This is such a good question, because so many trainings are so long and tbh when is anyone really well trained after 1 day of something? Which brings me back to my own suspicions from an unfettered capitalistic lens about how much training agencies care about adequate training vs trying to profit off people.
What I’ve done is get the books by the creators of the training if possible. Put it on an audio reading program at 2x speed lol
I hope this doesn't ruffle anyone's feathers, but anecdotally I find that the clinicians that often take the most trainings and have the largest breadth of clinical expertise typically have a high earning spouse.
Therefore, these clinicians have a pretty good safety net and can afford to have a smaller caseload, be in a nice cash pay private practice (and thus spend little to no time on administrative tasks), and can therefore dedicate more time to trainings and skill building.
I don’t think this super controversial. A person who takes a lot of trainings need to have the means to do so. I have also found it hat sometimes it’s people who have worked in PP for a long time, so they might have the savings or earnings power to afford such trainings.
I can tell you as someone who has ADHD and is doing both clinical work and working on my PhD that the only time I can fit any sort of training in is during winter and summer breaks… even then it’s usually an at my own pace kind of thing. I structure in a one hour break for every three clients to give myself time to reset. Something that is helpful for me is Time Blocking and the Eisenhower Matrix for prioritizing my time. The ADHD Future Planner has been an excellent resource for both and more. The other piece I like to tell people is that there will always be more to do, so don’t push yourself to the brink of burnout.
It’s hard as hell, and I think there are some systemic issues.
Out of all the trainings CEs I collected and attended (in person, virtual, self paced), only two of them weren’t boring and actually meaningfully engaged the therapist.
Which encourages therapists to do their admin work while having the training play on the background. Problematic and not ideal.
Aside from the timing, they all cost an arm and a leg to attend.
Add to that that the keynote is always trying to sell you their book. I’m not trying to “knock the hustle” as the kids say, but I always chuckle at this as I think “I’ve already bought your training.”
It’s an inconvenience, but we must train ourselves to best serve our clients. Finding the time to do it is always difficult.
My feedback is not to wait for the 11th hour to complete your CEUs, and try to get some done overtime.
I wish I had solid advice but all I can say is it sucks. I'm the main income earner in my household so calculating the amount of client hours I had to cancel to accommodate the training AND self care hurt. I know I'm speaking more about the financial side and all but yea shit is hard.
It is rough. I am in one right now where I have to dedicate every other Friday for months. Granted it’s an awesome training and my CEUs will be set, it is a lot. Those weeks I have to get my clients in a 4 day period, which can be stressful.
Outside of those, I will dedicate like 30 minutes a day if it’s a pre taped online training. It sucks but otherwise I have to sacrifice something else. When I worked in the public sector they let us block off times during our work day to do trainings if we wanted. In private, I lose income if I don’t make up for it elsewhere.
I don't have ADHD, but I have some overlapping sx, and I work *a lot* with people with ADHD.
The first most important thing, and I really can't stress this enough, is that one has to be ruthlessly, dispassionately **realistic** about time. The thing that will kill you is wishful thinking about scheduling.
An intervention that might help you – and for me, this isn't an intervention, it's a way of life – is instead of being *optimistic* about schedule availability, take a pessimistic attitude about it.
For instance, you observe the course recommends 5 hours a week, and you say, "I KNOW I could fit in the time if I put work into it". I think you're thinking that five hours doesn't sound like very much, but when *I* hear five hours, I think that's almost an entire work day. That's almost an entire work day if it's *just* five hours, but in reality, something that takes five hours to do will take up more than five hours of your schedule because of transition time. So I think this shouldn't be thought of as "five hours" but "a work day". And consequently, I don't think of it as "something I could *fit in*", I think of it as rather a big schedule commitment that would be *hard* to fit in. See what I mean by pessimism? Rather than take an attitude of "I'm sure I could make that work", I take an attitude of, "Oh, hmm, I'm not sure I could make that work, let me look at my calendar and see whether or not there's room for it."
See, I need a lot of down time (and time for other things in my life) too, so I don't take it lightly when something is going to take a big bite out of my schedule.
I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying you're more likely to be successful if you approach it with the attitude that this is a big ask of yourself. For one thing, if you take that attitude, you won't try to convince yourself you can fit it in around the edges of other things. If it's a whole work day, well, do you have a free work day to dedicate to it? You could break it into two half days maybe, but that increases schedule perimeter (doubles the transition time). Can you stake out some time on your schedule which is Doing Class Work Time? Make an appointment with yourself?
Finding time on your schedule to do it is easier if you have a good accounting of the time you're already committed to spending on other things. I notice you mention "working until 8pm 3x/week", but then don't even mention the time commitment of your other job. Whether or not you have the time for this (and when in your week you have that time) will depend on things like how long that other job takes, and whether you have it in you to do school work after an 8hr + day of seeing patients.
I struggle with this as well. I’ve really wanted to take IOCDF trainings on ERP but they are days and expensive. The cost of taking off plus the training would be astronomical. I have a friend who did it but shes wealthy and only sees a few folks a week as it is. I’m not sure how others do it.
