I took the time this week to interview my incredibly inspiring and determined friend Krista Alles to get an idea of how she juggles her time between being a CRNA at Tallahassee Memorial, keeping up with all her classes and leaving time out of her day to do things she loves and improve her mental health.
When asked the best way to manage her time and keep track of assignments while working, Krista shared that she keeps several planners on her phone and at her desk with all her due dates, and this helps her know when she needs to do things so she doesn’t miss an assignment or forget to study for an exam. An application she recommends is your Outlook calendar, which is available for all FSU students and can be viewed from your phone or your desktop, and to turn your notifications on so you can get reminders for when upcoming assignments are due!
I also asked Krista what she likes to do in her free time when she isn’t preoccupied with classwork or working at the hospital, to which she responded that she’s a “social creature” and always makes time to hang out with her friends. Whether it be going out to eat or just relaxing at her apartment, she loves having people she loves around her, and she says it helps her “recharge her batteries.” Some things that Krista enjoys doing in her free time to “help [her] mood and focus” are yoga and weightlifting.
Krista mentioned to me how she often “bites off more than [she] can chew, which is a bad habit of [hers],” and comments that she keeps herself grounded with her workload by journaling. Krista noted, “When I journal in the morning, the first thing I do is write down the one thing that absolutely needs to get done today;” although, of course, there are more things that also need to be done during the day. To calm down from stress, Krista recommends taking a break from whatever task you’re doing when you feel overwhelmed and calling a friend or even a family member to distract yourself for a minute and go back into it with a fresh mind, maybe listening to music that you love. Something she said that really stuck out to me and I think everyone needs to hear is that sometimes you just need to “take a break from whatever you’re doing and realize that the challenges you’re facing will only make you stronger. There’s something to learn from them and there’s room for growth, so when the next challenge comes, you’re ready to tackle it. You say, ‘okay, I’ve been through a lot, I can get through this;’ so you have to put things into perspective.”
The final question I asked Krista was “At the hospital during COVID-19, was there ever a point where you felt like giving up? Or was there a point where you felt really grateful and like you wanted to be in that profession forever?” She responded, “Towards the start of the pandemic, seeing the caseloads and experiencing it in person made me really anxious, but there was this one point where the Chaplain of the floor came up to me and asked me how I was feeling. He was doing a mental health check-in, essentially, and seeing how I was doing, and thanking me for all my hard work. That moment just filled me with so much peace because it felt good being recognized for something that was so hard for me…I felt so rewarded, and I felt like I wanted to do this forever. I do want to work in healthcare, but what I was doing was so purposeful and felt like a mission.”
Not only did Krista’s experience at the hospital show her a glimpse of her future, but it also showed her that taking care of yourself is important, and managing your time and workload is essential to maintaining your mental health and living a happy life.
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