OTS 169: Daily Notes: What to Write & How to Save Time
- Jayson Davies
- Feb 10
- 33 min read
Updated: Jun 17
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Welcome to the show notes for Episode 169 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
Do you ever feel like daily notes are just another task on your never-ending to-do list? In this episode, we’re diving into the world of note writing in school-based OT with Jason Gonzalez, OTR/L, co-founder of Double Time Docs. We’ll unpack the purpose of documentation, discuss strategies to make it more efficient and explore how technology can simplify your workflow. Whether you're a seasoned OT or new to school-based practice, this conversation will help you streamline your notes and spend more time doing what you love—helping students thrive!
Listen now to learn the following objectives:
Learners will identify the essential components of effective school-based OT documentation and its role in student progress.
Learners will understand common challenges in note writing and how to streamline documentation without sacrificing quality.
Learners will apply strategies for efficient documentation, including using digital tools like Double Time Docs to track progress and inform interventions.
Guests Bio
Jason Gonzalez, OTR/L graduated from The Ohio State University in 2001 and has worked in pediatrics ever since. He specializes in evaluations and documentation with experience across multiple school districts nationwide. In 2017, he co-founded Double Time Docs, a platform designed to streamline occupational therapy evaluations.
Most recently, he launched a new note-taking software to help school-based OTs simplify daily documentation and track student progress more efficiently.
Quotes
“It's considered best stand, best practice if you keep daily notes on your sessions, and to keep track of data, see how the kids are progressing or regressing, see what you need to change for the next, upcoming IEPs or how to take that data and do your progress reports, which is are required. Pretty much every school district I've worked in requires at least a progress note. Most of them require daily notes.”
-Jason Gonzalez, OTR/L
“Graphs really speak well to parents and others on the IEP team. So if you've got a graph that shows goal number 1, writing out the student's name, or whether it's, attending to a specific task for five minutes… all of that can be put onto a graph, and it speaks a lot.”
-Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L
When you have high caseloads, it's hard to memorize everybody's goals. It's hard to carry around, like, 15 binders, especially if you go to different schools…So, it's a good way to keep track instead of trying to memorize everything.
-Jason Gonzalez, OTR/L
Resources
👉Double Time Docs Website: DoubleTimeDocs.com
This is where listeners can go to learn more about Double Time Docs and their services for evaluations and daily session notes.
Jason's Email for Double Time Docs: jason@doubletimedocs.com
Jason Gonzalez provided his email for any questions related to Double Time Docs.
Discount Code for Double Time Docs: OTSH20
This code grants users 20% off their first charge at Double Time Docs.
Episode Transcript
Expand to view the full episode transcript.
Jayson Davies
Hey, OTPs, welcome to episode 169, of the OT school house podcast today. We're talking about daily notes. You know, those short notes that you are always on top of and never behind on right? Yeah, Me, neither. It's always hard to keep on track with daily notes when a, you aren't sure exactly what to write in them. B, no one gives you a deadline to actually complete them or C, you have no idea who, if anyone actually is going to read them. We all know that we have to get them done eventually, but they always feel like unnecessary busy work, so we put them off until the end of the day, maybe till the end of the week, and then, of course, to Saturday night while watching Netflix. Shout out to night agent my recent watch. But that should not be the norm. Daily notes should not be this difficult. That's why today we're diving deep into the heart of this pressing issue with someone who despises daily notes so much that he decided to find a more efficient way to get them done before the end of the day. Jason Gonzalez is an independent ot contractor with schools and the co founder of double time docs. Way back in episode 14, Jason joined us to talk evaluation writing and how to make that more efficient. So it's only fitting that he is returning today to share the secrets behind efficient and effective note writing, ensuring that your documentation process is set up to keep your weekends free from daily notes. So buckle up and get ready, because we're about to turn the dread of documentation into a structured, manageable and even empowering part of your ot practice. Let's dive in.
Amazing Narrator
Hello and welcome to the OT school house podcast, your source for school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and professional development. Now to get the conversation started, here is your host, Jason Davies class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
Jason, welcome back to the OT school house podcast. It's been a minute since you were on, I believe it was episode 14 that you came on and talked about evaluations. But today we are here to talk about note writing. How you doing today?
Jason Gonzalez
Not bad. How about yourself? Thanks for having me again.
Jayson Davies
Of course. Always great to have you. For everyone listening, Jayson and I text, like, every three months, I'll just get a random text from him, like, Hey, what's up with the Lakers? Or hey, let's start a new podcast, or something like that. And yeah, so we talked, so this is gonna be a fun episode. Him and I are pretty familiar with one another, but I never give you a second, just in person. We have never met in person. Are you going to Philadelphia? Possibly, all right, we will all see Jason in Philadelphia.
