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Nurses are some of the busiest people around, which makes time management that much more critical for them. If you’re a nurse looking to master time management, try implementing these 11 strategies to take control of your schedule.

  1. Create a calendar.

To get in the habit of managing your time, create a calendar that keeps track of your commitments. Put in your work shifts, appointments and anything else going on in your life. Don’t forget to account for transition time, such as getting ahead to commuting to and from your destination. Some nurses prefer a physical day planner, but this can make it hard to move events around, especially if you prefer to write in pen. You might want to explore digital calendar apps if your schedule changes a lot.

2. Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize.

As a nurse, you simply can’t get everything done that you would like to. As you plan out your schedule, you’ll need to be rigorous about setting your priorities. Identify what actually needs to be done, plan out blocks of time for all of those and then reassess what else is on your list. You might also need to get creative about when you get things done—for example, you might be able to get your news fix by listening to podcasts while cooking or exercising.​

3. Arrive early.

In the nursing world, early is on time and on time is late, which is why you should aim to arrive 15 minutes before your shift begins. By arriving early, we don’t mean walking into the building 15 minutes before your shift starts. We mean actually walking onto the floor, ready to work, 15 minutes before it starts. Give yourself plenty of time to change into your scrubs, put things in your locker and do whatever you need to do so that you can walk onto the floor without being rushed.

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4. Think ahead.

As you gain more experience as a nurse, you’ll be able to better anticipate what tasks you need to complete and what items you’ll need to do them. Instead of making multiple trips to the supply closet back and forth, anticipate the patient’s needs and try to take all the supplies you’ll need on your initial trip. Over time, you’ll become more and more efficient at predicting what you need to do, which will free up time for other important tasks.

5. Estimate your time commitments.

A fundamental cornerstone of successful time management is being able to accurately estimate how long a task will take you to complete. Many people underestimate how much time it will take them to do something, leading to a lot of stress when they miss their self-appointed deadline. If your estimates tend to be rather inaccurate, try timing how long it takes you to do various tasks to get a better sense of how long it actually takes you.

6. Plan for the unexpected.

While creating a schedule and sticking to it is important, surprises will happen that disrupt your calendar. Make sure that you have some wiggle room in your schedule that can accommodate unforeseen circumstances like traffic jams and coffee spills. If you schedule everything back to back, with hardly a minute of cushion, you will end up being late unless everything goes perfectly—and as we all know, life rarely goes perfectly, so you shouldn’t depend on that to be on time.

7. Learn to say no.

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You know that you can’t do everything. So why do you keep saying “yes” every time someone asks you to do a task? Practice turning down requests that you really can’t add to your plate. This may be a little bit tricky at work, especially if you’re new and less experienced, but you can practice it in other areas of your life, such as family and social commitments.

8. Get organized.

We’ve all wasted time looking for our last clean pair of scrubs or our missing Bluetooth stethoscope, but some of us do it much more often than others. If you constantly spend your time trying to find missing items or make sense of your chaotic schedule, it might be time to reorganize your life. Get rid of unnecessary clutter, give everything else an assigned space and do your best to put every item back where it goes when you’re done using it.

9. Practice delegating.

If a task is essential but doesn’t have to be done by you specifically, see if you can delegate it to someone else. When you’re early in your career, you might not have reports that you can delegate to someone else at work, but there might be opportunities in other areas of your life. For instance, maybe your partner can help out with some of the household chores instead of you cleaning by yourself each week.

10. Reevaluate regularly.

The demands on your time will shift from month to month and possibly even week to week. Make sure that you’re regularly checking in on your calendar to ensure that it accurately reflects your various commitments. A calendar is supposed to be a dynamic document rather than a static one, which is why it’s so important to choose a format that can be edited easily when your priorities shift.

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11. Take breaks.

As a nurse, it can be tempting to schedule every spare minute of your time so you’re making the most of your days off. While that may seem efficient, it’s a sure recipe for burnout. Resist the urge and make sure to leave yourself plenty of time to rest and recuperate. Having to take a bunch of time off because you overworked yourself into an illness is sort of the opposite of smart time management.

If you feel like your schedule runs you rather than the other way around, it’s time to take back control. Follow these 11 tips to master time management for nurses.

Deborah Swanson
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