By Jared Dayringer
Time management is paramount. I have had the opportunity to experience this phenomenon in my personal and professional life recently. As an academic student wanting to better my opportunities for advancement as well as a Biomedical Equipment Technician/Manager I have to be able to manage my time. Possessing the ability to recognize and prioritize important matters makes the difference between success and failure. Balancing your professional workload between making the immediate customer, the ultimate customer, your boss, and financial overseer happy, while ensuring regulatory and program compliance, presents opportunities and challenges the average individual would not understand. A lack of time management skills, creates a higher anxiety level, and lowers an individual’s time management abilities.Â
Stress can result in wrong or inappropriate decisions. Suggestions for ways to reduce stress management’s hasty decisions are:
- Conduct a time audit. Keep a record of how much time you spend on the various activities. Start with mandatory activities and required meetings. Then, keep track of how much time you spend performing each activity.
- Use time tracking to help identify time robbers. A good tip is, don’t confuse preferences with priorities. It may be your preference to prepare for that upcoming meeting but that might not be the best use of your time. On the other hand, you also don’t want to confuse sensible R and R (rest and recuperation) with laziness. Sitting in your office all day and skipping lunch in an attempt to find the exact wording for a report creates anxiety. Take short breaks throughout the day to walk around, drink some water, and come back to the report with a fresh point of view. While I was researching, I found that if I laid things out it made everything run smooth throughout the day.
- Elicit support and input from your supervisor, they should help set your priorities.
- Instead of stopping to answer every email, send an automated message saying you will respond at a certain time.
- Limit interruptions. Take breaks at times you schedule. Let the phone go to voicemail.
- Clean your workspace before you start on a big project. You will spend less time looking for the right file or other resources.
People tend to spend the most time on the least valuable tasks. That’s because we’re often reluctant to do those tasks, so we waste time resisting them. Take time after each task is completed to consider strategies for managing things better the next time. You should try different tactics until you find one that works and then make it part of your overall time management plan.
It may feel counterintuitive to spend time working on time management. However, consider the time spent developing a time management plan an investment. When you are able to manage your time well, you have invested in your own success at work and in your personal life. And the better you manage your time, the more time you’ll have for the things you truly value.Â
Jared Dayringer, AAS, BAST, MSAST, is an On-Site Supervisor for Sodexo Clinical Technology Management at Seton Medical Center Harker Heights.