Jason Gonzalez
Yeah I'll see you. So yes, I will be in Philadelphia.
Jayson Davies
All right, we we heard it from him on this podcast. We can hold him accountable now. Jason Gonzalez will be in Philadelphia for a OTA. I will be in Philadelphia for a OTA as well. But Jayson, share with everyone a little bit about yourself. How do you fit into the world of school based occupational therapy?
Jason Gonzalez
Well, I graduated in 2001 from The Ohio State University go Bucha, I guess, and then pretty much started from there, went straight into pediatrics at a after a short stint in Psych in Chicago, but I've been in schools in hundreds of school districts, from like New York to Hawaii to San Diego to San Francisco to Jersey to Massachusetts. So I've been all over the place and worked in lots of school districts. So.
Jayson Davies
I didn't realize it was that many. It is hundreds and exaggeration?
Jason Gonzalez
Exaggeration. It's only been three, no, I'm just joking. It's been like, probably 30 or 40. I also just evaluation. So I in in New Jersey. I do I I've been in like, almost, uh, no, 20 school districts just in New Jersey, just doing evaluations. So I'm independent contractor.
Jayson Davies
Okay, as an independent contractor, meaning that, do you contract yourself with a third party that contracts you into the schools, or are you contracting yourself directly with the schools?
Jason Gonzalez
third party. Sooner or later, I would like to do that. Skip the middle man. Hopefully my companies don't hear me say that, but it would, yeah, that would be my next step. Hopefully, then I can kind of wean myself out and hire somebody. But anyway, that's a whole different conversation, I guess.
Jayson Davies
Yeah,yeah. In fact, we have an entire podcast about that, actually, a few episodes ago, not too long ago, so I'll to follow that one to you. But anyways, today's episode is all about note writing, and you are one of the founders of double time docs, and you recently incorporated note writing into double time docs, I believe. So that's kind of why we got you on here to talk a little bit about the why, the how, the purpose of note writing, and we'll talk. A little bit about how you've ingrained that into double time docs, but let's talk about note writing. You ready? I'm ready. All right, let's do it. So I guess the first question is, what is the purpose of note writing in school based ot from your perspective, why do we write notes? And feel free to go any which way with that.
Jason Gonzalez
Well, I mean, I guess it's considered best practice is to keep daily notes on your sessions and to, you know, keep track of data, see how the kids are progressing or regressing, see what you need to change for the next upcoming IEPs, or how to take that data and do your progress reports, which is are required. Pretty much every school district I've worked in requires at least a progress note. Most of them require daily notes. Nobody really collected them, nor did I actually really read anybody else's daily notes. But it's good for your own self, especially if you're addressing daily notes, to address goals, because goals can be like, like, kind of like, kind of, some of the children can be like, left, fall through the cracks, and then when you go to a meeting, you're like, oh, shoot, I was supposed to be working on shoe tying for three months. So it's, you know, it's good to keep track. I mean, when you have high case loads, it's hard to memorize everybody's goals. It's hard to carry around like, 15 binders, especially if you go to different schools, and it's just like, flipping through pages and stuff like that, and being like, Oh, this kid has eight objectives and three goals or something. So it's just, you know, a good way to keep track, instead of trying to memorize everything.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and as you mentioned, you've been to a lot of different states. You've practiced in a lot of different states, a lot of different districts. Have you seen any difference as you've gone from, I mean, all the way from New Jersey to Hawaii and anywhere in between. Has there been a difference? Has anyone given you instruction on to write a note, or has it always just kind of been the way you write a note, is the way you write a note?
Jason Gonzalez
I would say the latter. It's kind of like, you know, it I started back in 2001 so the mentorship actually really wasn't there. We didn't really have all the resources online. So it was like looking through paper files and seeing, like, what did other people do? We're getting, like, their files from from the previous therapist, and looking and seeing what they did. So it's almost kind of like the blinding the blind and and whatever I say, even with the evaluations, is like, I feel bad for the people who had me when I first started, because I was terrible at both daily notes writing evals, terrible therapists. But, you know, we all kind of start there at some point. You got to start somewhere, and then, as you you know, travel along, talk to other therapists, people. And you know, I'm glad that the mentorship I feel like has improved since 2001 you know, a lot more. Even the travel companies I've worked for, they do provide a lot more people available to answer questions, help you guide through. Because my first job, I had the physical therapist tell me what to do, yeah, and the principal, I actually had no idea what I who I was, or what an occupational therapist was, so, so hidden island at the same time, which is good.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. I mean, I still think that some OTs still feel that exact same way, right? 20 years later, 25 years later, we're still feeling pretty similar to that. Some of us, I think it has gotten a lot better in a lot of places, though, you mentioned, kind of like the blind, leading the blind, right, learning from the the past, person who probably learned from the person before then that learned kind of from the person before them. A lot has changed in the 13 years now that I've been in in OT and you've been in for almost double that, and wow, when you first started real bad, sorry, sorry, Jason had to do it. You still look young. You still look great, Jason, just so, you know. But lighting, yeah, you know, things have changed, right? A lot of stuff has gone digital now for me, when I first started, and tell me if this sounds similar, I think the first time that I was doing session notes. We had a calendar for each month that just had a 31 boxes on it, and we ticked off the day that we saw that student, or maybe we put the number of minutes in that little, tiny box, 30 minutes, or something like that. And then we had another paper that had like five boxes on it, one for each day of the week, or one for each session, for five sessions, and we would just write a little narrative in there. There might have been a few check boxes there as well, like worked on fine motor, or whatever it was. Is that kind of where you started? Or what would you say it looked like?
