Mastering the juggle and finding work-life balance as a nurse educator

For the nurse educator in an acute environment, these competing priorities will include the delivering of education to nursing staff, nursing students, writing a clinical guideline or policy, grading student assignments, joining administrative or council meetings and continued learning to maintain competence as a nurse educator. In the academic environment, some of these priorities may extend to engaging in scholarly work, writing manuscripts for publication, and engaging in service in the community.

Following Benner’s novice-to-expert theory, new nurse educators may find that their mastering of juggling priorities will improve over time, with repeated exposure and opportunities to perform in the role or the task at hand (Benner, 1988, 2001). The process of mastering the art of juggling requires practice, consistency, and patience. However, in the long run, the nurse educator is likely to reap great benefits. Some of the benefits may include job satisfaction and retention for the nurse educator and nurses as staff at a time when we are facing a critical nursing shortage (Arian & Soleimani, 2018).

How can the nurse educator make the juggle easier? Here are some tips:

1. Be flexible. Realize that you cannot be in two places at once. Allow yourself not to be perfect. Recognize that as you try to handle many balls, there are only so many that you can keep up in the air. Practice saying “no” when you cannot compromise the time allocated to high-demand priorities.
2. Write a to-do list of assignments and their respective deadlines. You may set this up using technology like a digital calendar. You may also set up a board and write the assignment. Set your due date two-three days in advance of your scheduled deadline. This will help to anticipate for any potential delays due to unexpected circumstances. Review your to-do list periodically.
3. Prioritize your assignment. Prioritize these by date and degree of relevance or importance.
4. Monitor your progress. Evaluate the use of your time.
5. Be creative. Identify opportunities to match activities or responsibilities and combine the two. For instances where these activities or responsibilities do not match, set additional time within your daily or weekly schedule to make progress on the designated activity or responsibility.
6. When not clear about an assignment, seek clarification early in the process. This will help you make changes and deliver the completed assignment on time.
7. Seek mentors and resource people in your field.
8. Set time for yourself. Allow time to refresh and recover, especially when you juggled more than what you could handle at one time. Put yourself on the priority list. Add some self-care back in. Self-care is important to reduce your stress, replenish your resources and enable you to deliver high-quality education to your students or staff; and care and empathy to those around you.