Increasing Productivity Week 1

Introduction

Hello and Welcome to my first Blog post for ExecuScribe Inc.

My name is Gina Edmond and I have been a home-based medical transcriptionist for ExecuScribe, Inc for the past 3 years. When I first interviewed for this position, in doing my research about ExecuScribe, Inc, I read an article on-line titled, “The Well-Balanced Life: The Turnaround-How a life plan charted the course of one company and its owner” by Donna Fenn in the February 2004 edition of Inc.com. I discovered something that I have never forgotten. When Linda Yaniszewski first started in this industry she was running a very successful business, but it was interesting to note, while she was enjoying great success in the business; personally, other areas of her life were sacrificed. What has stuck with me was that Linda took a very bold move and closed this business while it was successful, reflected upon what worked and what did not and then restructured the company leading to the development of ExecuScribe, Inc. Today, ExecuScribe, Inc is a leading edge provider in its industry and I feel very grateful to be a part of a company that was founded by someone of Linda’s integrity.

Now, you might think it is a big leap in comparing starting over a business to taking a course in improving productivity, but I don’t think so. While I am a home-based employee, I make an effort to run my day as if my job was my own business. In that respect, I am in the process of rebuilding an area that is vital in my career as a successful medical transcriptionist—productivity. The reality of being a medical transcriptionist is that one’s salary and benefit eligibility are directly connected to how much is produced. I am successful in many areas of my career in terms of knowledge and accuracy, but, productivity is where I falter. My struggle with productivity can occur hourly, daily or weekly or some days all of the above and it is the most frustrating aspect of my job. However, I love what I do and remained hopeful there would be a solution out there to help me turn this around.

Facing this issue, I had two options, stay frustrated, throw in the towel and move on to something different or be willing to do whatever it takes to improve my productivity and make this issue a thing of the past. I have been stumbling across the phrase “dream, struggle, victory” quite often lately and find it applicable here; my dream is to be a successful and productive member in the ExecuScribe, Inc workforce; I am struggling with consistent productivity; I now have available a course on improving productivity and I feel very confident I am close to victory!

They say timing is everything, so when an e-mail was sent out recently regarding a course on increasing productivity, I was glad to be in the right place at the right time, and that brings us to where we are today.

I would like to invite you over the next 5 weeks to join me on my journey towards increasing my productivity. The goals of this blog will be to inform you about my experience with the course content and design, as well as sharing any “ah-ha” moments, specific comments or productivity boosters that will allow me (and hopefully you also!) to move forward and attain increased productivity as well as updates on my actual productivity increases.

In closing, I would like to share a quote by one of my favorite motivational speakers, Mr. Jim Rohn, “Don’t just let your business or your job make something for you, let it make something of you.”

I am excited to be on this journey and look forward to sharing more with you next week!

February 11, 2010: Notes from Webinar:

The first class of Increasing Productivity Through Technology is complete!This was my first experience taking an on-line course and was very pleasantly surprised.There were about 80 participants in total and the overall response was very positive from those who commented. It was also surprising to our instructor, Laura Bryan, MT (ASCP), CMT, AHDI-F, that most of us are still transcribing on a Windows XP platform. Ms. Bryan was very thorough in her explanations and often utilized screen shots from Windows XP and Vista along with video tutorials utilizing Windows 7 to further exemplify the screen shots. Questions were taken during the course, which was extremely helpful. Technical questions were addressed right away as well.All in all, I felt very supported in my virtual classroom and the hour and a half flew by!

Our first lesson focused on Taskbar, Shortcuts and the Start Menu. There was some basic information covered regarding all three (location, accessibility) to definitely some new tips and techniques learned, especially in regards to the Start Menu. The area from this lesson that is definitely going to be a timesaver is learning how to customize your Start Menu. I was unaware that this could be customized to contain all of the programs, files and folders that you utilize throughout the day. It was exciting to see time can be saved from the minute you “Start” your day. I am definitely going to work with this feature this week and post my results on the changes I made as well as time saved.

The “hot tip” that was shared in class: When renaming a shortcut F2 is the Universal Key to do this!

Time to get busy and put the lessons in week 1 into action and looking forward to a more productive week!

See you next Friday with my next update!