Jason Gonzalez
Pretty much, very similar. And it's kind of hard, because I think sometimes some school districts have that Medicaid billing and stuff like that. So a lot of people use that as their daily note, which is, I guess, fine, is they do have those comment boxes so you can kind of write, but a lot, from my experience of doing the Medicaid billing was that they didn't actually show what goals you were working on. It was just more like the. General descriptives of like, checking off a fine motor self care or whatever. And I think it got a little bit more, you know, more had more specifics on it, but and a comment box and stuff. So it was just more like, yeah, for the Medicaid billing, and a lot of people use it for attendance. So from my experience in talking to a bunch of therapists, and I did a survey a long time ago, where I surveyed like 60 therapists or something, and they talked about how a lot of people use the Medicaid billing then they also write in their binders of like, what the session did. And then, if you're working for a contract company, you kind of have to do your daily logs for that. So you're kind of doing like three different documentation that kind of a piecemeal everything together, like your company wants to know you're at work and which kids they can bill for. Then Medicaid billing is like doing the same thing, but it's a different type of billing. And then your daily none of the other two billings or documentation actually address goals, and so you have to keep track of your data on goals, so you have another form of documentation. So it's like three things that aren't necessarily super time consuming, but if you have 50 100 kids on your caseload, like some CODAs do, then that's a lot of time you're spending.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It all adds up and and I hadn't thought about that like I know for me, my process was I had basically put every student's goals for that day onto a paper that I could easily print out. And so like the paper just said, you know, 830 Jason Gonzalez, and then it had Jason Gonzalez's goals listed out, and then nine o'clock, had the nine o'clock goals ran out, and I would print that out each morning so that I could keep track of goals on that paper. But then sometimes that data would get turned into my my note. But oftentimes it was just kind of a separate thing, and I would save that paper in case I ever needed to reference back to it. So like every day, I was printing out two pages of paper with goals on it and and I literally just kind of, I don't even know where I saved it, but yeah, I would keep those on file. I couldn't really save it in any one student's file because it had multiple students goals on and so I would have to transition it over to an individual data sheet for that student, but I would kind of keep it as reference at least until I did complete my notes. So yeah, I know we all do it a little bit differently, which is nice, because it's like you said, no one really talked about this before, and I think people are talking about it now. And so maybe we can kind of come up with a standardized way to do these notes to help everyone involved. Let's talk about your goal writing, or not your goal writing. Let's talk about kind of what you have come to today. Obviously, we all learn about writing SOAP Notes back in school, right? Talking about subjective, objective assessment and plan. Do you write a full on soap note? Do you just write to the goals? Do you write more or less? What do your notes look like today if you're seeing a student for a session?
Jason Gonzalez
Well, the last time I wrote a soap note was probably in college, but, I mean, I did write them in clinic based like when I was in a private clinic, I did write so there, but for school based, I would just write for the most part, like, just like the things that stuck out, like, you know, and then what I tell some people, or when we talk about daily notes and stuff like that, is like, who's the daily note for? Is it for? I mean, most likely the parents aren't reading it. It's usually kind of like for you, if you're transitioning the student to another therapist or something, and they're reading it. So I don't like, right? You know, I write the what the kid actually did, and it doesn't matter if he wrote, drew a picture of Batman or did a holiday card or something like that. I mean, I guess you can say that, but it like, you know, it would be like he wrote two sentences and needed verbal prompts or highlighted lines to, you know, adjust spacing or line orientation, or write that he was able to write 46 of the 52 letters of the alphabet when copying from Farsight or something like that. So mostly just the facts, and if he has a behavior that sticks out, then I would write, you know, Jayson had a full on tantrum when I took the squish and mellow from him when he was transitioning. And so, or I can write that Jayson transitioned great when he held the squishy mellow for five minutes before transitioning back to the classroom. So it was just like the thing, the strategies that worked, the strategies that didn't, or, you know, he was able to attend if your goal, it depends on what the goal is, too. So if he was able to, if you have an attention, you know, five minutes on a tabletop activity or something, then you know, I can make note that, you know, Jayson was able to complete, you know, writing activity and attended for seven minutes, uh, independently, or something. So just like, pretty much the facts and like.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, it sounds, it sounds like, to me, that you're basically keeping in mind what the goal is in writing to the goal. If there's something else that stands out. Of importance, throw that in there, but primarily writing to the goal.
