Scientists have spent countless hours perfecting the accurate measurement of time. Atomic clocks maintain a continuous and stable time scale. International Universal Time and Coordinated Universal Time synchronize the passing of day and night on astronomical observations and enable us to maintain an accurate measurement of time. Why is it then that we as humans feel the passing of time at different rates-sometimes fast and sometimes slow?
Remember when you were a child and waiting for your birthday or other special event? Time seemed to drag on for eternity. Sitting on the porch waiting for your father to come home from work, waiting for that first phone call from that special boy or his arrival to pick you up for your first real date were situations where time stretched out in front of you on a seemingly endless highway. The slow traffic light when you are late for an appointment and the fast changing light when you need a couple of seconds to look for that address or adjust a child's seat belt are examples of a specific event that is perceived at different rates of time by a single person.
As we grow older we all seem to find there is less time in a day. How many times have you wished time would stop for an hour to let you catch up? When our children are born, the older generation tells us to enjoy every minute of the child growing up and we are thinking that 18 years is a very long time and no way will it pass quickly. The next time you blink your child is crossing the stage and graduating from high school. "Where did the time go?" we ask ourselves but never receive an adequate answer. From the perception of time passing quickly to getting the phone call from an elderly parent who finds the day dragging on endlessly in front of him or her-we all perceive the passage of time at our own rate and that rate changes from day to day and situation to situation.
Time management is an essential skill for a nurse. An unorganized nurse is a disaster for any team. Medications, treatments, surgeries, and therapy are just a few items that must be coordinated with people and schedules. There are times when we are so preoccupied with timing a patient's orders that we forget about the patient. A patient in pain waiting for the nurse or the young child waiting to go into surgery may feel time is dragging where the nurse is busy and feels there is not enough time to get orders completed let alone have a personal relationship with the patient. To be effective we must find a balance. We need to be efficient in our use of time so there is enough left over to provide our patients with the time they need. Think of the patient in pain waiting for the next dose of pain medication and how his or her time is dragging while yours is zipping by. The elderly patient without a family to visit him waiting for someone to talk to for even a short period of time and the nurse who is unable to provide that few minutes of social contact because her day is spinning out of control.
I recently experienced the other side of the coin while my mother was ill and spent a week in intensive care unit. Standing by her bedside time seemed to stand still as we waited for her to respond to sound, touch, or even pain. This was a very long week for my family. In contrast she is now recovering and reports that her week in the intensive care unit seemed like only a day. Two very different perceptions of the same event and yet both were the same precise duration of time.
The message for all of us is hopefully to be aware of both our patients' perception of time and our own. We need to find a balance so we as nurses can provide physical, emotional, and social care for our patients while maintaining an appropriate schedule. Setting our own internal clock to find this balance is a key requirement. Take a moment each day to assess the day, the time requirements and constraints to be able to prioritize. Providing excellent care for our patients while taking care of ourselves and our families should be our number one goal. Nurses are multitask-oriented and with a little thought and effort can accomplish and maintain this goal.
What is a thousand years? Time is short for one who thinks, endless for one who yearns. - -Alain