It is Monday night, which is basically the end of my long weekend. The first two days of my weekend were straight up writing documentation or other time sensitive stuff. I did that right into the night, not moving very much, till my wife came into the living room which was pitch black because I hadn't gotten up from my seat on the couch from when it was light out. I'm doing a lot of work. There is a lot of work to do. It's feeling a bit excessive. I'm super into my work as a counselor, and so I at least for now have the energy for it via my enthusiasm, but I think it's a bit much to be sustainable.
and here I am, almost 9, and there are just so so many more things on my list I wanted to get done this weekend. As always, I wish for more time.
I'm thinking about filtering. I think I often do more than is necessary, because I don't have a good filter that lets me discard unimportant things. I just take whatever is in front of me, and do it as though it's important, trying to do a good job on it. There are many times when it would be better to go "eh, I think that's good enough." And leave it at that, or even "you know what, this is taking too long, it's not worth the time." Or even, "I think this isn't worth doing at all, for now."
Deciding, or figuring out, which things are the ones that should get filtered out, quickly and without a lot of energy expended, is a weak point for me, and so I'm putting some attention on it, because I would like to get better at it. Spending 4 hours per set of intake paperwork is excessive. Even one hour per normal paperwork per client, seems excessive, and absolutely unsustainable, when I have a normal client load.
Some of this is made more difficult though, because there is so much that I am still learning. I remember reading somewhere, one of the things experienced therapists do better than newbies, is filter out the important stuff that gets said in session, from the unimportant. The new therapists think everything is equally important, and so are overwhelmed and often the important stuff gets missed, because they can't pick it out from the rest. I certainly feel that way about what I'm writing in the after-session paperwork. But also with all the little things I have to keep track of. It's like learning to drive: at first, there is way too much to keep track of at once. Eventually, most of it becomes automatic. Until then, it feels pretty nerve wracking and you're always cutting people off in traffic because you didn't check your mirror or put on your turn signal because you were just trying to stay in your lane.
It seems like a skill wholly or mostly separate from doing counseling. I would still want to take notes even if nothing was required for insurance, but they would be a lot different, and take a lot less time. Perhaps there is some use in the structured format they are in. But the amount of time I'm putting in, is more than the use I'm getting out of it. Still working to find the balance of that.
Gotta go now. still need to do dishes before I go to bed. Still very enthusiastic and positive about my internship, but also feeling a bit overwhelmed. Probably a normal feeling.
OK, that's all for this week. Hooray for not falling behind on this.
Oh, P.S. the filtering fish reference in the intro is just a CBT story for kids I heard. That filter was about only seeing negative stuff (or not, and seeing the positive as well) but just the idea of filtering stuck with me, though my filtering is of a totally different nature.
