Improving Time Management Skills
Good leadership is the key to success. Many decisions and actions taken as a leader in the nursing world rely on effective time management. Time management is a complex process based on a variety of principles and consists of techniques to promote the best use of time, including proper communication, planning, delegating, and prioritizing goals. When time is managed correctly, it is a resource that facilitates leadership and management (Grohar-Murray & Langan, 2011).
As a nurse, student, daughter, and friend, I have realized the importance of time management in my daily life. This is one area that I would like to improve, as I feel I am constantly running from day-to-day between responsibilities at work and personal commitments. My ultimate goal is to increase efficiency at work and increase time for activities after work, such as school work, time with family, and running errands. I will use the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle to help me achieve my personal goal for quality improvement in time management by developing a plan of action, implementing the plan for improvement, collecting data to evaluate the plan, and determining the plan’s effectiveness or need for modification (Neuhauser, Myhre, & Alemi, 2004).
Plan (P)
The plan for improvement involves allowing time for proper planning of the day; at least 15 minutes. This plan will be implemented over a five-week period. During the 15 minutes, I will review my patients’ conditions, note any scheduled procedures, and plan out the day accordingly. I will develop a daily task sheet to show what goals must be met and a time frame for completing the goals. This planning time will also allow for reflection to choose which tasks take priority and determining what tasks may be delegated. This will aid in my efficiency at work with completing tasks in a timely manner. With proper planning of the day, I will leave work on time, by 07:20, and have more time for personal activities after work.
Do (D)
The first week of plan implementation was May 12th-18th. In order to evaluate my improvement plan’s effectiveness, I began by collecting and recording pertinent information each work day, including time spent planning (PT), time of departure from work (DT) and whether or not a task sheet was made for the day. During week one, the data for Monday and Wednesday was identical. PT was 20 minutes; DT was 07:15. Task sheets were made each day of week one. The plan and data collection continued through week two, May 19th-25th, PT ranged from 5-10mins each work day and DT ranged from 07:30-07:50. Task sheets were made on 2 out of 5 days. Week three, May 26th-June 1st, PT for each day was 15 minutes and tasks sheets were made daily. DT ranged from 07:15-07:30. During week four, June 2nd-8th, there was one day in which there was no planning or task sheet made. DT for that day, June 3rd, was 08:10. On June 4th, PT was 3 minutes, while DT was 07:15; a task sheet was made. The last week, June 9th-15th, PT varied from 10-20 minutes, and included making task sheets for each day. DT occurred before 07:30 each day.
Check (C)
After all data was collected and recorded, I placed the data in a histogram so that it could easily be compared and interpreted (Neuhauser, Myhre, & Alemi, 2004). During the five week period, there were 19 work days. The first histogram entitled “Planning Time (PT)” shows the amount of days out of the five week period I spent 0-12 minutes planning the goals/tasks of the work day, which was less than the 15 minutes originally determined (see Appendix A). There was one day in which no planning took place. There were three days I had 5 minutes of PT and three days with only 10 minutes of PT. Ten out of the 19 work days did not allow for a sufficient PT. The next histogram labeled “Departure Time (DT)” indicates the number of days for which the I did or did not leave work on time, by 07:20, in regards to adequate PT (see Appendix B). During the five week period, I left after 07:20 with less than 15 minutes of planning for a total of 10 days. Six days I left before or at 07:20 with 15 minutes or greater of PT, and there were three days that I left after 07:20 with 15 minutes or greater of PT. There were no days in which I left before 07:20 with less than 15 minutes of planning. Through analysis of this data, I did not meet my goal of at least 15 minutes of PT for over half of the work days in the five week period. The data does indicate that with less than 15 minutes of PT, I frequently left work after the desired time of 07:20. However, the data also shows that even with sufficient PT of 15 minutes or greater, DT was after 07:20 for 3 out of 19 work days ( see Appendecies A and B).
