How do I keep track of different tasks with various loose ends?

September 6, 2022 12:33 PM

I am five months into a new job. I'm coming from the ER and now I'm a school nurse. In the ER I didn't need to keep track of things from one day to the next. At any moment I had a short list of tasks that was constantly evolving. I could keep it all in my head. In the school I have TONS of tiny tasks in various categories and I don't have a good system for keeping it all together.

For example - four kids take meds at school. All need med admin permission slips signed at sent back. All need a label from pharmacy. All are at different steps in this process.
Several new students have allergies. Some prescribed epi pens. I need epi pens from home for all.
Some students have epi pens with no allergies listed. Need to talk to families about this.
Some students are seen by dental program at school. Need to keep track of who is seen and when.
Flu clinic. Need to make permission slips and distribute, then keep track of where kids are at in the process.

This is the opposite of the ER where all day I kept a SHORT running list of things I NEEDED TO DO prioritized by how likely someone was to do die if I didn't accomplish that task RIGHT NOW.

All of these tasks are small but there are SO MANY OF THEM and there are 450 kids. I haven't yet figured out how to organize all of the things I do from one day to the next, and the worst is when I forget I've done something and then I repeat it. My current situation is a bunch of tiny slips of paper that I cross off and throw away when done but I'd like to keep better track of all of this. Is this what bullet journaling is for?

posted by pintapicasso to Work & Money (15 answers total)

I’m coming at this from a software development perspective, but this is basically what task boards like Jira or Trello are used for. You can create a task, add a detailed description, and give it a status (e.g. “to do” or “in progress” or “done”). You can edit the task description to reflect progress as the task progresses, and there are various ways of viewing all pending tasks to see what needs to be done next.

If you’re looking for a paper-based solution, you could essentially replicate this setup using post-it notes on a whiteboard. Move a post-it from one column to another to update its status, and write additional details as needed when the situation changes.
posted by mekily at 12:44 PM on September 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

This might be a job for a personal-kanban system such as Trello (doesn't need to be Trello, but that's what I know).

The idea with these is that you have a "board" that represents some broad category of tasks, "lists" on the board that represent stages of completion (eg "to do/doing/done", although I'm on one board that has dozens of stages), and "cards" that represent specific tasks (in your case, it would probably be one card per student). You move a card from one list to the next as you move it toward completion. Not every card needs to pass through every list, and some people use these systems in very different ways.

With Trello at least, you can put a lot of information on the individual cards, including images, long-form text, comments, checklists, and due dates. For example, you can leave a comment that you tried to complete stage X, but are waiting on permission from person Y.
posted by adamrice at 12:48 PM on September 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: ClickUp is pretty cool personal/project management software. It does the obvious stuff like letting you add items to a to-do list on a one-time or repeating basis. BUT--and this is the part that might help in this case--it also lets you automate processes as to-do items. You can set it up so that when you add a kid under the Prescriptions section, for instance, it will create a to-do item with a due date of two days for "Send permission slip." Once you click done on that, you can have it create a to-do item for "Check-in with kid about permission slip." Once you complete that, you can have it create a task with a due date of 24 hours later to file slip. You can set up so that completing that prompts you to create a recurring task to administer the meds. Or however you like it.

Being able to autogenerate to-do items for a multi-step process is pretty great.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:48 PM on September 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: A giant three ring binder would work for this, yes. But how do you feel about digital tracking and would that be allowed? For example, Excel can work for lists of students where there is like 4 things each kids needs and you can check each step off in the spreadsheet as it is completed. If you need it on paper, you can print it out. I think you should try a few different ways, like use Excel for the med slips but a notebook for the epipen stuff and see which works better.

The other thing you can do is break this into projects. Epipen managment is one project. Inventory, allergy tracking, refills are all subtasks under that project. It can all be under one tab inside the binder, or if it is huge, get it's own binder. Meds are another project and this one might be big enough so each kid needs their own tab. Sheet protectors and a three hole punch mean you can add full pieces of paper and smaller things to the binder easily. If you are going digital, you still have projects but you can organize them with folders and/or Excel tabs. Or if you use OneNote, there are Notebooks and Pages to do that.
posted by soelo at 12:48 PM on September 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

I think this answer will differ for everyone, but for me the biggest differentiator as to the right tool / process is whether or not you want to keep track of all of the steps of all of the processes, or whether you can determine the next step of the process from the event that happens and just don't want to let anything fall in the cracks.