Jason Gonzalez
Yeah. Or if I, you know, if we give the teacher, like a move and stick cushion, or, you know, consulted with the teacher, if this consult, consultation is not part of his IEP, then I can just write, you know, when I dropped Jayson off, I told him that I discussed with the teacher that he transitions well, if he has a squish and mellow squeeze or something for three minutes prior to going into math or something. But just like those notes that I did talk to the teacher at some point or I gave him this materials also to help me remember that I gave out like 15 pencil grips and they were all to one teacher, and I don't know why she keeps losing him. So.
Jayson Davies
All right, all right, Jason, I feel like, I feel like I know you well enough that I can say I think you basically just pointed out three of the four. So No, asked you do some of some subjective, you like, you know, yeah, stand out. You'll do some subjective. You're doing objective as far as, like, how many letters, or, you know, time spent on an activity, the assessment piece, maybe you're getting in there. I think the only one that we didn't touch on right there was, was the planning aspect, like planning about how you move forward and, and that's something that I didn't start doing until a little bit later in my career. In my career, because I found that it actually helped me with next week's session planning. But yeah, so it sounds like you're doing a shortened, modified version of an SOA, we'll call it notes.
Jason Gonzalez
Okay, all right, I'm much better than I thought I was, apparently three quarters better than I thought I was.
Jayson Davies
Yes, yeah. So, yeah. So, so you're kind of speaking to the goals, but when things stand out, you're also kind of putting those in there. And that sounds similar to what I've done, like I was mentioning, I have started to, kind of, or I did start a while ago, starting to, like, put that plan in there, because I did find that it could help me with session planning for following sessions, right? Like, I could always look back at my note and say, oh yeah. Last week, when I was in the moment with a student, I thought about next week's session, what I could do based upon what I was seeing. It was so much easier for me to look at that note and say, oh yeah. Last week, I wanted to, like, I literally told myself, let's play operation next week so we can work on some dexterity skills. Otherwise, you know, it's so hard to treatment plan when you're sitting there trying to treatment plan for for 30 kids, but when you're trying to treatment plan for one kid and you're thinking about that kid in the moment, it's a lot easier. So that's kind of why, why I was doing that. The other topic that you hit on was about the audience. Who is the audience for your note? And so I kind of want to go a little bit deeper into that, like, Who do you consider to be the various audiences? And if you want to, kind of, you can even kind of rank them from most important to maybe not least important, but at least likely to read your note.
Jason Gonzalez
Oh, okay. I mean, I guess I would be the most important, or the therapist. And then I think, you know, if you're transitioning, if a kid's going from, like, elementary school to middle school, like the upcoming therapist, or if you're changing schools, or whatever, the next therapist that's providing services, and then maybe the parents, because sometimes, I mean, I've had lots of parents ask for daily notes, or, like, communication logs, because, and then, instead of doing a whole communication log, and that's just another type of documentation, so sometimes I would just send them to daily notes, and then um administration, if necessary, um, which, for me, really happens. And I think we mentioned about like being asked to provide notes. I have never, in my 20 some odd years of practice, had been asked to provide notes. But, I mean, I guess that, because it doesn't really go anywhere else. Yeah, nobody else has really asked for it.
Jayson Davies
The only other one that I could think of would be like Medicaid, but, oh yeah, so sometimes that's separate for Yeah, it depends, right? Like, it depends if you're if it's combined or not. But even that is so rare. I think in my career, I've had maybe three parents, and I live in Southern California, which is known for being litigious. And I haven't always worked in a litigious district, but two of the three that I have worked in were and it was pretty rare for the advocate or the parent or the lawyer to ask to see our notes. It just didn't happen. When they did happen, it scared the crap out of me, especially the first time, right? But nothing really came of it. Like they asked for my notes, I gave it to them, nothing came of it. I'm sure there's someone listening out there right now who has gone through this, and something may have come through it. Come of it, right? If that's you, please reach out to me. I would love to, you know, talk about it, but yeah, like a lot of times, we are writing for ourselves, like you said, or maybe the OT I would often tell people, um. People coming into school based OT, other ot practitioners, like, right, as though you're an OT who just got this student, like, what you're talking about, right? The kid who's transitioning into middle school, they don't know the student coming to them, but they're probably going to review a few notes to kind of better understand that kid. So right, as though you know you're going to have to read these notes later without any concept of this child. But yeah, I think that basically, kind of is the hierarchy first and foremost. I think there really are for us. And then you kind of go down from there as to who they might potentially be for and be read by.
