A Time Management Issue

I have spent my career trying to balance work, friends, family, college and stress. As a nurse and in life in general I often care for others instead of myself. I try to do the best job possible in everything. The patients come first. As a nurse you are an advocate for your patients and their needs are priority. The sports booster club keeps my busy. I try to make sure I am home and involved with my family. I make time to have conversations with my husband during our busy days even if it is through text messages. Right now I am working 8-hour day shifts and trying to fit in family time is difficult. I am new at my job and still have a lot to learn. I want to do my best every single day so I can be a great nurse and a valuable employee and team mate. I work very hard to give my patients the best care possible and to be the best nurse I can be. It is so easy to skip eating lunch because you are too busy caring for your patients. .My life is exhausting, but being busy is who I am. That being I also need to develop healthy ways to deal with stress. Sometimes all of this is overwhelming, and I feel like I will break into a million pieces when I haven’t taken time for myself.

Over the years I have tried several different ways to alleviate the stress at work. I am very good at prioritizing my time. When I need help I ask for it, I may not always get it but I try to reach out to the other nurses for help and I help them as well. When I have a chance to take a break, I take one. When I am overwhelmed and need a minute of quiet and ten deep breaths to put my thoughts back into perspective. For me having quiet alone time does wonders. However, I do find myself using food as a stress reliever, something sweet as chocolate or French fries. This has caused unhealthy eating habits and weight issues. After years of this I have just recently started to change my eating habits when I am feeling stress. The article Healthy Practice Environments recommends that nurses realize and practice healthy stress management tactics. Increase stress at work that continues to build will cause burn out and personal health problems (Duran, 2015). I am already implementing a few of the recommendations from the article in my daily life. I do need to work on eating healthier and getting daily exercise. When I am doing just those two things I think clearer, and I physically feel better.

I’m very organized person and I like organization and structure. I am a huge fan of grading rubrics as well and I like to have feedback on my work. I am not a master of writing papers or doing research so I would find it helpful to have instructors that understand this and are to give constructive criticism to help complete my assignments and to help me learn. I am following the assignment instructions and the rubrics that are posted, but not being in a classroom setting makes me really nervous that I will make mistakes that can’t be fixed. Feedback on how I am doing on assignments will help me know that I am completing the assignments well and will give me an idea how I am doing in my classes overall (Halawah, 2011).

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