Using your first example - do you have the "kids take meds at school" process memorized in your head or clearly written down? If so, is what you're looking for is a way to remember what step each kid is at in the process as well as which of them are waiting on you to do something vs someone else to do something (like bring in a permission slip)?

If it's more of that I use a pretty simple to do site. What I especially like about it is that things automatically flow to tomorrow if I haven't done them today, and I can have a section at the bottom for things like lists. My workflow is to put the current step of a multistep process I need to do on the day I plan to do it. When I do it, I either change it to the next step and move it to a future day, or more likely just note it as "FO: task" on a future day, indicating that by that day someone else should have completed the next step and it's back in my court. If not I should follow up. There are a lot more capabilities, but I keep it simple - I know that if I think of something at any point I can just put it on "today", and unless I mark it as done it'll be on "today" whenever I come back to the app. So sometimes at the end of the day I just dump all the things from a paper list on 'today' and then organize them when I get home.

For a list, I might say "Shop at home depot" or in your case "check on med kids" and then in the bottom, undated section there's a list of kids, or things to buy. I've also come up with a few other types of shorthand for specific people I need to talk to, things I want to take care of first thing in the morning etc.

This is not how I handle my more complex, involved processes. But for a million little things where just remembering the little thing is 90% of the work, it's been great.
posted by true at 12:54 PM on September 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Trello is my tool of choice for this, for two reasons:

1. It allows you to drag items back and forth very easily between 'ball is in my court' and 'ball is in their court'. This is really helpful when you have lots of back-and-forth with other parties.

2. It has an 'aging' function where it will visually highlight things that have been sitting for a certain amount of time, so that you know, for instance, to ping a particular family again.

I myself went from working in an emergency medicine setting to an administrative setting and the organization required is a HUGE adjustment. It may take several tries to find the system that works for you, that's OK. Think of it like learning a new clinical skillset and/or tool - it's totally normal that it will take some dedicated time, practice, and reflection before you really get proficient at organizing this type of workflow.
posted by Ausamor at 12:55 PM on September 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

How are you on email and calendaring?

I have a LOT of recurring/ongoing tasks and I use the snooze function in gmail plus my calendar - since my tasks are all relatively one-step, Trello seems to cause more work than it solves.

As long as school data security is sufficient that you can use email, you can also send yourself emails.

Today I get an email which says: "Get widget sign-off from CFO". I email the CFO and put the email to sleep until Thursday, which is when I estimate I should either have gotten the signature or need to remind the CFO. The email pops back up on Thursday morning and I either file it (if I've gotten the signature and finished the thing) or remind the CFO.

I have a monthly Widgeteers Licensing report which needs to be run after the 5th of the month, so I put it on my calendar as an all-day event for the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th because I assume that I will get to it one of those days.

I know that I need to check on the status of the Widget Vendor Project next Tuesday, so I send myself an email that says "widget vendors' project" and either schedule it to send on Tuesday or send it and snooze it.

Basically, I have made my email into a reminder-generator.

Also, I keep all my emails threaded - this helps a LOT and I should have done it years ago.
posted by Frowner at 12:56 PM on September 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

One thing to keep in mind, as someone who has done various project manager-y tasks in health care, is making sure you’re keeping your data safe. Since you’re both dealing with health information and in a school setting with minors, I can imagine there are some data security and privacy rules and regulations that govern what you can store where beyond even HIPAA. You probably need to check with your IT person or leadership before signing up for any online services that you’d want to store student info on, or just use whatever software you already have access to (probably Excel) if you go with a digital solution. This will also probably make it easier to pass your system on to whoever has the job after you!
posted by MadamM at 12:57 PM on September 6, 2022 [12 favorites]

Before my maternity leave I was a "year level coordinator" - basically we'd be in charge of the pastoral and educational needs of a cohort of students. I'd liaise with people like the school counsellor and school nurse in this role..

This is totally what I used a journal for- my system was that I'd make a page for the day with key tasks I needed to do that day. Little box that I'd fill in once complete. I'd also use this book for information capture: start a new page and take notes. It was basically my external brain.

My brain likes mind maps too- so to keep track of not just today's tasks (my daily page) I'd make a mind nap- so if I were you I'd have "epi pens" as a node on the map and the student names from there. Or I'd have a medication node with each student, and each step as a sub node of each student. The mind nap helps me group like tasks and get an overview of what I need to do.

