Leave work on time

I changed jobs, and now I can leave work on time. It’s grand!

Trouble is, I’ve got around 9 more years before I can retire. I’m going to try, though. Whether I feel finished for the day or not, I need to leave on time. It doesn’t look like the workload is going to lessen up.

This one is SUCH a nightmare for me. I have so much to do at work, there is always just one more thing that can’t wait until the next day….. or I have been so busy during the day that I use the early evening to sit quietly at my desk and try to catch up.

I have done this for so long it has become the norm. It is causing deep resentment at home which is getting more unpleasant to deal with as time goes on. Also I am trying hard to go to bed earlier – coming home late means there will be no evening left to enjoy! It feels like I am constantly in ‘work mode’, which is not a healthy work-life balance.

I saw someone’s entry on this site, which said they wind up their work 45 mins before departing for the day, to give themselves chance to tidy up and plan for the next day, and leave in a relaxed and orderly manner . That sounds a great idea – just slightly too long. I think I will schedule in 30 mins towards the end of each day, to do this. The hard part will be disciplining myself to stick to it!

Well I had not one, but two major set backs last week. So, I am back to day one of 30 days. I definately need to take a deeper look at my work habits and environment, etc. MUST LEAVE work on time!!!

Last Friday was a bit slippery, but basically I have been doing quiet well with this goal. I figure if I can go 30 days straight where the door hits me in the back on my way out at 4:30 sharp then I can mark this goal DONE!

This has been a pretty good week. I am going to try and keep this up, cuts down on resentment. smile.

This is my second New Year’s resolution after “eat at home more.” I’ve been in a bad habit of staying late at work a lot to get things done. I like to stay late sometimes, but it got to where I was staying late almost every night. Of course, it eats into MY time when I do that. Plus, I was setting an expectation to others that I would stay late to finish things.

One thing I’ve done to help is set an appointment in my calendar 45 minutes before quitting time that pops up a reminder that says “STOP and wind down.” It’s helped a lot. That gives me time to find a stopping point, do my time accounting, tidy up my e-mail inbox and be ready to go when it’s time to leave.

This ties in with Resolution #1, eating at home more, because when I worked late, I didn’t have time to cook, so I’d stop somewhere on the way home from work.

Well the last few weeks have been pretty decent. I have for the most part been leaving work on time. However, there has been a public transit strike and I get a ride part way with our temp receptionist. Seeing that I work in the West and live in the East and I don’t have a license I have to shake it and get out “on time.” Though, on Monday she did say she needed to leave at 4:30pm sharp.

Hint: 4:35 is good but apparently not good enough.

When I was hired to this unit my understanding was that our nurse to patient ratio was 1:4 on most days and a max of 1:5 on days that we were short staffed. Recently, I have had 6 patients each day. We are on a 36 bed unit this means that at minimum staff 7 nurses + 1 charge nurse each staff nurse would have 5 patient and the charge nurse would take 1 patient. That hasn’t been happening lately.

1 hour late today but with to admissions after 1700. That makes it nearly impossible to leave on time. Wednesday and Thursday should go better.