If you are a medical transcriptionist who takes pride in delivering quality work, you should definitely be proud of that. But is your quality compromising on the deadlines? Quality loses its meaning if your medical records are not delivered in time. High productivity and high quality need to go hand-in-hand in the medical transcriptionist’s life.

Discipline is the key to timely delivery of records. In today’s post, we bring to you three practical tips that will help you improve your productivity.

Start using shortcuts. The computer and the word processor offer several shortcuts for you to play with. You may not realize this but using shortcuts help make your work complete faster than when you are not using them. Remember, every minute is valuable when you are chasing the stringent deadline.

Make use of the abbreviation-expander. You will save a few seconds for each medical abbreviation, thus saving you a considerable amount of time at the end of day. Moreover, the application saves you from losing focus every time you come across an abbreviation. Without the expander, you would have to search for the expansion of acronyms, spoiling the flow of your work.

Customize the word processor. Microsoft Word has a feature called Autocorrect which corrects/expands an input automatically when it is typed with a slight change of spelling or when its short form is typed. This helps you type faster. If you don’t use MS Word, you may find a similar feature in your word processor and if you don’t, create some macros.

If you have any other such practical tip, do share it with us.

Competition challenges us and keeps us striving for more. This is something that the home-based transcriptionist misses. Isolation may be good for work, but not always. You may not realize how good or bad you are in terms of productivity when you don’t have anyone else to compare yourself with. The home has plenty of distractions that make us lose focus, causing our productivity to go downhill.

The medical transcriptionist cannot compromise with his/her productivity even if his/her work quality is high. He/she has to deal with stringent deadlines missing which can cost him/her the career. Let me share with you some simple tips to increase productivity that can help anyone who works from home.

• Know when to say ‘no’. You should know when your plate is full. Don’t take more work for more income or to impress your client.
• Keep away from things that distract. Don’t log on to Facebook or Orkut or ‘Tweet’ your thoughts during work.
• Take logical breaks during work. Take a walk in the house on completion of a logical set of tasks, or open the fridge and bite into last night’s brownie, or simply stretch yourself.
• Plan your day and stick to the plan. Make a realistic plan, accommodating your meals, breaks etc.
• Don’t watch television or surf the net during your meal-breaks. The breaks can get prolonged if your attention is elsewhere. Eat meals with family instead.
• Plan a reward or a treat for you on completion of your day’s task. If you take longer than you had planned for, you don’t get the treat.

Your productivity depends on how committed you are to making your life better. If you want to have time for yourself at the end of everyday, increase your productivity!