4 Ways Caregivers Can Better Manage Their Time

Caregiving is a challenging and rewarding career. As a caregiver, you need to be emotionally understanding, patient, detail-oriented and cooperative. The day-to-day tasks of a caregiver can sometimes feel overwhelming. However, by being more organised, you can accomplish more within the limited time that you have. 

Here we share with you 4 ways you can manage your time better:

1. Prioritise your ‘to-do’ list: As a caregiver, you should always plan ahead. Preparing your day’s to-do list helps in keeping you organised and productive throughout the day. However, a long to-do list can be overwhelming. Therefore, prioritise your to-do activities. Keep the must-do activities in the first column. Reserve the second column for less important things. Focus on completing important tasks first, then move on to others. Always leave room for unexpected events. 
2. Get organised: Environmental chaos can drain your physical and mental energy. Searching for a thing when you need it the most not just wastes time but can be frustrating.  Keep your workspace clean. With an organised work environment, you can get more work done throughout the day.                          Note: It is important to get organised when it comes to medication administration. As a caregiver, you are responsible to administer the correct medication to the right patient at the right time.  To make medication administration organised, MAR charts are used — however, paper-based MAR charts need to be filled in and checked manually. For culling out any information, caregivers have to sift through piles of papers. They have to manually prepare the monthly and quarterly reports for audits. 
3. Instead of paper-based MAR sheets, shift to eMAR: MAR sheets are medical administration records. These sheets carry all the information required to effectively administer medication. Many of the care homes in the UK have switched to eMAR healthcare charts. eMAR charts in medication ensure safe medication administration at care homes. eMAR reduces medication errors occurring due to several factors such as                                                         –– Poor handwriting                                                                                                                                                                                                            – Ambiguous abbreviation                                                                                                                                                                                                  — Confusing verbal instructions.                                                                                                                                                                                                With a few clicks eMAR charts will give you all the information needed for medication administration. Not just that, it will also send you alerts when the medications are due, ensuring that no dose is missed. With the electronic system, making monthly and quarterly reports become easy and less time-consuming. 
4. Get help when needed: The demands of caregiving can be exhausting and overwhelming. If you find yourself too overburned or stressed out, it’s good to ask for help from other team members. If you will not care for yourself, caregiving stress can take a toll on your well-being which may affect the quality of care that you offer to the residents.