Jason Gonzalez
Yeah, and nobody writes Medicaid billing, you know? I mean, like, if people are writing their notes and Medicaid billing. I don't even know how you can actually give that to somebody else, but when they transition to school, I mean, I'm sure there's a way, if you go into the program, but I mean, most of those things are, you know, they're pretty big also.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I think it also depends, because I think some people are using their daily session, note, copy and pasting that into the Medicaid billing program. And I do know that one of the districts I worked at that was basically what we were asked to do, was to put them into Medicaid billing and then if a parent requested, the district could easily go onto the Medicaid billing platform and just hit print, and it would print out my notes that they could hand over to whoever they needed to hand over to. So.
Jason Gonzalez
but do all students get Medicaid billing? Do all students get Medicaid billing?
Jayson Davies
No, not all students do Medicaid billing, but things can be backdated, and so we would just bill for every single student the same way through Medicaid, whether or not they they receive Medicaid or not. And so we would basically just put 100% of our notes in there, even if only 50% of the kids had Medicaid, and we got reimbursed for Medicaid. So yeah, that's how it worked for us. All right, aside from notes, is there anything else that you're adding to this we talked about, like, obviously adding the date, but is there anything else that you're kind of adding, any other documentation, data that you're kind of adding to the note?
Jason Gonzalez
Well, I guess time, like 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 45 or whatever type of session, group, integrative individual, or if, like, student is absent, therapist is absent, it's just, yeah, keeping the track. Because I know, like, the current district I work in, you know, we've had a lot of overturned in therapists, so there's a lot of missed sessions. And so it's like, just keeping track of, you know, if there's any makeups to make up. And, yeah, you know, obviously, I mean, some school districts, you know, if students absent, you have to make it up. So it's just identifying all those things to get the right numbers, just in case it does become litigious or whatever. And then you need to keep track of all the minutes. And actually, I think on Facebook, I think you just tagged me on somebody about their administration is trying to keep track of minutes of and how they're doing that. So, yeah, so that would definitely be in my note is to you know, how much time he was there, or the student, what type of group it was, because, you know, if it's specified in the IEP that they're supposed to be seen in a group or an individual, sometimes they got a mixture of both, or a consultation. So just identifying what kind of service is done, name, obviously, but it's that's probably the most important things that I would include in The Daily Note.
Jayson Davies
Awesome, awesome. Now, since you have been, you know, a world traveler. OT, I guess, maybe not real, but us traveled. OT, every state's obviously different. Every district is different. So for an OT practitioner who's maybe starting at a brand new school, brand new district, or maybe they've been there for 10 years, and they just never searched this out, What should these ot practitioners kind of consider or where the where should they go to kind of learn what is required for their district, for note taking?
Jason Gonzalez
Oh, I would ask administration, but, I mean, half the time they don't even know, but so it's, you know, go with your state requirements for, I mean, if you Google, just like New Jersey, school based occupational therapy required to take daily notes. Pretty much every state says yes or whatever, but it's, you know, chat, G, P, T, I don't know if that's, uh, how accurate that is, but I mean, everything is like says best practice or standard practice is to take daily notes, whether or not you're in a clinic or school based. I mean, I guess I wouldn't see why you wouldn't. Other than that, it's time consuming, but you're making a record of what they're doing. You're making a record that you actually saw the person, because even you have teachers and other administrators, mean, like, Hey, you never came. So it's just like a paper trail of. You actually doing your job. And so you know you're kind of solidifying your position, and you know that you're actually doing your job and keeping track of, like, what people said, what you've given out, what strategies you tried. Because you know, if you get a new kid and you have no idea that they've been working on shoelace tying for 15 years, and you're like, oh, he doesn't tie shoes. I'm going to go work on this now. But nobody knows that he, he got exited from shoelace tying when he was in fifth grade, and now you can pick it up again in sixth grade. So it's, it's just, it kind of benefits everyone, including yourself, because, you know, it's more of a protection too.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. And right now we're actually working on something at the OT school house. We used to have a map that kind of guided people to the and we still technically have it, but it needs to be updated, and we're working on updating it is this map that guides people to their state school based ot guidelines. And as you mentioned, I kind of like, not every state has these guidelines, but that is definitely one place that I would look to for looking for any documentation guidelines. The other place, if you don't want to use chat GPT because you don't trust it, which I for this, I win it either. But just go to your state licensure website, and it should be in your licensure, like what is required, things like, can you evaluate a student without a doctor's order that would be in your license, your practice act for your state. Things like, what you need to document should be in your practice act for the state as well. So yeah, that's one place you can go. What's also nice about that, what I found is that you can use that to whether it's regarding documentation or otherwise, but as an OT, you have to uphold those practices. And so that is something that you can also show your administrators. Like, look, my you can go to your administrator and say, Look, my license, my body of governing, whatever requires me to do this documentation. Therefore, I need to do this documentation despite what you want, or say that could potentially help you in, like, showing them like part of your workload. They might not see documentation as part of your workload, but you can show them look. My licensure says I need to do this. And so you need to factor some time in for that, so.
