From Heather Driscoll

Over the last year, as virtual meetings became the norm, I started to notice myself growing fatigued and realized on some days I was not nearly as productive as I needed to be. It’s not unusual to have 7-8 hours of back-to-back video conferences without as much as a five-minute break in between. There were days when my to-do list was longer at the end of the day than it was at the beginning. 

I decided it was time to dig in and make a change.

As I took a step back, I realized my schedule as a leader outside of the dental practices really wasn’t much different than that of our patient schedules in the dental practices, yet the productivity outcomes seemed very different. So, I decided to put the strategies I use to improve productivity in the dental practice to work on my own personal schedule. What I quickly found was if I scheduled myself to do less, I was counterintuitively able to accomplish more.

Strategy #1 – Create Capacity for Same-Day Opportunities

In our dental practices, I often get worried about being booked out out for days, or even weeks, because I know this will impede our ability to offer our patients same-day treatment or to care for same-day emergencies. In our dental practices, I aim to have at least 30% of our daily patient care delivered via same-day care, so why was my schedule any different?

When I looked at my own schedule, I realized having 6-8 one-hour meetings scheduled each day was holding me back from capturing unplanned opportunities that presented themselves throughout the day: being able to answer phone calls as they come in as opposed to returning voicemail, or sharing a great webinar or news article with our dental teams or consulting clients. 

These seem like little things, but they can lead to productive outcomes when I have the time to focus on them. 

Strategy #2 – Reappointment is Key

I would never consider having a patient leave our dental practices without their next visit scheduled. I know the best time to help patients commit to their oral health is while it’s top of mind, while they are in the operatory with our dental team member. 

And, reappointing patients while they are in the practice can potentially save hours of time in the future. Consider the phone calls, emails, and text messages that are sent daily as we try to get patients back on the schedule. 

I know reappointment is crucial, so I recommend using 2-3 minutes of each appointment to focus on scheduling both restorative and hygiene care appointments. 

As I thought about this reappointment strategy, I realized my schedule was no different. 

I know how often I plan to talk with the dental leaders I coach, yet I wasn’t setting aside time during our meetings to plan for our next meeting. Additional emails and text messages were required to get our next “appointment” scheduled. 

The same strategy applied to some of my weekly tasks. For example, I know I'm going to analyze our practice analytics at the beginning of each week. So, I now schedule an hour each Monday morning to do this, rather than squeezing it in between calls throughout the day.

Strategy #3 – Ask for Help, Delegation is Crucial

One of the first things I do when working with a dental team is determine whether they are facing capacity or demand challenges. Almost always, I find that simple capacity blockages are standing in the way of them reaching their next level of productivity. 

One of the most common blockages is the utilization of team members.

Often there are certain tasks that can only be done by one specific team member. In other cases, there are hard feelings between team members that stand in the way of reaching the highest level of teamwork. When I start to peel back those layers, I often find that people are afraid to ask for help. 

For instance, a hygienist might skip doing a perio evaluation because she doesn't want to ask someone for help. Maybe a patient gets seated 5 minutes late because someone didn’t want to ask for help cleaning their operatory. Maybe patient billing statements are sent a week late because only Sally knows how to send them. 

When I looked at my own tasks, I realized there were several initiatives that simply didn’t need to be done by me. I had them on my list because I was concerned about asking someone else to do them.  It’s not that I was the only one capable of completing them, it was truly my way of protecting someone else from having too much to do. 

As I started to dig a little deeper, I realized I was robbing someone on my team of an opportunity to expand their own skill sets. When I delegated a few of the things on my to-do list, I had more time to focus on the bigger picture of our organization and it created another layer of safety and security within our business. 

If you have a fully capable and competent team who are being utilized in a higher way, your productivity can skyrocket. Not to mention the increased personal fulfillment each person can realize.

I like being busy. I enjoy being challenged. But more than anything, I like being productive and getting results. Applying these 3 strategies from the dental practice to my own personal schedule has made a world of difference. 

Doing less simply isn’t the same as being lazy. Doing less has actually allowed me to accomplish more, and that’s a good thing for everyone.