In this episode I explore ideas and principles that I learned over the years to manage time more effectively.
Any questions please contact me on richdevinesocialwork@gmail.com
Connect with me on: https://twitter.com/RichardDevineSW
Follow my blog, where you can be sent fortnightly blogs on topics covered on this podcast: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/
If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your friends, and leave a review - positive, or negative, all feedback welcome.
In this episode I explore ideas and principles that I learned over the years to manage time more effectively.
Any questions please contact me on richdevinesocialwork@gmail.com
Connect with me on: https://twitter.com/RichardDevineSW
Follow my blog, where you can be sent fortnightly blogs on topics covered on this podcast: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/
If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your friends, and leave a review - positive, or negative, all feedback welcome.
Welcome to rich divine social work practice podcast. I am rich. And I am a social worker. This podcast is about practice related issues. Self-development and transformation. It will give you. Knowledge ideas and practical tools for being an effective social worker. Supporting you with assessment skills. Direct work, dealing with conflict and importantly, helping you make a positive difference in the lives of children and families. I read that intro out every single time I record a podcast. I'm sure that there's a much more efficient way of being able to do that. Whereby you record the sacrament and use the same. Intro on every podcast. But such as my technological inaptitude I haven't yet. Bigger than half. The other thing is that it kind of requires a degree of positivity. Which I'm struggling to muster at the moment because I've worked with. And it's nine 30. At night. And. I'm partly not that motivated to record a podcast. Our past nine at night. Mainly because I've had a busy day and mainly because I liked to get about 10:00 PM. Very strictly. But. My commitment is to record this podcast every week. So that's what I'm going to do. So. This week. I went and. Spend the day. At bath university with some of that. Third year students. And. We. Looked at. Three things that I spoke to them about during the day one was a theory that had really shaped my. Thinking and my practice, which was attachment theory and then a practical tool. Which I've recently become enamored by, which was motivational interviewing. And then in the, in the laptop half the afternoon. Actually I have some ideas. I develop it over. The last. The many years I've been in the job. Around managing time effectively. And I wanted to share some of those with you today. Time management. Isn't something that became easy to me. In fact, I've had to spend an inordinate amount of time. Learning time management. And I think. They had a children's social work can be hugely rewarding, but it's also emotionally demanding, incredibly challenging and very stressful. And I think that the complex and difficult nature of gender and social work is evidenced by the high rates of burnout and a transient workforce with most social worker, sadly not lost in more than a few years. And part of that is around. Having excessively high. South expectations and hypercritical stance to oneself. When those expectations aren't met. And that kind of internal. Self. The rocketry monologue can compound the intense and unrelenting demands of the role at least. That was my experience. And. The idea is that I wanted to talk about today. Ideas. That. That I implemented in practice because I'd read a lot of ideas around time management that just didn't lend themselves to the challenges that I was experiencing within. Child protection, but there are also ideas. Th what I've learned about time management is not like you learn. A way of managing your time effectively, and then you've nailed it. Moving forward, the certain ideas and strategies that you're constantly having to re implement or. Remind yourself off. On a day to day and week by week basis. And. In my job, there were many times when I felt completely overwhelmed and. And barely stay in a float. And quite concerned about the impact the job was having on my emotional. So I'm not. Been able to find. Bye. I did find some ideas. That helped. Me. Manage the. Demanding role. And I was. I realized because I was really passionate about trying to help children and families. And I understood that longterm relationships. Where a critical factor in making a difference. And I also realized that the system was unlikely to change. As much as I wanted it to. And so I was quite motivated to find ways that would enable me to remain in practice and be able to provide. The T to the best of my ability. High quality social work. And so the idea is that aided my ability. I have eight of them. One is around time management to presence, free ruthless pragmatism for reframing stress five. You are only at that as good as they was around you. Six. Liberation and helping families seven. Principles. And H two military. And I would like to go through. Hopefully all of those today. Unless it reaches Tampa. Yeah. And which case I cannot deviate from my strict bedtime. I'm slightly taped him, but I'm hoping I'll be done by them. So the first one was time management. And for me, I had quite poor impulse control, easily activated. Their