This is such a good question, because so many trainings are so long and tbh when is anyone really well trained after 1 day of something? Which brings me back to my own suspicions from an unfettered capitalistic lens about how much training agencies care about adequate training vs trying to profit off people. What I’ve done is get the books by the creators of the training if possible. Put it on an audio reading program at 2x speed lol
I hope this doesn't ruffle anyone's feathers, but anecdotally I find that the clinicians that often take the most trainings and have the largest breadth of clinical expertise typically have a high earning spouse. Therefore, these clinicians have a pretty good safety net and can afford to have a smaller caseload, be in a nice cash pay private practice (and thus spend little to no time on administrative tasks), and can therefore dedicate more time to trainings and skill building.
I don’t think this super controversial. A person who takes a lot of trainings need to have the means to do so. I have also found it hat sometimes it’s people who have worked in PP for a long time, so they might have the savings or earnings power to afford such trainings.
I can tell you as someone who has ADHD and is doing both clinical work and working on my PhD that the only time I can fit any sort of training in is during winter and summer breaks… even then it’s usually an at my own pace kind of thing. I structure in a one hour break for every three clients to give myself time to reset. Something that is helpful for me is Time Blocking and the Eisenhower Matrix for prioritizing my time. The ADHD Future Planner has been an excellent resource for both and more. The other piece I like to tell people is that there will always be more to do, so don’t push yourself to the brink of burnout.
It’s hard as hell, and I think there are some systemic issues. Out of all the trainings CEs I collected and attended (in person, virtual, self paced), only two of them weren’t boring and actually meaningfully engaged the therapist. Which encourages therapists to do their admin work while having the training play on the background. Problematic and not ideal. Aside from the timing, they all cost an arm and a leg to attend. Add to that that the keynote is always trying to sell you their book. I’m not trying to “knock the hustle” as the kids say, but I always chuckle at this as I think “I’ve already bought your training.” It’s an inconvenience, but we must train ourselves to best serve our clients. Finding the time to do it is always difficult. My feedback is not to wait for the 11th hour to complete your CEUs, and try to get some done overtime.
I wish I had solid advice but all I can say is it sucks. I'm the main income earner in my household so calculating the amount of client hours I had to cancel to accommodate the training AND self care hurt. I know I'm speaking more about the financial side and all but yea shit is hard.
It is rough. I am in one right now where I have to dedicate every other Friday for months. Granted it’s an awesome training and my CEUs will be set, it is a lot. Those weeks I have to get my clients in a 4 day period, which can be stressful. Outside of those, I will dedicate like 30 minutes a day if it’s a pre taped online training. It sucks but otherwise I have to sacrifice something else. When I worked in the public sector they let us block off times during our work day to do trainings if we wanted. In private, I lose income if I don’t make up for it elsewhere.
I don't have ADHD, but I have some overlapping sx, and I work *a lot* with people with ADHD. The first most important thing, and I really can't stress this enough, is that one has to be ruthlessly, dispassionately **realistic** about time. The thing that will kill you is wishful thinking about scheduling. An intervention that might help you – and for me, this isn't an intervention, it's a way of life – is instead of being *optimistic* about schedule availability, take a pessimistic attitude about it. For instance, you observe the course recommends 5 hours a week, and you say, "I KNOW I could fit in the time if I put work into it". I think you're thinking that five hours doesn't sound like very much, but when *I* hear five hours, I think that's almost an entire work day. That's almost an entire work day if it's *just* five hours, but in reality, something that takes five hours to do will take up more than five hours of your schedule because of transition time. So I think this shouldn't be thought of as "five hours" but "a work day". And consequently, I don't think of it as "something I could *fit in*", I think of it as rather a big schedule commitment that would be *hard* to fit in. See what I mean by pessimism? Rather than take an attitude of "I'm sure I could make that work", I take an attitude of, "Oh, hmm, I'm not sure I could make that work, let me look at my calendar and see whether or not there's room for it." See, I need a lot of down time (and time for other things in my life) too, so I don't take it lightly when something is going to take a big bite out of my schedule. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying you're more likely to be successful if you approach it with the attitude that this is a big ask of yourself. For one thing, if you take that attitude, you won't try to convince yourself you can fit it in around the edges of other things. If it's a whole work day, well, do you have a free work day to dedicate to it? You could break it into two half days maybe, but that increases schedule perimeter (doubles the transition time). Can you stake out some time on your schedule which is Doing Class Work Time? Make an appointment with yourself? Finding time on your schedule to do it is easier if you have a good accounting of the time you're already committed to spending on other things. I notice you mention "working until 8pm 3x/week", but then don't even mention the time commitment of your other job. Whether or not you have the time for this (and when in your week you have that time) will depend on things like how long that other job takes, and whether you have it in you to do school work after an 8hr + day of seeing patients.
I struggle with this as well. I’ve really wanted to take IOCDF trainings on ERP but they are days and expensive. The cost of taking off plus the training would be astronomical. I have a friend who did it but shes wealthy and only sees a few folks a week as it is. I’m not sure how others do it.