What are the most effective ways to prioritize tasks and manage time as a healthcare leader?

As a healthcare leader and a clinician I use: Urgency and Importance Matrix: Utilize the Eisenhower Matrix, categorizing tasks into four quadrants - urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, and neither urgent nor important, Critical Patient Care First: Delegate Non-Emergency Tasks: Strategic Planning: Regular Review of Tasks: Time Blocking: Effective Communication: Utilize Technology: Delegate with Clarity: Regular Self-Care: Prioritize self-care and work-life balance to maintain physical and mental well-being, allowing me to perform at my best in my leadership role. I do Yoga, meditation, running ,music and relaxation. Optimal time management is the buzz word to ensure prioritization .

A very wise professor in Human Ecology @Keating Norah gave us a lovely paper to read on the spaces and silences. Not unlike what Steven Covey suggested in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. So perhaps think about the invisible caregivers who health care providers are expecting to carry out the care plan. Is anyone on your team asking them how they are?

In prioritizing tasks, it is first important to ensure that your tasks actually help you achieve your goals. Schedules get busy, distractions arise, and redundancies emerge, so ensuring that your tasks align with your goal is mission #1. Only then can you begin to balance the nuances of: 1. What is most urgent 2. What is most feasible 3. What is most impactful And as busy executives, you have to accomplish multiple tasks concurrently as well. In managing time, I have two approaches: 1. Ensure personal/executive time is built into your schedule - this provides the opportunity to filter, synthesize, and strategize. Not just put out fires. 2. Remember that you can’t get to everything and that some things will have to wait.

In health care, we often multi-task and end up frustrated & overwhelmed. Here is what has worked well for me. 1) Get rid of random “to-do lists” and prioritize tasks based on urgency and importance to ensure you focus on what matters the most. 2)Assess the strengths and capabilities of your team members and delegate tasks accordingly. 3) Practice effective communication and set realistic expectations to avoid misunderstandings, delays, and wasted time. 4) Your well-being is of utmost importance. Practice self-care (exercise, get enough sleep, eat well). 5) Time management is a continuous process. Allocate time to reflect and review individual and team performance and progress. 6) Stay flexible and adapt your strategies as needed.

1. First of all we need to understand the importance of time, needs to be bifurcate according to the task. 2. Consciously, utilize the fixed timing to finish the important deadlines first, and at that time we refrain ourself from any disruptor objects, such as receiving a call during the task, starting doing another thing without finishing the previous task, wasting time doing something unimportant etc. 3. Morning time we may choose to finish a tough and complex project or any deadlines. 4. Need to take a break in between to keep motivated and refresh for the next task to be able to finish at 100%. 5. Give the score of your task which one is most important and urgent to be done earlier.

The term delegation is referenced however I prefer empowerment. Empowerment includes ensuring your team members are aligned with the vision and providing the autonomy to deliver that vision. This occurs when the leader has built trusting relationships through the foundation of communication. It is a continual feedback loop that builds consensus among the team and positively reinforces the contributions to the organization.

Proactive huddling! Whether virtual or irl, proactively be engaged with the ongoing of your work family for the week. Also provides an opportunity to set the pace. Who is off, where there's a gap, broken processes or equipment that requires repair - tend to the immediate needs that can derail your culture on a Monday (or any day!).

Planning ahead entails proactively identifying potential issues, risks, and opportunities, and taking preparatory actions. It also entails establishing reasonable deadlines, milestones, and performance expectations for both yourself and your team. Delegation encompasses the allocation of tasks and responsibilities to individuals possessing the necessary skills, knowledge, and authority to execute them effectively. It also necessitates the provision of unambiguous guidance, constructive feedback, and support to team members. By implementing these practices, you can minimize unnecessary delays, errors, and conflicts while liberating valuable time for more innovative and strategic endeavors.

Once you have aligned your tasks with your goals and values, you can plan ahead and schedule your time accordingly. You can use tools such as calendars, planners, or apps to organize your tasks into categories, such as daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. You can also assign deadlines, priorities, and statuses to your tasks, such as high, medium, or low priority, or completed, in progress, or pending. By planning ahead, you can have a clear overview of your tasks and allocate your time and resources effectively.

In healthcare, having a plan is great but we must also be prepared to deal with unprecedented chaos and situations. Having a understanding within the team, making sure we all function together like a well oiled machine makes it easier. Delegating tasks is overrated. its about time, we start delegating responsibilities. This makes the person handling the matter at hand feel empowered, and it is literally giving them the responsibility that consists of a collection of said tasks.

A kanban board is great to visualise a project's progress. A Einsenhower matrix is best suited to decide the order of tasks when things get overwhelming. Yes, fancy business tools do help but its the simple tools that are accessible to everyone on the team that work like magic. :)

Tools can be a great way to help you become organized and prioritize your time. I have all my calendars synced to each other. This ensures I do not miss a meeting or a deadline.

At the beginning of each week, I sync my calendars and prioritize my projects. By scaling my time by project needs I categorize tasks into chunks of time to complete my projects. Adjustments are made daily and are dependent upon “slide in/add-ins” to the day.

