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Chris Chapman reports.
If there’s one thing most pharmacists want, it’s more time. Life in the dispensary means there often seems to be too much to cram in – be it prescriptions, phone calls, sourcing stock or hitting MUR targets.
There is no easy solution to a busy workload. However, investing a little time in a few time management tricks can make a huge difference in keeping your head above water.
Planning ahead
Good organisation is all about planning ahead. Consider what you need to do: what is your end goal? Once you’ve established your aim, think about what you need to do to achieve this. Map out the steps in order, and break up the target into smaller, manageable, chunks. For example, if you’re trying to hit 400 MURs, start small – set yourself a target of 10, then 50, then 100. Make sure the goal is something you can measure at the end, so you can see how you’re doing.
The next step is to apply a timeframe for achieving each goal. It’s important that you make this realistic – say, 10 MURs in a week and a half, and 100 within three months. Now, as long as you check your list and see how you’re doing, you shouldn’t find yourself in a desperate scramble to complete a project all in one go. When you complete a task, cross it off the list.
And planning your time isn’t just useful for achieving long-term aims. Try mapping out the tasks you need to do on a weekly chart, making sure that you’ve assigned a reasonable amount of time for each activity. This will make sure you keep smaller jobs on your radar, and that you don’t get swamped by taking on too many jobs in too small a timeframe.
Prioritising tasks
But what if you’ve just got too much to do? You need to prioritise. But are you prioritising the right things? It’s easy to put off a hard task in favour of something that’s not important but far more enjoyable, leaving more pressing jobs to the last minute.
Fortunately, there are a couple of tricks you can use to see what’s important and what you can do without. One of the most popular is the Eisenhower method – named after the US president and general who is said to have used it.
Draw a graph, with ‘importance’ on the x axis and ‘urgency’ on the y axis. Turn the graph into four equal boxes – important/urgent, important/not urgent, not important/urgent, and not important/not urgent.
Now write a list of all the things you do on a typical day. Try to cover everything, from answering the phone and rearranging shelves to checking prescriptions and making cups of tea.
Assign each task a number from one to 10 in terms of importance. Then go through the tasks again, assigning it a number from one to 10 in terms of urgency. Now, map these into the boxes you’ve created.
You should have a couple of tasks in the important/urgent box – such as dispensing prescriptions. These are the tasks you need to do as a priority. And again, once the task is completed, cross it off your list.
There will also be a cluster in the important/not urgent box, such as hitting your MUR target or sending a report. You don’t need to do these immediately, so concentrate on getting the important/urgent tasks out of the way. Break the important/ not urgent tasks up into manageable and measurable stages as before.
Tasks in the not important/urgent box need dealing with quickly – such as answering the phone, or checking the stock order. But ask yourself if it’s you who needs to do it; maybe it can be delegated?
For tasks that are not important or urgent, consider dropping them altogether, or using them to reward yourself for getting an important task out of the way if you enjoy them.
In a nutshell, time management is about planning ahead and prioritising. There is no foolproof method – problems are always going to crop up that will demand your attention. But just by putting a few tactics into practice, you can make a real difference to staying on track.