Jason Gonzalez
and workload is such. I mean, you talk about workload a lot, or I do post about, I think a post about, right, I am, but it is. I mean, it's a big, it's a big difference, like, if you have 50 kids, I mean, sometimes daily notes only takes a minute and a half, two minutes. I mean, if you're doing on a program, it might take a little three minutes, because you have to click so many buttons to get to your student. But it's, it's, you know, three minutes. If you see a kid once a week, that's 50 kids, that's 150 minutes. It's, uh, it's almost three hours, two and a half hours that, you know, if you have 50 kids, how do you squeeze in 50, another 150 minutes of the daily documentation? So a lot of people do it at home, and, you know, not paid time off. A lot of people just don't do it, or wait until the end of the week when it's super busy, or wait until the end of the month, and then you have 450, minutes of of daily notes to do, and then you're like, I don't remember what Tommy did on Tuesday the third so I mean it, yeah, it's, it's, it's just, it's extra work, but it's a kind of a necessity to do it.
Jayson Davies
Sorry, Jason, Tuesday was actually the fifth of the month, so you are totally up on it. No, I'm just kidding.
Jason Gonzalez
I'm all out of whack. It's the daily documentation, so I can probably.
Jayson Davies
That's how it feels, right? Like that is literally how it feels when you're trying to document from two weeks ago, even if you have some shorthand notes that you took during the session and but you're trying to put together a cohesive, maybe not even cohesive, but at least, like, understandable note, doing it two weeks later. It's hard.
Jason Gonzalez
Yeah. Well, it's the same thing with evals. Like, if you know, I test two, sometimes three kids a day, and then if I don't write the report on Monday, and then I test two kids again, that's five reports. If I don't write the reports because I'm busy eating lunch or something, then I gotta go do it just adds up, and then it Wait, it's, it's in the even if you take notes like you said, it's still in the back of your mind of like, okay, I did this with that kid. I know I sometimes your notes are, you know, chicken scratch, and you'll be like, does that say left or right or something? It's just like it, regardless if you think you took good enough notes, it's, it's still somewhere in the back of your mind, until you actually put it somewhere where you don't actually have to think about it anymore.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right, well, I think we're coming kind of the close of this podcast episode, but there's two more things we want to do this. First one here is a rapid response. We haven't I don't think we've ever done this on the podcast, but I want your quickest take, like, 15 seconds on these. And I haven't shared these with you yet for everyone listening. So these are going to be the first time. Am. Most of them are ot related. Some of them aren't. But let's go into it rapid response, completing notes during a session or completing them after a session.
Jason Gonzalez
I say at the end of the the five minutes of a session. So while they're usually I reward a kid for doing like they can draw or pick like a little activity. Actually, from, I supervise a bunch of CODAs, and it appears like everybody does that, like, you know, you do your work, you can play this game. So while they're playing that game, I will do a note at that time, just because, until it doesn't build out in the long run.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that way you're not doing it while watching Netflix at 8pm um, how do you document, how do you document missed sessions?
Jason Gonzalez
Oh, I just, well, I have my own program, but it's, I just, you know, click soon and absent.
Jayson Davies
Okay, and then what do you do with that data? Do you do you show it to anyone? Does anyone ever ask for it?
Jason Gonzalez
Never. I mean, maybe I shouldn't say never, because then nobody will do it. But it's, I've never really been asked to show if it's students absent. I mean, that's easy to access from administer, like the attendance people, if they need proof that student was absent. I mean, sometimes I would write if students unavailable, like a student was at assembly or whatever. And then also, on those days, I don't know if this is what you're supposed to do, but I would go to the assembly with them. And then, you know, watch, you know, how they're tolerating the noise, if they're seeing still, like, just, you know, get different type of atmosphere, different type of note, because that might come up later in IEP meeting, be like, Hey, Johnny can't sit in assemblies. Like, oh, he never told me that, but if you go with him occasionally, you can see him in a different setting.
