Rhythms and routines: the link between time management and lifespace theory

Reviewing my self management
I found a review of this book 
http://99u.com/workbook/16527/why-emailing-gives-you-a-false-sense-of-progress

I'd be interested to read the book and it has reminded me to review how I am going with my time management. I re-did the time management test here and scored much higher. Last month I scored 40 this month I scored 46, right on the cusp to a score of effective time management. Procrastination and managing interruptions are still areas I need to work on but there has definitely been an improvement by just trying to meet my goals, scheduling better and trying to be accountable to my team and manager. Yay for me :)

Project

Our project seems to be swimming along nicely thanks to my great team who are so motivated. I am enjoying the work as we made did a good job with the proposal and thus developed realistic goals and tasks. It is so clear and so able to focus on one task at a time. Its great doing some EBP for the first time in a while. 

In my search for relevant articles about training DSWs to support adults with autism I found a theory that is used in residential child care called "lifespace", ·       “Lifespace theory suggests that everyday life events, from getting children up in the morning to putting them to bed at night offers opportunities which can be as powerful as more formal interventions to enhance children’s development”.    “Lifespace can be described as the therapeutic use of daily life events in residential settings…Daily life events, which are shared by care staff and young people in residential settings, are exploited by the care team to help the young people gain an understanding of their life experiences. This understanding then becomes the foundation from which support is given to the young person to help him/her gain control over his/her daily environment” (   M Smith 2005 “Working in the Lifespace” in “In Residence” Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care. University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.)

This theory is encompassed in what we call the keyworker model in ECIS and therapy in the natural envionrments. I think we can also apply this to adults in residential care. This theory has been adapted for career development here and I think it would be useful to apply to my own career development. SO i might explore this further. 

Do it Better: Thoughts from the June workshop

20th June 2013

I enjoyed this workshop and now need to think about how we can implement continuous improvement. I think most members of our team are good at trying to find more effective processes and there are only a few people who do things because they've always been done that way and are resistant to change. As a team we share ideas about how to work more effectively, how to manage time and caseloads and think we need to keep doing this on a regular basis. There are not enough processes/ policies in place to make sure everyone know what is expected so I will work on these, then we can measure performance based on this.

(Taken from http://sarjeevansainbhi.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=136220067)

In this cycle it is important to move quickly to the next step and not get stuck planning. It is an ongoing cycle for continuous improvement.

We can also use the theory of Kaizen; the Japanese term meaning to 'change gently' which means we should build on changes bit by bit for continuos improvement.

It was also good to think about how a team can be innovative and I like the idea of developing a challenge statement and thinking about what do our customers want more of? There needs to be a benefit to any work we do and there needs to be value in it for somebody who matters! It would be excellent to sit down as a team and brainstorm answers to a challenge statement like "In what ways can we work in mainstream schools?" I know we'd come up with heaps of stuff.

Project reflections: We are up to executing - this is where I need to knuckle down and get that reading done. We're working really well as a group.

I had the opportunity to sit with my manager and a colleague to come up with a project proposal relevant to my role. I found it really difficult to put his into the project proposal format and this is where I left it. I am looking forward to being able to talk through this further with my manager and seeing if we can expand the project.

I think our team is at a stage where we are looking to develop more consistent and more effective processes and it has been useful to think about processes and ways to develop a philosophy of continual improvement.

The Literature Review. PICO and databases...eeek

30th May 2013

As part of our project Emily, Val and I are conducting a literature search. We are lucky that recently a guide has been developed by our organisation to do this. One of the ways to develop a good research question is to use the acronym PICO. There are lots of good sites explaining this however I am wondering how relevant it is to our research when using PICO is most effective for medical and patient based searches.
Here is a great link explaining how to use PICO to formulate a research question
http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/file/0011/85196/Finding-the-Evidence-1.swf
And here is another link to a worksheet for PICO http://www.usc.edu/hsc/ebnet/ebframe/PICO%20Worksheet%20SS.pdf

Well as a team and with the experience Val and Emily had in already trying to use PICO we came up with a great question and PICO for search terms.

THE PICO SYSTEM

WHAT DO I WANT TO KNOW (Practice Question):   What education do dsw need to support people with **

Area	Terms	Alternate Terms
Population	People with ** and living in supported accommodation	Alternate terms for each client group Residential services, residential facilities, institutions, group homes, facility, share home/house, nursing home, continuing care unit, transition unit, in home care, out of home care, respite care, day centre, day service, day programs
Intervention/ Exposure	Education or training for direct support workers	Staff education, staff training, competency based training, upskilling, professional development, learning needs, accreditation, disability support workers Support workers, residential worker, attendant carer, staff carer, personal care assistants, worker,
Comparison/Factor
Outcome/Observation	quality of life, stress, incident reports, wellbeing, job satisfaction, staff turnover, absenteeism, illness, least restrictive environment	Participation, independence,