system that motivated and avoidance of difficult tasks and an inability to organize and structure my time, according to a set of priorities. All issues that I struggled with and still do to some degree, but not, not as much as I used to. And as soon it became apparent that if I was to be effective for the children and families I worked for, I would need to address these floors and improve my capacity to manage my time and complete various pieces of work within tight timescales. Therefore. I have spent considerable time learning how to manage time. Like I mentioned a minute ago. And so the. Two most influential. Ideas. That I've learned about in relation to managing time. The four quadrants. And time-blocking. So the four quadrants. An idea that I'd learned about in a book called the seven habits of highly effective people. Which is probably one of the best books I've ever read. And I couldn't recommend it highly enough. It's got an Americanized title. So don't allow that to put you off, but it's just a really valuable. Book to read, especially early on in your career to help you understand. The development of your character and managing your time. And how you do that in conjunction with other commitments in your life. So he makes. In, in this book, he makes a helpful distinction between urgent important. He says urgent matters are usually visible. They press on us. They insist on action. They're often popular with others. And often they're pleasant, easy, fun to do. But so often they're unemployed. They. They're unimportant. Whereas important matters. Has to do with results. It contributes to your mission, your values, your high priority goals, and require more initiative and more productivity. And so the four quadrants are, if you imagined four boxes in the top left are the important and urgent activities. In the top left in the top, right. Are those that are important, but not urgent. And in the bottom left are not important and not urgent. Sorry, not important. And Jim, and then in the bottom, right, are the urgent. Not urgent and not important. And the challenge, especially as a newly qualified social worker is picking out what is important versus not important. It can sometimes feel like everything is important. You have to balance the expectations and demands that derive from an electronic system played within bill timelines and tasks from your manager, from the families you worked for. Requests from other professionals, as well as undertaking the work that you consider to be a value. The reality is you can't do a tool. So you have to assimilate all of these expectations and tasks. And then situate them into a hierarchy, a hierarchy of importance to take action on the tasks that matter. And it took me. Yes to figure this out, that I was never going to be able to get to the end of my to-do list as a children and family social worker. And the best that I could do is prioritize them in terms of importance and make headway on those. Critical pieces of work. In my experience, the essential activities from the perspective of impact in the lives of children and families were undertaken chronologies, writing assessments, writing care plans. And direct work with children and families. In my opinion, all of those activities are mostly quadrant two activities. So quadrant two is not urgent but important. And as much as possible, you want to diarize your calendar so that these activities remain in quadrant two. And avoid leaving it too late until they're in quadrant one. When they then become. And important. Now, this is an internal, an internal struggle. Partly because of the unpredictable nature of child protection repeatedly forces you to address emerging issues. So that places you within quadrant one urgent and important, but it is a pursuit nonetheless worth going after. You even want to be working on what matters or what cannot be avoided. Therefore the aim of using the category system is to spend as much time as practically possible in quadrant two, not urgent but important. Whilst recognizing that inevitably you will spend a good amount of time in quadrant one urgent and important. You want to avoid? All activities that fall into quadrant three. Urgent, but not important. And quadrant four, not urgent, not in Portland. Where possible. So in my opinion, the fast majority of email exchange as a social worker is quadrant free or for material. Albeit disguised as quadrat one. So it's. Urgent and not important or not urgent and not important. Get it presents itself, or sometimes we interpret it as urgent unimportant. I would go so far as saying that emails are one of, if not the major source of distraction and time wasted in our, in our jobs. Part of the law for me anyhow, was that they used to make me feel. Wanted and needed. With relatively little effort, especially compared to important tasks, I can write an email or reply to one, and that makes me kind of feel productive. One thing I noticed is that when I returned from annual leave, after having two weeks off. And I'd open my, in my inbox to him a hundred hundred or more emails. I found that at least 90 or 90% of them were to be of no use. Now email is ubiquitous and cannot be avoided. Therefore, the strategy I've tried to employ, and again, this is one of those strategies that is an ongoing. Journeying and ongoing. In-depth on my behalf is to block a segment of time each day to read and reply emails for 13 minutes. So you read them reply to emails, maybe eight 30 to nine. And then you close down your emails and then you don't look at it again until 2, 2 30, 2 free. Or some version of that that fits with your commitments. The second idea is from Cal Newport. And he has a podcast, which is one of my favorites. And this was from a book that I read. Called deep work. And the basic premise of this idea is that you schedule every minute of your work week. And so once I completed my to-do list and evaluated the different tasks, By urgency and importance, I would then time block my week using my calendar. So for example, a day of my week might look something like this. Eight 30 till 10 30, write a case conference report. And. At 10 30 til 11 travel 11 til 12 core group 12 till 1230 travel. 