Jayson Davies
All right. Next one speech to text to write notes.
Jason Gonzalez
I never used it. It's my voice sounds funny. I don't pronounce things correctly, so it might just look funny to me. I type much faster. Yeah, it's, it's, I mean, I've used speech to text with other kids, and maybe it's better nowadays, but when using, like, Dragon or whatever, it's a lot of proofreading. And, you know, on a side note, my mom, who was fresh off the boat, well, actually, she's not. She moved in 72 but she's from the Philippines, and she had to trans. She's a doctor, so she had to transition in the last couple of years of her practicing to a speech to text and her accent threw everything off. And I know they learn and stuff like that, but she had such a hard time with it. But anyway, that's a side note.
Jayson Davies
All right, using, using AI for note writing.
Jason Gonzalez
I haven't used it because it's so brand new, but I don't know AI, I feel like you still have to take the note to give AI, to do something with it and like, it's and that's the same thing with evaluations. And I know I'm going to actually mentioned this before about AI. It's just like, you still have to know what the kid is doing to give AI that information for that to break the note. Like AI, I think would be great for progress reports. It can compile all the data you provided in your daily notes, and then they can, you know, take it up and mix it around, and then, you know, write a progress report on that. But for daily notes, like, if you're gonna write the information to give the AI, that's just one extra step for it to just write whatever you're gonna be writing for something that most people aren't gonna read. So even if it's shorthand, I would like to keep the notes simple, like, nine complete sentences wrote 46 letters of the alphabet or whatever, or couldn't write Q and W or whatever. But I don't need, like, it's not a writing contest, and the same thing I can write with the evals. Like, I just need the information out and have it be informative and pretty much concise, like nobody cares, like your grammar, especially for daily notes, your emails, reports, probably should have good grammar.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, I use shorthand all the time for my daily notes, right? Like Ho, H, if for whatever reason, you're doing hand over hand, or you could do h, u, H, if you're doing hand under hand, or something like that. So yeah, watercolor painting.
Jason Gonzalez
Nice transition. Watercolor Painting. Just picked it up. And then I was my wife wanted to do a watercolor painting, pay somebody $300 to do water cooler painting of my dog. And I was like, You know what? I can do that. And so I watched some videos of her, and I did it, and it did not look as good as hers. So pay that $300 No, I'm just joking. It's just different style. I couldn't get the realistic hair. But. I can. I'll send you that picture. Oh, actually, I think I already did. I'll send you the progression, but.
Jayson Davies
I will say this, it looked like a dog. It did look like a dog. That's good. You have a dog, right? I do. It didn't look like my dog, but it looked like a dog.
Jason Gonzalez
All right. Well, I send me a picture. I'll do a watercolor painting of your dog, and you can see if it looks if it looks like it's better than writing daily notes, better than writing daily notes.
Jayson Davies
You're better at painting than daily notes. All right, hopefully not good. We had you here to talk about daily notes anyway. Last one using double time docs?
Jason Gonzalez
Ah, yes. So double time Docs is the company I started in Episode 14, we discussed the evaluation part of it, and so we just added daily notes to it, surprise, surprise. And not because I wanted to, most, you know, it's because everybody asked for it. So not everybody, that's exaggeration. We had lots of emails being like, when are you gonna do daily notes? And the hard part was, is like, how do you speed up daily notes? It only takes two, three minutes or whatever to do. So it took us a while to actually figure out what the best way to do it is. And, you know, I guess we can include that a video later of how to go through it. But I tried to make just like double dime docs. Tried to make it as simple as possible, like, just the basics that you actually need, and then, and, you know, I've looked at other daily notes, softwares, and it was like, it's just a lot of clutter, a lot of things that a lot of boxes, a lot of check things. We just wanted to keep it simple so it's just, you know, you have a the date, all the demographic stuff you need, you know, a little note section you can write down, like what we talked about in this episode, like just the details, like what they did, how the behaviors. And then the great thing about what we have is that the goals are right there. So you can actually see the goals without having to click to another page or another pop up. You can see it's all on the same page, and so you can see their goals, and you can, you know, change the progress right there. And there's a graph that you can it changes as you change its progress. So it's all updated at that time it's saved. And the best part is you can do it on your phone, because we know a lot of people bring their phone, and so it's, I mean, yeah, you can, so you can just do it right on your phone, and it's very visible, it's user friendly, and it's very self explanatory.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I really appreciate that you have the graph. That's really awesome, right? Because it's really nice come progress report time IEP time, you can literally just like, go to the student's goal, click whatever show graph, and you've got this nice little graph. The other feature that I that I remember about it, is that you have the ability to almost like, duplicate a previous note, right? Like you can kind of say this session, I know this session was similar to last week's session. Let me just like, pull over the note from last week, something like that, right?
