Organisational skills and tools

Abstract

While this article mainly applies to practitioners who have responsibilities for leading teams or supervising practitioners, many of the skills and tools described here may also apply to students or junior practitioners. The purpose of this article is to highlight some of the main points about organisation, some of the organisational skills and tools that are available, and some examples of how these skills and tools can be used to make practitioners more effective at organising their workload. It is important to realise that organising work and doing work are two completely different things and shouldn't be mixed up. For example, it would be very difficult to start organising work in the middle of a busy operating list: the organisation of the work must come before the work starts and therefore preparation is often an important first step in organising work. As such, some of the tools and skills described in this article may need to be used hours or even days prior to the actual work taking place.