5 Things That Will Make Your 12-Hour Shift Fly By

5 Things That Will Make Your 12-Hour Shift Fly By You know more than anyone that, although immensely rewarding, nursing is a challenging field of work. If you are going through nursing school thinking that these 12hour shifts are not that challenging because they would only happen a few times throughout the week, you will be surprised at how challenging they actually are. There are occasions at which you would feel tired, to say the least, and you would feel like the shifts are not 12-hours but more like 12 days. This is where you might want to take advantage of a few helpful tips and tricks that are going to help you significantly.

There are things that you could do in order to successfully create the illusion of time passing faster. The truth is that this is going to help you out significantly. Not only will you get through these long hour shifts quicker and with more convenience, you would also be able to do your job a lot more productively and with greater efficiency. With this in mind, we would like to provide you with 5 things which are definitely going to help you out in this particular endeavor.

1. Keep yourself busy There’s nothing which is going to get the time to fly by faster than keeping yourself occupied. Regardless of the fact that it may actually sound a bit overwhelming, you will quickly start to notice the considerable difference. In fact, if you have nothing to do, you can go ahead and find yourself something to stay busy with. Help a colleague or handle some filing – there’s always something to be done in the hospital.

Related: How to Benefit from Networking The best thing to do is to maintain a productive and steady workload in order to get through your 12-hour shift quickly and conveniently. A hectic pace at work is going to make you feel overwhelmed and stressed as well as exhausted. However, a slow pace is actually going to lead to fatigue as well as to boredom. This is why you need to find the perfect balance by prioritizing the important task and conveniently pacing yourself.

Stay busy but do not rush or frazzle things up.

The best thing to do is to complete tasks that have a deadline first and then head to do some administrative, cleanup or organizational tasks afterwards. It’s a convenient scheme that is going to get you wondering, “How on earth did time fly so fast?”

2. Make sure to incorporate breaks Now, breaks are especially important when it comes to going through a long, 12-hour shift. You need to ensure that you have at least 10 minutes of break time every two hours which leads up to or follows your larger lunch break. However, you need to see that these breaks are not chaotic and unscheduled. Instead, look at them as a gift for a

job well done. Reward yourself with a small snack or a few minutes to read a magazine, or get a hot cup of coffee.

It’s important to take your lunch break right in the middle of your shift. This is going to ensure that you’ve added balance as well as harmony to your entire day. Also, it’s important to properly prepare a meal which is well-balanced. Getting a sugar rush is the last thing you want. This is going to lead to a temporary bout of energy and a following wear-out so make sure to avoid this.

3. Interact with your colleagues as well as with your patients It is a well-known fact that, in any field, interacting with people is going to create the illusion of time flying faster. Some friendly chit-chat as well as light banter can make your 12-hour shift go considerably quicker. You can ask your patients about their interests, about what they do, and what hobbies they have. What is more, this is going to ensure that you create some friendly ties with those people, hence paving the way for further interactions.

You can also spend time chatting with your coworkers whenever you get the opportunity.

This is going to add quite a lot of interest as well as diversity in your longer workday and it’s going to help you to get through it conveniently. What is more, this is also going to help you out considerably because you’d be able to ask for favors later on, or to get someone that you can actually count on to help you with a task.

4. Improve your working system There are a few things that are a bit technical when it comes to working as a nurse. For instance, you are going to be using an internal hospital database which is going to provide you with a lot of information. Spend some time checking for new updates on the computer that you work on, for instance.

Related: Top 5 Reasons You Should Get to Know Your Preceptor What is more, you might want to consolidate supplies, get your entire workplace properly organized and in line – this is something which is going to get you thoroughly motivated.

Spend some time polishing your entire working area as well as the areas that you usually have interactions with. Not only is this going to motivate you, but it’s also going to bring additional convenience at the workplace, which is going to make the entire experience a lot more pleasant. Remember – the more pleasant the experience is, the faster the time is going to pass by. What is more, you are going to make it easier for you to handle your tasks.

5. Get your mind preoccupied The truth is that during the majority of your 12-hour shifts you wouldn’t have time to think about anything else besides work. However, there are those inevitable situations in

which you have absolutely nothing to do. With this in mind, you might want to find something to think about.

For instance, if you have some event coming, start mapping out the details in your head.

Of course, you need to ensure that you do this during times at which you have nothing else to do. You will be particularly surprised at how fast the time has passed and your new assignment has already popped out. With this in mind, it’s important to ensure that you have something to think about.

As you can see, there are plenty of things that you can actually do in order to create the illusion that time goes faster. It might seem a bit redundant if you haven’t had your first 12 hour shift as a nurse yet but you will quickly see how important this is.

This is something that they are highly unlikely to teach you at nursing school. The truth is that this isn’t something that you can really prepare for. It’s important to see what works for you because every single person is strictly individual. With this in mind, you need to ensure that you implement the best practices that help you get through the 12hour shift in the most convenient way. Some of the above might not actually work for you. However, they are determined to be highly effective in the majority of cases so you might want to give them a shot.

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