1230 to one emails, one till four, chronology writing four till five. Visit a family. The advantage of this. Method is that my activities throughout the day in the week determined by what I have identified as important. Rather than being directed by last demanded, more exciting in the moment. But ultimately less productive activities. Cal Newport makes the distinction between shallow work and deep work. Shallow work activities don't require a lot of concentration in can be done efficiently. Phone calls, emails, referral forms, et cetera. Deep work on the other hand is really impactful is what makes the difference, but it requires high levels, high levels of concentration, often for prolonged periods of time. So. So, I mean, Top detach. And that was reports and chronologies. In my current role, it's the parent and assessments that I have to write. It's the blogs that I'm trying to produce and other pieces of work. When I block out time, for example, to write a case conference report. Or to do a chronology. It's absolutely crucial that I avoid all distractions because even brief distractions end up being really costly. For example. Each time you reply to a email, maybe not even reply. Just look at the email. Or take a phone call, speak to a colleague. It can take anywhere between the research on this berries, but anywhere between 10 and 15, 20 up. Up to 30 minutes to get you back into the activity, you would want it. You were previously engaged in. And it's not the distraction itself. That's costly. So the distraction looking at your eat, an email that pops up may only take a minute. But it's the residual effects caused by the distraction. And they call this. Context switching. Your brain really struggles to be focused in on one activity. For example, writing a report. And then to cognitively switch into another activity, such as reading an email. Checking your social media, et cetera. And so to avoid this. I turn off email notifications. And often social media notifications on my phone. And sometimes you could ask admin workers to field incoming calls. Or don't answer them and call people back afterwards if necessary. I'll go somewhere quiet where I know I won't get distracted. Now, with the planning, your. Week. Every day, every three. For the rest of the week. People often get worried that the plan won't be. That someone else will come up. And so what's the point and there's this whole kind of say in which is Failing to plan is planning to fail. So I never had a week where I'd executed a hundred percent, the plan I've developed at the beginning of the week, you have to adapt to urgent issues, which can disrupt the timetable. But when this happens, I've rearranged my tape, my timetable. And then I continue. So I suspect I probably complete 70 to 80% of my schedule in a typical week. But I would still get a substantial, more done than I would have done without the schedule. An unbelievable amount. More, I would say. The other thing that is really helpful to do is to manage the expectations from others. So if you know what you need to get done in that week. And. You've got a plan to do that. And your manager comes and speaks to you and ask you to take on an additional piece of work. You can say, I'm very happy to take on that piece of work. But this is what I had planned for this week. Which of those things that I have. Would you like me to. Push back or move to somewhere else. So that's the first key idea is time management. The second idea. His presence and there's a quote by Eckhart. Totally. He's, he's got a book called the power of now. I said. The seven habits of highly effective people was one of the best books I've ever read. Maybe the power of now. I was also one of the best books I've ever read. He right. Stress is caused by being here. But wanting to be there or being in the present and wanting to be in the future. I'll just say that again. Stress is caused by being here, but wanting to be there. Or being in the present and wanting to be in the future. Such a profound quote. Here's a couple of examples. When I was a student social worker, I wanted to be a qualified social worker. When I was a qualified social worker, working with children on a child in need plan. I was looking at all my experience, colleagues working with more complex, challenging cases. And I wanted to be like them and want it to be working with children. Subject to child protection plans or EnCap seedlings. As soon as I, soon after I was an inexperienced social worker or that wanted to become a senior social worker. So there's this sense of getting to a certain place and then thinking that once I get to the next stage or the next step in this career pathway that I've