DIY Reference Binder: Your Other Brain (RN)

00:01 I would like to introduce you to my DIY reference binder.

00:06 An alphabetized place to put all of your thoughts and frequently accessed information that you can carry with you on the outside, so it's not cluttering up your brain.

00:14 And you can literally use it for all aspects of life, not just nursing.

00:18 So why do you need this? Because one day you will be sitting in a room, you'll be staring at IV tubing, right? Thinking, "Wait, how...

00:26 How long is this actually good for again?" And so you will go, and you will ask someone and they'll be, like, "72 hours" and you will immediately forget that, right? Because your brain is trying to keep track of, like, eight million other numbers.

00:38 But with something like a reference binder here, you can literally just put this information in here and have it readily available whenever you need it.

00:47 With this reference binder, you can quickly jot down that information of "Change IV tubing. That's, like, with typical drips for every 72 hours." You can put it down as soon as you learn it so that you can quickly access it again, until you've accessed it so many times that it goes and finds a spot in your long term memory.

01:04 So you'd look it up, you'd find out it's this many hours, whatever your hospital policy is, and then under the "I" tab for IV tubing or whatever you want to categorize it as, put "IV tubing changed every 72 hours for routine fluids".

01:17 And you can use this for medications, procedures, common treatments to expect based on the diagnosis that your patient has, what the med room door code is...

01:28 Literally anything.

01:30 This lovely little friend reduces the number of times that you have to re-ask questions.

01:36 So that the next time that you need to know something, you can look it up on your own and not have to spend time going back to look at it again or to ask someone.

01:45 And this is so, so helpful for starting to boost your own confidence because when you feel like you can do something on your own somewhat autonomously...

01:55 Absolutely, like, if you still have questions or you just want to verify and double-check the information is right, you should do that.

02:01 But being able to start doing things by yourself is a huge step in feeling, like, you actually can do this.

02:08 Because, remember, you can do this, you can do the hard things.

02:12 You're doing great.

02:13 In terms of actually acquiring an A to Z notebook, you can make your own like I did. I just bought a random notebook at Target and then bought tabs and then wrote the alphabet on them and like slapped it together.

02:27 Or you could actually buy an alphabetized notebook or do it digitally with something like Goodnotes or any of those app taking things, whatever works the best for you.

02:38 This, I promise you, completely changed my practice as a nurse and an NP and I hope it does the exact same for you.