Act (A)
Based on the data analysis, the plan for improving my time management skills was only partially successful and requires modification. This could be due to lack of repetition and lack of clear suggestive data. There were 9 out of 19 work days that I did not meet my targeted PT of 15 minutes. If this target had been met, the results could have been more reliable. It must also be noted that despite preparing a task sheet, it did not indicate a positive or negative effect in regards to DT. Despite proper planning there were still days that I left after 0720. I believe this was due largely to the fact that one cannot simply plan for everything.
Adebisi (2013) states that the key to successful time management is planning, but perhaps the most important strategy is adaptive planning. He suggests that time management is mostly about adapting effectively to change in the environment. Nwabueze (2011) notes that a good planner must plan their work, but practically, without definite plans, as the nature of environment is change. Planning is a skill and exercise to visualize or anticipate the future and react accordingly. Plans simply exist to show direction when situations demand for change (Rajnandan, 2012). I have realized that this is often a barrier to achievement of my goal. PT alone will not always result in effective time management. I must develop ways to adapt to an ever-changing environment. To assist in visualizing barriers to time management, I created a Cause-and-Effect, or Ishikawa, diagram entitled “Causes of Interruption in Time Management” (Neuhauser, Myhre, & Alemi, 2004). Some of the barriers I identified were on a personal level, such as role confusion. During the second week of the plan, my time management was ineffective and placed by DT to 08:10 on one of the workdays. Through losing track of time at work, I also lost track of time in my personal life and missed due dates for schoolwork. Other hindrances to effective time management identified were late time of arrival to work decreased amount of sleep, and lack of delegation.
New and Improved
While I did develop a plan to improve and measure my time management skills, I realized after analysis that this plan did not also measure my efficiency at work. As it was part of my initial goal to increase work efficiency through improvement of time management skills, I have developed a new plan of action. For fourteen full work days I will create a time log for how much time I spend on daily tasks and activities. As humans are often creatures of habit, I will analyze my own personal behaviors. Do I prioritize tasks from most to least important? Am I a procrastinator? Do I ask for help when it is needed and delegate accordingly? After analyzing the data I will make adjustments to address areas that are not being used efficiently. Once I have completed the personal evaluation and made adjustments to fill in unused gaps of time, I will begin recording data to analyze efficiency and time management skills. I will again record the amount of time spent planning and compare it to the time of departure from work. I continue to document how much time I spend on daily tasks and activities for two weeks, if there is improvement time of departure from work and decrease in time spent to complete tasks effectively, I will continue with the plan and evaluate for change as needed. If there is not significant improvement, I will evaluate for weak points in the plan and repeat the PDCA cycle (Neuhauser, Myhre, & Alemi, 2004).
Conclusion
There is an old saying that I have heard since I was a little girl, and it seems to become truer every day; failing to plan is planning to fail. Time management involves planning ahead, establishing an efficient routine by identifying goals and ranking them according to priority, delegating tasks, and communicating effectively (Hart-Hester, 2003). In order to assure that I have efficient time management skills, it is important to implement a quality management and improvement tool, such as the PDCA cycle, to allow for constant monitoring and to help achieve ongoing improvement. I will continue to strive to improve my time management skills as a nurse, leader, and student in every way possible
References
Adebisi, J.F. (2013). Time management practices and its effect on business performance. Canadian Social Science. 9(1), 165-168.
Grohar- Murray, M. & Langan, J. (2011). Managing Resources. In leadership and management in nursing. 4th ed., pp. 286-296. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Health Science.
Hart-Hester, S. (2003). Time managers: Secrets of effective leaders. The Internet Journal of Healthcare Administration. 2(1), 13-19.
Neuhauser, D., Myhre, S., & Alemi, F. (2004). Personal continuous quality improvement work book. 7th ed. pp. 1-34. Retrieved from http://www.a4hi.org/docs/Neuhauser_personal_improvement_project_workbook.pdf
Nwabueze, U. (2011). Implementing TQM in health care: The crucial leadership traits. Total Quality Management. 22(3), 331-343.
Rajnandan, P. (2012). Strategic planning philosophies continuum. IVP Journal of Business Strategy. 4(2),22-30.
Appendix A
Panning Time
Appendix B
Departure Time