 ** Autism or mental health conditions or BOC

So tonight I have tried to follow the guide and search databases. It was so so difficult to access the databases. Having access to a uni library I found it much easier to just get on to the cochrane database and do my search. Once I had access the searching was easy, the terms we had come up with helped and I started finding articles that seem a little bit relevant. So now lots of reading to do!  

time management

This is my results of the "How Good is your time management" Quiz. From mind tools website.
Time to set a goal of improving this score...
To re-do in 8 weeks.
Total score was 40
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_88.htm
Goal Setting
(Questions 6, 10, 14, 15)
Your score is 10 out of 20   
To start managing time effectively, you need to set goals. When you know where you're going, you can then figure out what exactly needs to be done, in what order. Without proper goal setting, you'll fritter your time away on a confusion of conflicting priorities. People tend to neglect goal setting because it requires time and effort. What they fail to consider is that a little time and effort put in now saves an enormous amount of time, effort and frustration in the future. Mind Tools has two great articles on goal setting that are must-reads for everyone. If you are serious about time management, we suggest you start with Personal Goal Setting and The Golden Rules of Goal Setting . We also recommend Treasure Mapping . 
Prioritization
(Questions 1, 4, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15)
Your score is 25 out of 35    
Prioritizing what needs to be done is especially important. Without it, you may work very hard, but you won't be achieving the results you desire because what you are working on is not of strategic importance. Most people have a "to-do" list of some sort. The problem with many of these lists is they are just a collection of things that need to get done. There is no rhyme or reason to the list and, because of this, the work they do is just as unstructured. So how do you work on To Do List tasks – top down, bottom up, easiest to hardest? To work efficiently you need to work on the most important, highest value tasks. This way you won't get caught scrambling to get something critical done as the deadline approaches. For information on how to start prioritizing your tasks, see our articles onActivity Logs , Prioritized To Do Lists , Prioritization , The Action Priority Matrix , and The Urgent/Important Matrix .
Managing Interruptions
(Questions 5, 9, 11, 12)
Your score is 8 out of 20   
Having a plan and knowing how to prioritize it is one thing. The next issue is knowing what to do to minimize the interruptions you face during your day. It is widely recognized that managers get very little uninterrupted time to work on their priority tasks. There are phone calls, information requests, questions from employees, and a whole host of events that crop up unexpectedly. Some do need to be dealt with immediately, but others need to be managed. Two excellent tools that discuss how to minimize your interrupted time are The Urgent/Important Matrix and Managing Interruptions . However, some jobs need you to be available for people when they need help – interruption is a natural and necessary part of life. Here, do what you sensibly can to minimize it, but make sure you don't scare people away from interrupting you when they should.
Procrastination 
(Questions 2, 10, 12)
Your score is 4 out of 15   
"I'll get to it later" has led to the downfall of many a good employee. After too many "laters" the work piles up so high that any task seems insurmountable. Procrastination is as tempting as it is deadly. The best way to beat it is to recognize that you do indeed procrastinate. Then you need to figure out why. Perhaps you are afraid of failing? (And some people are actually afraid of success!) Once you know why you procrastinate then you can plan to get out of the habit. Reward yourself for getting jobs done, and remind yourself regularly of the horrible consequences of not doing those boring tasks! For more help on recognizing and overcoming procrastination see our guide to Beating Procrastination .
Scheduling
(Questions 3, 7, 12)
Your score is 6 out of 15   
Much of time management comes down to effective scheduling of your time. When you know what your goals and priorities are, you then need to know how to go about creating a schedule that keeps you on track, and protects you from stress.  This means understanding the factors that affect the time you have available for work. You not only have to schedule priority tasks, you have to leave room for interruptions, and contingency time for those unexpected events that otherwise wreak chaos with your schedule. By creating a robust schedule that reflects your priorities and well as supports your personal goals, you have a winning combination: One that will allow you to control your time and keep your life in balance. To learn specific scheduling skills, see Pickle Jar Theory and Scheduling Skills

Project management 101 : Thoughts from May workshop

18th May 2013


It was great to hear about project management today. So it was reinforced that projects are important in organisations to make sure we're doing work that matters. I believe this is true, I know from my own experiences that amongst all the everyday services we provide it is difficult to implement changes and improvements and I think creating each of these ideas for improvement into a project would allow this to happen.

I found this book and interesting interview with the authors
http://www.jkp.com/blog/2012/04/interview-gary-spolander-linda-martin-successful-project-management-in-social-work-and-social-care/

I will try to get hold of this book, as I believe it could be quite useful.


Our project: Our team are working on a project about training DSWs in autism, mental health and behaviours of concern. We are working well as a team and we spent a great deal of time today deciding what the project is and how we can do it within the time frame. I feel much more confident as we have reduced the scope of the project to provide information about what the evidence says should be in this sort of training and then comparing this to what is currently available. Now I am actually interested in contributing to the literature reviews.

Personal reflections from today: I am really enjoying this workshops, having time to meet with others in the same role as me and developing new ways of thinking. I can see there is heaps of ways to apply this to my work and develop new services and team processes through projects.