Skip to main content

Smart-Phone Helps With Activities Director Job

In the retirement community where I work, and probably in yours, there is a "no personal cell phone during work" policy. Lately, of course, I see more and more fellow managers carrying their phones around and bringing them to meetings.

For me, as the Activities Director, I have found a few uses of my smart-phone that has helped me do my job better. Here is a quick list.

  1. Set a reminder so you will remember the weekly video(s) or other task that you need to set-up.
  2. Use the timer on the phone to go off when the video is over so you can be there as people leave and shut it off  (Great way to get their opinions about the show.)
  3. Use the timer to go off when you need to stop what you are doing (ie. working in your office) and go to the next task (ie. go to a meeting)
  4. Take photos of residents while they are with you on outings to promote your programs in the future. How cool would it be to have a file on your computer for outing pictures, so the next time you go to that location, you can use the pictures you took preciously to promote it. 
  5. While riding on the bus with the residents, I keep my eyes open for other outing options. Once I see something that looks interesting, I make a note of it on my phone, in the notes section. Sometimes I even will e-mail myself the idea right from the bus.
  6. Confirm that the bus driver has the proper directions to our outing by using the maps.
  7. And of course, staying in touch with the bus driver while on outings and being able to communicate to the contact person at the outing locations while in route.
  8. Email yourself when you think about something you need to take care of when you get back into the office. (This usually hits me when I am driving home and I recall what I forgot to do. And yes, I take care of the reminder at a red light!)
  9. And if you have free wi-fi in your community or unlimited data on your phone, you might want to listen to music that makes you happy at work. I plug my phone into my computer to keep it charged and then take the speaker plug from the back of the computer and plug it into my phone. It makes me happy and more likely to sit in the office and work. Try it
I'd love to hear if there are other ways that you use your phone to make your job as Activities Director more efficient! Please leave your ideas in the comment box below.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

3 Styles of Scavenger Hunts

Boy is it hot outside! If you are like me you may still be looking for indoor activities that are fun for your residents to do. This activity that I will share with you can be done for different levels of care in your retirement community. I encourage you to share it with the other activity professionals that work in those other areas within your own community. The activity is the Scavenge Hunt. This can be done in three different ways and I will describe them below: 1)       The Stay Seated Scavenger Hunt v   Ask audience to bring in items they think will be asked for. Encourage them to fill their purses, pockets, bags, etc. and bring it to the event v   Make a list of items that they could bring with them v   Include items that would be funny, that might have a story to go with them, or that people would be surprised someone would actually have. (Green Stamps anyone?) v   See the list I used v   Cut the list into pieces and place them into a basket v   Ask

Super Bowl Party for Seniors

It is almost here! The 46th Super Bowl game will be held on Sunday, February 5 in Indinapolis. Each year, residents in my retirement community want to have a viewing party for the big game. I believe that it is a fun program to make an activity out of, but not something that I must do every year. Mostly, I don't have this each year because there are not to many ways to change it up, so I don't want to have it become boring. (This is where your ideas would be great to hear!!) This year, we are going to have a party and I'd like to share with you the plans for the evening. Residents are now signing up for the program which is set to start at 6:00 p.m.  This time is perfect in my community because we still serve dinner at noon on Sundays and the residents usually like to attend for the food, if for no other reason. (I do charge them a fee for the food.) We will have the game showing on our big screen tv in the auditorium and tables and chairs set up for the residents to eat

4 Pictures 1 Word Game for the Big Screen

Many of you who have played 4 Pictures 1 Word , know that this brain game is available as an app for your computer, tablet or phone for free. That is great, bu it does not allow a team to play and is not audience friendly if you wanted to present it at your retirement community (or other social gathering).  After some time and effort, I made a 4 Pictures and 1 Word game  slide show that you can use in your community. I did use the app for suggestions and the Internet for the pictures. I am glad to share this with you so that you will not have to spend the hours that I did in creating this game. If you get the urge to make one also, please come back to this blog page and share it.  I played this last week with a group of about 25 independent living residents.We did not get through all of the slides due to time constraints..... but I was glad I did not run out of slides in my hour that I had their attention. I will be playing this with them again... and would love to have other