2017 | Posted by in MEDICAL ASSISSTANT | Comments Off on Who Are You?

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