When I started my first nursing job, I remember my preceptor showing me how she organized her shift. She had a whole system where she printed out orders, made a ‘to do’ list, and color coded each item based on whether it was a dressing change, medication, lab test, or something else she had to do. Many nurses were taught to organize our clinical work in a similar way. But how do you organize your time if you are in Nursing Informatics? Glad you asked! Here is an orientation for how to stay organized in Nursing Informatics.

Nursing Informatics is all about time management.

I thought I knew everything there was to know about managing my time coming out of bedside work. Unless I wanted to stay late finishing notes, I had to get everything done in my assigned shift (although – let’s be real – there were plenty of times I stayed late to finish documentation).

When I made the change to Nursing Informatics, I realized I did not know as much about organizing my time as I thought I did. Nursing Informatics is very different from bedside nursing care for many reasons. One major reason is the work is structured around projects. Many projects take months and sometimes years to complete. Informatics Nurses are not measured by what we do in a single day of work, and instead by the success of the overall project.

We are also part of a project team that includes roles like software developers, quality testers, and business analysts. That means the whole team has to stay organized and complete tasks on time for the project to be successful. As an individual, you are responsible for completing some of the tasks on the team. But you also need your teammates to complete their tasks too.

For this reason, it helps to organize both your time and the team’s time together.

5 Ways to Stay Organized in Nursing Informatics:

Without further ado, here are five ways to stay organized in Nursing Informatics.

Way #1: Maintain a team board.

A ‘team board’ is a place to list all of the key activities the team must complete. Depending on the project management method your team uses, this board may be built into your processes. For example, if you are following the agile methodology, you might use a Kanban board with essentially lists every major piece of work the team must complete in order.

Even if your team is not following agile methodology, you can stay organized by having a place where all of your activities are listed. Many technology teams use physical whiteboards for this, but your company may have software you can use to create a virtual board.

It is important to regularly review and update the board. My teams and I would always review the activities for the week each Monday morning. We would remove tasks that were completed, and add any new tasks identified the previous week. We also ruthlessly prioritized – it is never possible to do everything, and prioritizing is how we stayed focused on the most important items. It was a great opportunity to stay connected with what everyone was doing and even to plan fun events like happy hours.

Way #2: Plan your week.

Once you know what your team has to accomplish, you can focus on what you need to do that week. Thinking about my entire week at a time was very different from bedside work. When I was a bedside nurse, the most planning I did was when I worked in home care and I scheduled my patients appointments for the week.

When I moved to Nursing Informatics, I found I had to think about what I needed to accomplish each week. The developers could not start there work until I finished mine, so a big motivator was not wanting to let my team down.

To this day I keep a weekly planner where I start with what I need to accomplish that week. At the end of the week, I look at what I actually did and think about what I could have done differently. Did a stakeholder meeting take way longer than I planned? Was there data I should have looked at before tackling a particular process? Reflecting on what I could have done differently helps me to be more efficient going forward. I can plan ahead for where I may need extra time, more information, or different resources.

Way #3: Make a list of meetings and what you want to get out of each one.

This goes hand-in-hand with planning your week, but it takes it a step further. You will want to look at what meetings you have or need that week. But you also want to think about what you hope to accomplish in each meeting. If you know you need to get requirements for a new wound care assessment, simply scheduling a meeting with a group of wound care nurses is not enough.

What will you do to get what you need from the meeting?
Is there prep work for the wound care nurses?
Do you want to see current wound care assessments?
Is there any data that would be helpful to review ahead of meeting?

Thinking about what you want to get from the meeting will help the meeting have a clear purpose. You are much more likely to walk out with what you need, and you will have used everyone’s time well.

Way #4: Block time on your calendar to catch up.

When I worked in home care, I knew several nurses who had ‘administrative’ or ‘documentation’ days. This is where they blocked the day from patient care and focused just on catching up with their notes.

This is the same idea in Nursing Informatics. Just because you are not doing patient care does not mean you will not have days where you just need time to catch up. Whether it is sending follow-up emails, reviewing meeting notes, or just taking time to really think about how you are designing a screen or a new process. Block out time on your calendar regularly to catch up.

Way #5: Set aside time to review and discard notes.

My name is Lisa and I am a recovering note hoarder. I used to keep notes from projects that were years old, where the technology was not even in use anymore. Looking back now, I am not sure why I thought someone would want to know why we added a drop down to the third tab of an intake screen six years ago. No one ever asked.

My new rule is I review notes from meetings within two weeks of having the meeting. I decide if the notes are worth keeping by assigning myself or someone else an action to take. If it is clear there is no action to take, I throw the notes out or file them in an archive folder on my laptop. Keeping my active set of notes connected to an actionable task helps me to stay focused. If there is no action to take, the notes were simply informational and I can always look that information up if I need it.

I highly recommend getting out of the business of note hoarding. It helps to keep your mind focused if your notebook is not full of information you will not use.

Key Takeaways:

Hopefully these tips give you some ideas for how to stay organized in Nursing Informatics. As I mentioned before, this is a different field from bedside care. The means for staying organized are a bit different as well. But, if you practice prioritizing, as well as planning your time and your team’s time, you will find this work can be both manageable and fun. Good luck!

Like this topic? You may have what it takes to be a great Informatics Nurse! Here are two ways to get started:

Option 1: Sign up for Career Coaching! If you would like hands-on help planning your Nursing Informatics career, apply for one of my career coaching packages or book a Coaching Call. Check out my Services page for more information.

Option 2: Check out From Bedside Nurse to Informatics Nurse: A How-To Guide available in our online store.