Jason Gonzalez
Yeah, and we can, and I can show you that in the video. And as you mentioned before about how when you did your notes, you like to look at what they did previously, like, just even the week before, so you know how to pre plan for your next therapy session. So what you can actually do is, yeah, you click on when you're on the screen, you can just click on the date last week's date, January 8 or whatever, and then it automatically populates. Or if you push duplicate on that note, it will change the date, but it'll keep everything the same, so you can see what they did last week, and you can tweak it instead of just writing everything over again. Because, you know, from my experience of, you know, working with kids and doing daily notes, is that a lot of the activities are very similar. So if I'm addressing a writing goal, I would, you know, have them do an activity. And, you know, I'm just looking at the writing. If they're writing two to three sentences, it's pro I'm probably gonna do be writing two to three sentences next week, and then then week after that. So you can just change those little things that whether or not it changed or didn't, instead of writing a whole new he wrote two to three sentences or whatever. And you know, you know, most of our kids don't make big like, if it's shoe tying process or whatever, and I know that's not, you know, the slowest progress in the world for a lot of kids and some that can just stay the same. And that's you note that, you know, and that's the graphs are very beneficial in that aspect. When you're showing it to a parent or an administrator or teacher, you're just like, Look, he has plateaued on this goal for this many weeks. Or, you know, the graph can also show regression and stuff like that. It's like people calling for qualifying for ES, why? You can see that, you know, it took this long for him to get his skills back. And you know, an administration does need that data to qualify kids to whether or not they receive. OT. Eswa, yeah. I mean, whether or not they use it, who knows, but it's a that's usually how they determine whether or not they get eswa.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. And I think historically, OTs, we are not great with showing our data, and so I love that, that graph shows the data I know for a long time, until I started incorporating some graphs and data into my reports. Like the ABA therapist would show up with graphs, the speech therapist would show up with like, data on graphs. And here I am, like, just with a really long narrative, and no people like, really show on a graph, but graphs, graphs really speak well to parents and others on the IEP team. So if you've got a graph that shows goal number one, writing out the student's name, or whether it's attending to a specific task for five minutes, or if it's transitioning from one class to another class, like all of that can be put onto a graph, and it speaks a lot. So really cool that you've incorporated that as well. Where can everyone go to learn more about double time docs?
Jason Gonzalez
Oh, I guess you can just go to double time docs.com and then, or you can email me if anybody has questions at Jason at double time docs.com j, A, S O N, not J, A, Y, S, O, N.
Jayson Davies
Just had to throw that one in there, huh? I am Jayson with a Y, Yes, that is me. Jason has no Y in his name.
Jason Gonzalez
Don't want to get people.
Jayson Davies
But yes, double time docs.com we'll be sure to share a link over to that in the show notes. We also Jayson and his team member Scott, over there, they have been very gracious to give everyone at the OT school house who wants to trial out or wants to try out double time. Docs, a discount code. It is OTs H 20, and that'll help you save 20% off your first charge over there at double time. Docs, full disclosure the OT school house myself, we are a affiliate for for double time docs, so we earned a small commission off that. If you don't want us to earn a small commission off that, let me know. We'll figure out a way to get you the 20% off without me getting affiliate for it. But yeah, be sure to check it out. Double timedocs.com doing both evaluations and continuing on with your daily session notes from here on out, Jason, thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate it, and we'll definitely be staying in touch.
Jason Gonzalez
All right, thanks, Jayson. I'll see you in April.
Jayson Davies
Philadelphia. Let's go. Yep, and that is a wrap on today's episode of the OT school house podcast. A massive thank you to Jason Gonzalez for sharing his valuable insights on note writing. Also, after recording this episode, Jayson showed me exactly how he uses double time docs to complete his notes in just minutes. If you'd like to see that video, check out the show notes at otschoolhouse.com/episode, 169, and if you want to give double time docs a try, you can use promo code OT, S, H, 20 to save 20% on your first charge. That way, you can give DTD a try for yourself and see how much time it can save you, both on notes and with evaluations. Full disclosure, I am an affiliate for double time docs, and I might earn a commission if you use that code, and again, that code is OTs H 20, and you can use it at double time docs.com to start your plan today with that. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you found this episode not only informative, but also motivating to find a way to get your notes done quicker than ever and before you leave the office, thanks again, and I'll catch you next time on the OT school house podcast.
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