Identify and understand limitations of available and existing resources. By scaling and defining the challenges and tasks needed to be accomplished and completed, you can strategically allocate your most valuable resource-time-as needed. While many leaders stick to the tested matrices of time management and task prioritization, some fail to acknowledge the fact the resources have vital impact to the success of the game plan. Identifying and understanding the limitations of your available or existing resources can help you navigate how tasks should be prioritized and time has to be managed. It can also define whether external help is necessary to complete some actions while you work on areas of your own expertise.

The combination of electronic calendars, reminders, and task management tools like Microsoft Planner can be a time-management game-changer in leadership. Microsoft Outlook, paired with Planner, streamlines communication and task organization seamlessly. Incorporating prioritization matrices ensures that critical decisions and patient care tasks are addressed promptly. In my experience, this digital toolkit has not only enhanced efficiency but also contributed to improved patient outcomes. It's a powerful ally for healthcare leaders aiming to balance priorities effectively.

As a leader, distractions are inevitable. There are times when you are in your zone but an urgent task or emergency may pull you out of focus. Although it can be frustrating, attention is often required-specially if it’s your area of responsibility. Being able to focus can also mean resilience in allowing distractions to harmonize with your thoughts. Attentiveness and alertness can help you understand common concerns that can distract you as you move ahead and your ability to pause to delegate problem solvers where they are needed can help you feel at ease before continuing. Placing follow up controls and success identifiers to confirm suitability of chosen approaches are helpful in determining whether another task needs to be added.

When in a Leadership role within the Health Sector there will always be distractions and crisis. It is how you handle crisis management hand in hand with time management. It is also about multi tasking. The importance here is to remember to focus back on your priority list for the day once you have managed the matter at hand.

This is a difficult subject for me to comment on, simply due to the nature in which we now conduct our work post pandemic, within Healthcare. We are fighting our way back to a proactive mindset instead of a reactive skill set.

I would recommend avoiding overloading your schedule with non-essential tasks or commitments. Politely decline tasks that don't align with your priorities or goals.

When I reflect on the day, week, or moment, I ask myself if I could have been more proactive. So often what gets us off track are the "fires" that pop up which demand our immediate attention. Those time bombs are much the reason we struggle to be as effective at time management as we endeavor. All the more frustrating is that, in my experience, most "fires" could have been prevented if only I had taken the time to be a bit more proactive. Reactivity may be helping us to appear busy- many organizational cultures across the industry don't have systems that reward proactivity. It is rarely the leader who appears comfortable that "gets the grease". Take time to reflect, and ask if you could have prevented the "fire" and others coming?

Reviewing and reflecting should not only be about your progress but also of those involved in the processes. It often works to do a post-activity huddle to check with your go-to people how can things be more efficient and effective specifically in areas where your presence can be reduce. This allows the team to build trust and confidence for autonomy. Thereby allowing your self to take on more challenges before introducing it to your team to later pursue that can further develop their skills as they move forward.

In my experience, I regularly assess my time management strategies and their effectiveness. I found that reflecting on what worked well and what could be improved is an effective way to measure effectiveness

1. Most meetings can actually be an email or a phone call. Choose your meetings wisely. 2. Keep aside one hour in the morning and one in the afternoon for emails. Do not handle emails any other time during the day. 3. Dedicate time for uninterrupted 60 minute spurts. Twice a day. No texts, phone calls or any other distractions at that time. 4. Start early and handle the tough tasks early morning. That keeps the rest of the day easy.

Why not add a fun exercise at the beginning of a virtual meeting that stretches the muscles around your eyes? Or a literally neck and wrist stretch when face-to-face at a meeting or huddle?

Efficient time management involves making thoughtful choices about meetings and dedicating specific time slots for email handling. These strategies help maximize productivity and ensure that essential tasks receive adequate attention

Balancing all the priorities as woman in medicine is tough. I am constantly reevaluating if the tasks I am doing add value to my goals. These goals don’t necessarily have to be career focused but rather life focused. Do they align with my priorities? And once you make those decisions, leave your guilt at the door. It helps you with nothing but self doubt. If you don’t like the outcome, learn and make a difference choice the next time. Remember we live in a world where we are constantly asked to give 300% but have only 100% of ourselves to give. Show yourself and those around you grace. Outsource the things that give you little joy (for me it’s laundry!). And be present for the things that give you satisfaction.

Use the 80/20 rule to prioritize long-term goals. Select the project(s) that will solve 80% of concerns/problems. Once you have your priorities identified, use management principles and research to develop a plan of action with a timeline.

Ever had someone ask "How do you get so much done?" Well, here's my response. I read the book The 12-week Year by Brian Moran, and it changed how I went about new year's resolutions and achieving goals. Some of what's in the book has already been mentioned here. I'll add this: time-blocking. Create specific time blocks for everything - including social media amd emails. Constantly stopping to respond to emails or a notification is a time thief. Use a timer. Stick to your time blocks. And watch how much more effective you become. There's so much to grab from that book. Go read it.

In healthcare leadership, it's like wearing three distinct lenses: (1) the visionary telescope, (2) the operational microscope, and (3) the relationship-building stethoscope. To effectively prioritize tasks and manage time, understanding your goals is key. When our team aimed to reduce surgical complications, we used the microscope to meticulously analyze processes. Simultaneously, the telescope helped us envision long-term patient safety improvements. The stethoscope ensured strong communication, fostering trust and collaboration. Leaders who know their goals can adapt these styles accordingly, creating a harmonious symphony of leadership in healthcare.