Stop doing ALL THE THINGS. How to refocus your time as an Orientation and Mobility Specialist.

We were sitting outside of the longest mall in America, eating our gelato after walking what felt like the entire 2 mile mall to find a good gelato place.

My best friend, a fellow TVI/ O&M Specialist reminded me “You can’t pour from an empty cup”.

“I know”, I said, looking down at my empty cup, knowing that wasn’t what she meant.

“There is so much to do”, I hear (from myself) often.

As O&M Specialists, we often pour from nearly-empty cups. We want to help our students, help their teachers, help our administrators, help family members, and everybody in between. We end up taking on so much that the tasks that actually help our students become more independent seem to get buried beneath the tasks that don’t.

Although we have HIPPA requirements to be the only people with access to much of the information, what we don’t have to do is EVERYTHING, ALL THE TIME. Though that’s what we end up doing.

Mostly, I think it comes from not knowing how to manage our time wisely.

When I first became a business owner, this realization hit me like a ton of bricks. As I was learning about time management and using automated systems, I saw where I had been focusing my time erroneously.

I had been taking notes on a pad of paper, then transferring it to my computer, then converting the notes in to data. I was taking scattered notes here and there, not having a good system that I could take everywhere with me.

And most of all, I was too afraid to ask others for help. That lead me to doing all of the map making, AMD building, and teaching basic skills (that could be role-released) to myself.

Once I started creating systems in my own O&M work, I was able to free up some time and focus my attention where it mattered- on my students.

How Orientation and Mobility Specialists can refocus their time:

Write down a list of all of the tasks that you do during the day/week/year.

While I was on vacation last week, I wrote down all of the things I do as an O&M Specialist. The list was VAST.

Teaching.

Completing assessments.

Consulting with teachers.

Training the nurses.

Data collection.

Submitting invoices.

Recording mileage.

Training parents.

The list goes on.

2. Next to each task, categorize it in to either:

Keep (things you HAVE to do that directly impact your students’ learning). These are tasks such as teaching, consulting with teachers, and attending IEP meetings.
Delete (things that you took on, but you don’t have to do). These are tasks such as attending field trips, attending meetings that aren’t required, creating meetings that could have been an email, and extraneous tasks that you are doing that don’t directly further the independence of your students.
Automate (things that you are doing in a sloppy way, that you could streamline). These might be things such as taking data on paper and then transferring it to digital, or using inefficient systems. Where are you doing extra work that a computer system could do the work for you? What tasks are you doing in an inefficient way because you haven’t set up a system to help you?
Delegate (things you could ask someone else to do, skills that you can role-release to other team members). These tasks might be more difficult, given that we are all pressed for time and you do have to follow FERPA laws. You may be able to ask someone to help you with map making or Braille transcription.

3. Make time to set up an automation. Using Google Forms can help you keep track of your students’ data so you can submit your invoices and medicaid billing faster. Check out this video where I show you an automated system that I use for my invoices.

4. Make time to role-release or delegate the tasks that you categorized as such.

Doing this will help you keep your head above water next year.