Another key part of my system was how I'd collaborate with other staff - our school has a big database where we can record notes against students- especially when we make contact home. "Called Reginald (father) regarding Billy's EpiPen. Reginald explained they picked up the pens from the pharmacy yesterday and will send in the school pen with Billy tomorrow. Action: Nurse will see Billy tomorrow." That way there's a record of what you did and if Billy arrives with his pen to the office, someone can check his file and figure out what needs to happen.

For BIG lists of kids that needed action, we would use Google sheets (school approved) to be able to collaborate, but excel was used too.

Finally, I know you know this with HIPAA but be mindful of only using school approved electronic tools to record student information.
posted by freethefeet at 12:59 PM on September 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

This is the kind of thing where I'd love to sit down with you & figure this out together. By any chance do you have a friend who is an executive or admin assistant? Because that's what you need a crash course in.
posted by bleep at 1:29 PM on September 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

Given someone else's excellent point about security, what tools do you have available to you? If it's Microsoft Office you can set tasks with reminders within Outlook (I think) or Microsoft Todo .
posted by TimHare at 2:10 PM on September 6, 2022

Best answer: Whatever you do, you need to start from a student list in that someone else generates. There is no way you are going to have the time to sit down and manually transcribe 450 students into your own personal spreadsheet. I'm sure the school has some sort of CSV file or other file type they are using when they need to distribute lists, you need that.

This is how I would tackle it (I'm a social worker, so not the same thing but I have experience managing impossibly large caseloads without enough resources and too many tiny moving parts). I am most familiar with excel so that's probably what I would end up using if able. My main spreadsheet would be every student and all the programs I am involved in that may require follow-up. This essentially would be columns with program names (flu, dental, epipen, etc) with little X or checkmarks for every program. This is so that at any time that I am contacting a student I make sure to follow up on all the things, instead of having to make multiple calls which ends up tripling the work when it gets to prep, documentation and staying on task. Once this list is done, you can sort it and copy and paste the student names into smaller lists for each program.

Then I would have workbook tabs for each program, breaking out student names, requests made, paperwork received and any other dates or documentation needed or that need to be generated.

This way you can look and if something is blank it means it hasn't gotten done. Also, really helpful if someone asks why so-and-so doesn't have the thing they think is easily obtained and yet after 5 contact attempts, multiple promises and hours worth of your time you still don't have it. Then you can pull out the spreadsheet list with the dates and such and show whoever is asking. (You made need something with escalating requests, such as telephone call attempt 1, 2, 3, letter with student, mailed letter) whatever your specific requirements might be.

Student changes programs, check the box, add them to the list. Student removes from a program, delete the row, uncheck box on main list.

If you are feeling fancy, or think it would be beneficial there are things you can do in excel to make cells change color if something is out of parameters (say, you need authorization for medication every three months), so it turns yellow with 30 days to go and red when it is past due. Formatting this in excel isn't exactly the best use of time when there is so much to do, but it is useful when tracking all sorts of documents with different due dates, expirations, and requirements.

Good luck!
posted by AlexiaSky at 5:26 PM on September 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

With 450 students and the types of information you describe, I suggest spreadsheet - especially if you can import the student info from elsewhere.

You could represent different tasks in different possible ways - for most of what you describe there is only one task per student. So, I would have e.g columns for allergies, EpiPen, flu shot, whatever else. You can then use the filtering feature to find the tasks that need doing.
posted by lookoutbelow at 8:26 PM on September 6, 2022

Depending on HIPAA rules and if you have Microsoft Office, I've found OneNote to be similar to a bunch of little papers everywhere, but better. The tabs and pages make it super easy to organize, and it's searchable! You can add tags to create ToDo lists as well.

If you're more pen and paper, try out bullet journaling. That never stuck for me.

I also like using a disc-bound planner with different sections, I like being able to move the pages around as needed.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 5:24 AM on September 7, 2022

Is there any sort of existing system that your school uses for managing student records and tracking things like mandatory vaccinations, field trip permissions, correspondence with parents, authorized pick-ups, etc etc that you can build off of? My experience is with HR and marketing platforms but most modernish people-managing services usually have ways to add workflows and automate reminders and reports (whether it's cost effective is another story, but you won't know if you don't ask). The added benefit is also then you don't have to be the one worrying about HIPAA/privacy issues.
posted by yeahlikethat at 6:13 AM on September 7, 2022 [2 favorites]