Today was pretty busy and back to back work, its funny how you just get your head down and sometimes lose all track of time. I have a tendency to do this without always pacing myself. Being a “completer finisher” this is a part of my nature. It means that I am not 100% happy unless I complete a task. This does not always fit well with my job, because we could do it 24/7 and still have lots to do. At the moment our work has probably increased by at least 5 times as a rough guess. Being of the mindset that you simply must finish what you are doing, is not helpful to yourself or others but it is equally hard to step away at times, for fear of letting someone down that you are there to help. I managed to fit in another session of my management training, which was about constructive conversations and as its participatory it is helpful in taking your mind off the day job. The group were all involved in saying how we approach difficult conversations particularly regarding managing other people. I had quite a lot of past experience to add to this session which seemed to be well received by our lead educator on the session.

I managed a fifteen minute break in a 10 hour shift today, as I lost track of time and didn’t realise that it was lunch time and had to fit it in between work and the training. What has made me smile today is the amount of half drunk cups of tea that I managed to accumulate on my desk piled up like the local bar. I am a lightweight with drinking at the best of times, with the distant memories of many late night session at teenage discos with Pernod and black and the aftermath of having too much planted firmly in my mind! I honestly have not drunk a full cup of tea today and as every nurse knows that is really not good fluid balance. So here I am with another cup of tea, endeavouring to actually finish it this time. One thing I do know is that you cannot run on empty and I must change this from tomorrow!