Working as a nurse is one of the most reactive jobs you can have. You could be having a relaxed night when suddenly, everything goes from 0 to 100 in the blink of an eye. Emergency patients come in in waves, existing patients have set routines to attend to, and your supervisor is wondering when you’ll have your paperwork submitted.

Although the job is reactive, there are plenty of time management tips nurses can adopt to ensure they’re staying on top of their workload as best as possible. It’s time to look at some of the best ways to manage your time when working on the frontline.

Arrive early to your shift

Ok, we know this one is a given with almost every job and industry, but in healthcare, it’s imperative. Arriving at your shift at least 10-20 minutes early gives you adequate time to prepare. By arriving at work slightly earlier, you allow yourself the opportunity to grab a cup of tea, sit down and thoroughly read through all reports and handover sheets before the hustle and bustle of nursing life begins. We know that the temptation to hit the snooze button is high, but you’ll feel a lot less flustered this way.

Choose what to prioritise

When everything is a priority, it’s hard to know where to start. It’s hard not to be reactive when tasks pop up, but it’s important to know where to draw the line. One of the most effective ways to manage time is to build a list of tasks and organise them in order of priority. New and experienced nurses alike will become familiar with what constitutes an urgent task – tasks that can potentially lead to fatal outcomes if not tended to immediately. These tasks will always fly to the top of your list – regardless of any previous order you’ve set (that filing can wait!).

When putting together your list, a good habit to get into is noting down the estimated amount of time you think something should take. From here, you can ensure all high priority tasks have enough time to be completed by the end of the shift or delegated where appropriate. Some questions to ask yourself are:

• What’s the first thing you’re going to do and why?
• Which task or action is more important and why?
• Is there a consequence if you don’t act now? What would happen?
• What’s more important for the patient?

Anticipate as best you can

Sadly, no one can tell the future, making it impossible to know what a shift has in store for us. While you can’t predict what will happen at work, the longer you’ve been in the profession, the better you get at anticipating certain things. It becomes a little easier to plan once you get to know your patients a little better – especially longer-term ones.

If you know that a patient frequently asks for a cup of tea and hasn’t had one in a while, bring everything you need to make the tea to save you a trip if they do say yes. If the patient often makes numerous requests, try to anticipate what they might ask for and bring it all with you to save yourself some back and forth. In quieter periods, it might be worth checking up on patients you know haven’t been to the bathroom in a while or might be hungry to save these tasks popping up when another urgent task does.

Delegate appropriately

Delegating doesn’t mean offloading all the tasks you don’t want to do to someone else (usually someone with less experience). Collaborating with your colleagues is a great way to get work done more efficiently – especially if someone has a skill set that you don’t.

When done correctly, delegating can be a great time management tool. Your decision to delegate should be based on the following factors:

• The care complexity of the patient
• The availability of the worker accepting the delegation
• The type of supervision required
• The intensity of supervision required

Set achievable goals

Setting goals for each shift will help increase productivity, as you’ll want to tick off things on your list. Although your priorities will change throughout the day, having a list will give you a sense of routine to implement each shift.

Stop multitasking

Believe it or not, multitasking can hinder your productivity. When it’s done well, it can be incredibly beneficial. However, it’s easy to make mistakes in such a fast-paced environment. It has been scientifically proven that when the brain is trying to alternate between tasks, it tends to push aside information from one and replace sections with points from the other, causing details to become muddled.

Don’t put pressure on yourself to complete every task on your list simultaneously. Instead, refer back to your priorities list and complete each task to the best of your ability.

Remove distractions

Distractions are one of the biggest reasons many of us don’t complete our work. This could be anything from your phone to a colleague who loves a good chat. The first step is identifying what your biggest distractions are. For some, their phone might not be an issue, but for others, it might be a habit to check it every few minutes. Once you’ve figured out what distracts you, you can put some strategies in place to stop these things from impeding your ability to do your job. These things could be:

• Do whatever it takes to put yourself “in the zone”
• Prioritise your tasks
• Turn off your phone or leave it in your locker, checking it only during planned breaks
• Avoid shifts with people that distract you
• Use short breaks as outlets (if possible)

Say ‘no’

Nurses are often people pleasers – they like to help people. However, this often carries over to our colleagues who are asking for help. Too many of us are saying ‘yes’ to every task sent our way – even if, realistically, we know we can’t achieve it. Learning how to say ‘no’ is one of the most important skills you can have in time management and life. Saying yes to too many things can lead to burnout. If someone asks you to do a task that you know isn’t urgent, give yourself permission to say no and not feel bad. If you’re constantly saying yes to things, your colleagues will learn that it’s ok to give you more tasks to do – even if you’re at capacity.

Being a nurse is a fast-paced profession that requires a lot of reactive work on the nurse’s behalf. Because of this, priorities and task lists often get thrown out the window. These time management tips are a guide to aide nurses through each shift.

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