I, too, appreciate you doing this. We may have discovered the secret on our own, but we have had guidance, and accountability. I look forward to the next step. I have been fairly good about not getting sidetracked mid report. I do have one doc I am AWFUL about keeping the pedal down on, so I'll be working on that tonight while I do his tape.

Thanks, RedPen.

Oh, and as for the look of death, I have also noticed it is effective to point out that interruptions make it take me longer to finish. And thus, people have to wait longer for what they want. No clue why I didn't point that out sooner!

Okay, here is a typical hour for me:

0800 Begin working.
0803 Dogs position themselves in room for morning nap.
0805 Dogs argue about who gets to sit closest to my feet.
0806 Begin transcribing.
0820 Stretch.
0822 Proof report.
0826 Send report.
0827 Sip coffee/water/diet Coke.
0828 Download another file.
0829 Begin transcribing for beautifully clear-voiced Dr. Smith (on a good day).
0838 Proof report.
0840 Send report.
0841 Feel Bobbi Beans (youngest pug)head on my foot pedal, using as a pillow.
0843 After moving her head, I download next report and furiously work as fast as I can to get in more lines in this next hour.
0858 Proof report (quickly).
0900 Check line count.
0901 Download new report, commit to a zillion lines this next hour taking no break.

All right, this is kind of how I work, except that sometimes I poke around researching things for too long. OR I have to go potty! Now today I tried something new--going outside every 2 hours and watering the lawn. This did wake me up (I didn't sleep well last night).

Kelli

I just wanted to pop in here and say I received a tip from RedPen somewhere on another post a couple weeks ago - at least, I don't think it was on this post, too.

It was the tip about not typing along with the doc but listening ahead. I have been doing this, and I can't believe how much better it has been going for me as far as not having to constantly change what is being said, especially on a couple docs I have that are fairly consistent in doing this. Not only is it frustrating to have to keep hitting that backspace key, it is a huge time waster.

I have also quit coming to the Word Board as much. I always clock out when I do this, so it doesn't affect my lph, but it sure affects how long my day is. I love going to the Word Board and trying to help out, but it is just going to have to wait until I am done for the day. I just changed my schedule to 4 hours a day, and I found that I was working 7 hours just to get the 4 hours in because I 'thought' I had so much extra time to fool around. The time to fool around is when I am DONE for the day! It certainly helps burnout and thinking that I am 'working' such long hours every day!

Oh, I have increased my lph to just under 200 lph since implementing these 2 things. It can only go up from here.

Meri

Meri,

When you say "listen ahead," do you mean listen in your mind, trying to figure out what the dr. is going to say? Like, focusing more on the contextual meaning of what is going on versus just the exact text you're hearing? I don't know if my question make sense, but I want to know more about this tip. It sounds like you are "working smart." I like that!

Kelli

It seems that I made the first step on my own before finding this post. I took a good look at my time eaters about 2 to 3 weeks ago and have been trying to eliminate them. I still have my coffee habit, but working on it. I also used to listen to the 22 seconds of useless mechanical voice with every file as it does not tell me anything that I don't already know from the information that comes in with the job. I save an average of 15 to 20 minutes a day depending on the number of reports that I do (yes, I used a calculator and everything to figure that out). Another thing that shaves seconds is to learn the keyboard shortcuts. I am still working on those by adding 2 new ones every week. I have not been taking breaks every hour, but that will be my next goal. Oh yes, I also stopped eating at the keyboard because I used to do that when I was proofing the report. I even treated the keyboard to a thorough cleaning, took the keys off and everything. Talk about gross!!!! I have been practicing the 5-word proofread, and it cut my day by 2 to 3 hours. For those of you having trouble with it, it takes some getting used to and practice. I had to slow down most of my dictations to begin with so that I could train myself and I still saved myself time. I can now do most of the dictators at regular speed with no problems. I have also been concentrating on not making mistakes to begin with so I don't have to go back and fix them. It seemed to me that everything I was trying was counter productive, but from the first day the opposite was true.

Alas, I got ahead of where we are in this thread. I just wanted to say that by eliminating my time eaters I increased my production by 100 to 200 lines a day. I am so glad that I found this thread. I felt like I was all alone out there, but here we are confessing our time eaters and realizing that we are not all that alone after all. I am anxiously awaiting the next assignment.

Kelli, this is from a post of Redpen's on 11-22-04:

Quote:

---

An MT who learns under the conditions I mentioned (the hard way) learns to listen before they type. They learn to listen ahead for entire sentences, until they're certain the dictator is not going to change his mind, and they thus hear the meaning rather than just a word at a time, so that they transcribe entire sentences instead of parrot-typing individual words. That enables them to understand what they are hearing much more easily. Having no auto-backspace forces the student to learn to listen ahead, rather than listening for one or two words at a time.

