Clinical Skills Confidence: Leave Work At Work

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Welcome to the first Clinical Skills Confidence post of 2015! If you’re unfamiliar with these posts, it is a non-scheduled series where I talk about something related to the clinical side of being an SLP. To see other posts, click at the top of my page on “Series” and then click “Clinical Skills Confidence!”

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Today I’m writing about the concept of “leaving work AT work.” Cue dramatic music. This school year, I’m really trying my best to do just that. It’s hard. It also doesn’t happen every day. But I think I’ve done pretty good with it so far. Why do I want to do this? Because I think it’s healthy to have that “work-life balance.” Obviously, I do my blog writing and material making at home, so I am thinking about work at various points while I’m at home, but I’m talking about the seemingly endless paperwork and ever-lengthening to-do lists that you can drown in sometimes.

This is what I’ve implemented to abide by my “leave work at work” mantra:

1. Do Medicaid billing/logging at the end of every day: You might be saying, “what?!” but I’ve found that this works for me. I don’t let it pile up. I try not to leave work without having the day’s sessions logged for. This way, I can come in fresh the next day.

2. Report writing: This is one area I have the most trouble with. I share a room with other people and sometimes it’s too distracting for me to write reports. If they are piling up, I will bring my computer home one night and try to get all the reports done that day. Otherwise, I’ve taken to wearing headphones and drowning out extraneous noise with ocean waves.

3. Plan by the month: This does take some time at the end of each month (see more details here), but this has helped me decrease what I have to do at home.

4. Go in earlier: I don’t have children at home, so I’m able to go in a bit earlier and this gives me some extra time to accomplish things earlier in the day.

5. Relaxation music: Since going to back to school, I’ve tried hard to come home, drop my bags, lay on my bed, and listen to 2 minute relaxation music clips. I downloaded some free podcasts to my phone. I don’t get to it every day, but I really think it’s helping me decompress from the day!

What do you do to “leave work at work?”

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