carved out for myself, then I'll be. Where I would like to be, or then I would have some contentment, then I would have some level of happiness. But even on a more kind of day to day basis, if I'm working on a report, do you want first day? And it's only Monday. I want it to be Friday, so I didn't have to be concerned with the rapport. The problem is first-day get homies. I hand the report in. And then Friday arrived. And then all I'm thinking about on Friday is the weekend. And so. What you realize is that when the moment. I previously desired arise, then a new situation or a new desire emerges. And once again, I'm caught up thinking about a moment in the future that promises finally to offer me. Contentment and freedom from anxiety. And according to Eckhart. Totally. A great deal of psychological distress. Is self generated as a consequence of this type of thing can and derives from a dissatisfaction with the present moment. Therefore. I try to be present. And it sounds simple enough, but deceptively challenging to achieve. To give you an example. If I, if I have free hours blocked out right rapport, then I try and give myself permission. To enjoy the opportunity to spend three hours working on a designated piece of work. I have a comfortable desk. I'm safe. And well nourished. And I have an opportunity to spend three hours just working on this report. So I might as well allow myself to enjoy that period of time. If I have to drive a couple of hours to see a young person. Instead of spending 10 hours caught up in my anxious thoughts about what could be doing instead of this drive and what I need to be doing. I can allow myself to enjoy the car journey. And so. What I'm writing in a report or drive into this air. There's nothing else I can do. So there is no utility in allowing force and feelings to create high level of anxiety. When there is no opportunity to act upon them. I obviously, when there's an opportunity for you to act upon them, you can act upon them. But in the times where you've got pieces of work, where you're traveling or you've decided you're going to block out time to do the rapport. You can't do much about them at that point in time. The third. I did. Is what I call ruthless pragmatism. There's a. Saying in alcoholics anonymous. The unfamiliar with. Which is God grant me the serenity to accept the things. I cannot change courage to change the things I can. And wisdom to know the difference. I don't have any tattoos. Partly because I'm too. Indecisive and then. Always experienced a degree of regret, whatever decision I ended up making. I I get decision power analysis around select and the chocolate bar. And then, and then I'm always slightly regretful after I've changed the chocolate bar that I've changed the wrong one. Anyway. So if. If I was going to have a tattoo. Th that this would be one that I would. Happily have tattooed. I'm not, but I'm just saying if I was to have one, that would be one. In seven habits for highly successful people. Stephen Covey has described this in a really practical way. Which is the circle of concern and the circle of influence. So, if you can imagine two circles, one in front of the other. The outer circle is the circle of concern. And this constitutes all of the concerns that you have no control over. If you had your time and energy in attempted to change that, which you have little control over. Then the inner circle, the circle of influence, but traps and shrinks. In other words, you decrease your ability to deal with that, which you may have some influence over. On the other hand, if you can affectively discern what you have no control over, you can focus all of your time and energy on what you do. Have control focus over. And consequently, your circle of influence expands and you will create more control, more agency and leverage to make a difference. As a social worker, it quite quickly becomes easy to identify the flaws and limitations that the systems in which we operate. And although I'm acutely aware of the system's difficulties, not least the highly procedural and bureaucratic nature of the work that leaves little room to spend with children and families. I remain personally intensely focused on the areas in which I do have implements. So I would li. I would even limit the amount of time. I would allow myself to engage in negative talk. Especially during the team meetings. And then I. And I'd only raise a problem. If I could identify a really a realistic solution. One of the things that I read. This probably, I don't even know if it's true. It might be like pop psychology. But to be perceived as positive in the office. You've got to say. One. Free naked, no free positive comments to every one. Negative. Now, like I said, I don't know if that's true, but it's just a useful rule of farm. To be trying to try and cultivate a degree of positivity in the workspace. Now I do realize that there is a, there is a balance to be struck with this, and there's a really good quote. That I've found in. Brett Favre stones. The protect and children. And it's by Maria Popova. And it says this. Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. But hope without critical thinking is naive. A T. Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. But hope without critical thinking is nine fatigue. The. Four or five there. Is reframing stress. A few years ago, I watched this Ted talk called how to make your, how to make stress your friend by Kelly McGonigal. She argued that stress or the physiological experience of stress can be reframed. So typically we assume that the bodily signs of stress, anxiety, fast breathing, increased heart rate, et cetera. Are inherently negative and evidence that we are coping. However, what she. Invites us to do is to. Imagine that if we, what if we took the same bodily signs to mean that your body is energized to act and complete task? And according to Kelly. McGonigal when people can make this cognitive perspective switch. They're less stressed out, less anxious and more confident. In addition, when you experienced stress. She points out that new Rochelle hormones are released that cause you to seek out social support. And so she argued that your stress response system wants you to elicit support, to deal with it. So the release of these hormones propels you to reach out to others who can help you. And I think this is partly why you can develop some really supportive and close relationships with people in child protection teams. Because it's such a stressful and demanding role that you really need to cultivate relationships in order to cope and tolerate with what you're having to. Go for it. We'll deal with it. And. She has a. Quote, it's not quite, this is just her speaking from the TedTalk, but I've typed it up. She, she says in this title, which is worth checking out is called how to make your, how to make stress, your friend. And she says. When you choose to view your stress response as helpful you create the biology of courage. And when you choose to connect with others and distress, you can create resilience. Now I wouldn't necessarily ask for more stressful experiences in my life, but this science has given me a whole new appreciation for stress. Stress gives us access to our hearts, the compassionate heart that finds joy and meaning in connecting with others. And yes, you're pounding physical heart. Working so hard to give you strength and energy. And when you choose to view stress in this way, you're not just getting better at stress. You'll actually make an, a pretty profound statement. You're saying that you can trust yourself to handle life's challenges and your remembering that you don't have to face them alone. In addition, stress. It's also a signal. That you're operating on the periphery. Of yours zone of proximal development. So. I was feeling stressed when I went back to university on Monday. Two. Spend the day. Lecture and essentially. On these three different areas that I mentioned at the beginning. But that was actually. Giving me a degree of energy and alertness in a new and novel situation. But it was also because I hadn't done that before, or I've had very little experience of going into the kind of setting like that and providing. Information and sharing it and standing up the front. And so. It was. I was extended myself and operate in, in a way that took me outside of my comfort zone. And, and so the physical symptoms of stress are often. A really good sign. That you're in a position to be. Learning and growing. Now I do think there's a distinction to be made. With stress between. Involuntary stress and voluntary stress. But voluntary stress is generated by you placing yourself into certain situations where you want to push and extend yourself and to learn and to grow and develop it. So I made choices to. Work in child protection. To go and provide this Latcher. To write blogs and put them out on the internet to do this podcast. And they are stressful. But that they are voluntary. And at any point I can make a decision about not to do them anymore. Whereas there are situations that are involuntary, stressful, such as living in poverty or deprivation or. Not having access to good education and struggling to find employment, living with a domestically violent partner. Experience in the drug and alcohol problem. There's lots of these kinds of conditions where you don't have a lot of control over that ring, inherently stressful. And you can hardly make the argument that. In those situations. You're going to be learning and grow in, or you can reframe reinterpret your stress signals. So I'm about halfway there and I'm gonna actually stop here because it is. I'm afraid to say one minute to time. And we will pick up the remaining. Ideas or principles. Next week. So Manny, thanks for listening to this episode. If you haven't already. Then please consider subscribing or sharing with your colleagues. There must be a reason why. Every podcast I listened to. Asks. The people that are listening. Two. Eva subscribe, or to leave a review or leave a rating. It must do something in terms of making it more. Well known or. Something like that. I don't know. So I'm just repeating what I've heard. Lots of podcasts do. I mean, obviously I do want as many people to access them. To share this, if they would find it valuable, obviously if they're not going to find it valuable, then they have a tough. No interest in it. And so there is no need to share it, but for those that potentially could get something out of this. Anyway, that's a very long winded way of me. Given all about. Leaving a review. And finally, if you have any questions, please do get in touch. I would love to have a segment at the end. I've said this a few times. Of answering practitioners questions. Or if there's just any topics that you would like me to explore or people that you would like. Me to speak to. Please do get in touch.