They listen so far ahead that they are able to type it accurately ONE time and never touch it again. The typewriter and the ten carbon sets help with this, because it's very difficult to make changes. The difficulty of making changes forces you to think before you type and be SURE that what you are typing is correct. It virtually eliminates the tendency to think that typos are ok because we can fix them.

When you do not have to make even a single correction, you do not waste any time making corrections. When you listen far enough ahead without re-listening over and over because of a long auto-backspace, you do not waste any time listening twice--you listen once and that's it.

---

She is SUCH a wealth of information. I'm thankful to have read so much of this information before actually becoming an MT so that I didn't have to unlearn bad habits.

As a side note, I used to be so embarrassed that I didn't learn to drive a car until I took Driver's Ed. The instructor said, "For those of you who already know how to drive, we will be helping you to unlearn bad habits. For those who don't know how to drive, you will be learning the correct way from the start." Naturally, when my behind-the-wheel portion came, I was in the car with 2 girls who had been driving illegally to school for over a year. When I got in the front seat, the instructor said, "Let's go!" I said, "I don't know how to start the car." I'm sure I don't need to tell you the reaction from the back seat. I was SO embarrassed, but now I realize the wisdom in his words and how important it is to learn good habits from the beginning. If I find myself becoming the least bit distracted, I can "hear" Redpen's words in my head and immediately put them to use. By the same token, when I find myself in search of an odd-sounding word, only to find out that a second later, the dictator rephrases the sentence, spells the word, or corrects himself, I am once again reminded of Redpen's advice to listen ahead. The only thing I really have to make a conscious effort to do is take breaks. I have the opposite problem from people who can't stay in the chair -- I don't seem to want to leave it.

Anyway, I think Redpen's post will answer your question.

Thanks for posting that, Sally!

Meri

Sally,

Thank you SO much! That is a great tool, and I intend to begin practicing right away! I enjoyed your example of learning to drive, also. Sometimes I do not want to get out of the chair, either. It's as if I become compulsive or something. Not sure what that is all about! Well, maybe part of it is a natural trait of newer MTs?

Kelli

I seem to be getting stuck at between 200 and 215 lph, which is much better than the 140 to 150 lph I was doing. I had a string of long reports (hence fewer demographic hassels and such) a few days ago and did 268 lph, but that was quite out of the ordinary. I have gotten to LIKE being more productive and am starting to feel like I may actually make a good living at this eventually. I have eliminated most everything I can think of, so I am still keeping my lists and eagerly awaiting the next "hint" from Redpen that will help my line count.

I started working on listening ahead today, but there was not much work available because it is the last weekend of the month and all of the people who normally do not work on Sunday jumped online to get extra lines and took the lines I usually have on Sunday. I did get to test it out on a dictator who changes his mind often, and it definitely seemed worth pursuing.

I also had a conversation with my husband about interruptions while I am working. He tends to have the idea that since I am an IC that I can just get up and go, and to be totally honest I have let him think that. I told him that I wanted to make more money and he wanted me to be "at work" less, and that the only way we could both get what we want is if he can hold the interruptions to life-threatening or confusion over our daughter's medications. (Her medications change so much that it really does take both of us to keep her reflux managed and her eating.) I tried to present it as a win-win situation, so hopefully this will help. If not, the Look of Death will handle the lapses in judgment.

I have been thinking that more than a few of my productivity killers had to do with guilt over working in the first place. My husband is gone for 14 days at a time, so it is just me and the baby, and when he gets home I feel guilty about working those 2 weeks and trying to catch up on sleep so I can handle the next 2 weeks. The breaking point for me is realizing that I HAVE to get more rest, and the only way I am going to do that is by geting 6 hours of work done in 6 hours instead of wasting so much time online and daydreaming. I have made myself a note that says, "Are you wasting time you could use to sleep?" Laugh it up, but it helps.

Hi all,

Just had to jump in with all of you on this, because I found it 2 days ago and read all the suggestions, and decided to try to increase my productivity too. I average a pretty low 700 +/- line count for about 5 hours of work. Not great, and I'm never going to make much money the way I've been going. So, today I decided to try the 5 word proofreading, and guess what? I increased my line count by almost 300 lines for the same time frame! Now all I have to do is work on the interuptions (line counts, emails, phone calls, pets) and I should be reeling in the money!

Thank you, Redpen, for offering this advice to all of us hardworking, but poor MTs. The phrase 'work smarter, not harder' comes to mind with your hints, and I am very eager to learn more of them so I can help support my family!