101 Nursing Tips

Exploit Everyone's Strengths

Plan to exploit everyone’s strengths to meet the needs of your patients.  Keep in mind that everyone on your team has different strengths.  Some of us are very good at technical skills.  Some of us are very good at the social skills.  So somebody may not be very good at the technical skills, but may be very good with interpersonal skills. 

Make sure that we are using everybody’s strengths to the best of their ability.  For example, if I have a patient and I am very good at technical skills, but not very good with the patient’s family, and that patient’s family is having a problem with our care, I might be better off doing some technical skills for you so that you can help me to deal with the patient’s family. 

Make sure to recognize the strengths of everyone on your team and use them.  We are not all going to be good at the same things and that is good because together we can offer a lot of different skills to our patients.  Exploit everyone’s strengths to provide better care for all of your patients.

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Best wishes,
David W. Woodruff, MSN, RN-BC, CNS, CEN
President, Ed4Nurses, Inc.
www.Ed4Nurses.com

Decide What Not to Do

Nurses are busy people.  We are rushing around all day at work and when we get off work we are often busy with other jobs and chores.  Like many others we lead very full lives.  How then are we to devote more time to becoming extraordinary?  The key is in the power of focus. 

Think about the one thing that you want to be known for.  Spend a moment to write it down.  This is where most of your energy should be spent.  If your goal is to be an extraordinary critical care nurse then most of your energy should be spent toward achieving that goal.  This does not mean that you forgo outside activities and hobbies and interests, but rather that your attention is fully placed on achieving this goal while you are working. 

One way to do this is to write out the goal every morning on your daily planner.  This will help you to stay focused on your goal and to more easily ignore those things that do not help you to achieve your goal.  There will always be politics, short staffing and other distractions that vie for your attention, but by keeping this goal in front of you it is easier to ignore those distractions and stay focused on what it is you really want to achieve. 

The same principal can be applied at home.  If your goal is to be an extraordinary mother or father you can start to evaluate some of the things that compete for your time and evaluate whether they are worthy of your time; or whether they get you closer to your goal.  Extraordinary people become so because they are focused.  Make a frank evaluation of your time commitments.  Are they focused and distinct or are they unfocused and scattered?  If the later is true, it is time to sharpen your focus by keeping your eye on that one big goal that you want to achieve in your life. 

“It is easy to decide what to do.  The hard thing is deciding what you are not going to do.” -Michael Dell

Best wishes,
David W. Woodruff, MSN, RN-BC, CNS, CEN
President, Ed4Nurses, Inc.
www.Ed4Nurses.com

Million$Nurse

The Million$Nurse from David Woodruff on Vimeo.

Watch the entire video at: http://www.ed4nurses.com/Ed4NursesLIVE/M$N/Million$Nurse.html 

Subscribe to E-mail Newsletters

Sign up for email newsletters; these are called Ezines, to receive frequent updates on the State of the Art in nursing care.  A list of the best general nursing Ezines can be found below.

Email newsletters are a great way to get information and help you to stay up to date.  They deliver bite-size chunks of information.  You may have trouble sitting down to read a whole news article in one of your journals because you don’t have the time to sit down and read that journal from cover to cover. 

But, with an Ezine, you get small pieces of information at a time.  Usually you can go through and read this in a few minutes.  Usually, it’s about two to three pages.  E-mail newsletters are a great way to stay up to date: they’re easy, quick, and for the most part they’re free.  Get the information, but make sure you take it back to work and apply it in your practice right away.  That’s how it’s really going to sink in.

Some great nursing newsletters:
Nurses’ NewsWire: www.Nurses-NewsWire.com.
Medscape Nursing: www.medscape.com, click on newsletters at the top.
Nursing Insider from the ANA: www.nursingworld.org
Nursing 2006 E-alerts: www.nursing2006.com.
RNeNews, from RN magazine: www.RNWeb.com.

Download week53.mp3

Best wishes,
David W. Woodruff, MSN, RN-BC, CNS, CEN
President, Ed4Nurses, Inc.
www.Ed4Nurses.com
www.dwoodruff.com

Efficiency vs. Effectiveness

Efficiency is getting things done in a timely manner.  Nurses are trained to be efficient; however, efficiency is impossible with people.  When you're trying to be efficient with people they tend to become defensive and resentful which would be counter productive and lead to wasted time.  Aim instead for effectiveness.  Effectiveness is doing the right thing at the right time.  Effectiveness acknowledges the strengths and weaknesses of everyone on the team and capitalizes on them.  You can be efficient with things but aim for effectiveness with people. 

Here's a good example of the difference between efficiency and effectiveness.  If I have to get up and get going to work; if I try to get up with just enough time to get out the door and I have to get the kids to school and I have to get things ready and I run into some traffic problems on the way to work, you can see that that is probably being efficient with my time; it's not being effective because I am getting frustrated and I'm making other people frustrated along the way.  Now the way this relates to your job is that you may be so busy trying to be efficient in your work that you are not effective.  And you are responding to other people in ways that make them defensive and to make them not want to help you in trying to achieve your goals. 

If you listen first to others, acknowledge what their point of view is, you will be a lot more effective and you get a lot more done.  Aim for effectiveness in your care. 

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Best wishes,

David W. Woodruff, MSN, RN-BC, CNS, CEN
President, Ed4Nurses, Inc.
www.Ed4Nurses.com
www.dwoodruff.com