Episode 582: Getting the Important Things Done

It’s time for one of Kiera’s favorite topics: tackling the important versus the urgent. Ever notice that you always have time to do the things you like to do, but never have enough for the tasks you don’t care for? For example, recare outbound calls or tracking overhead.

In this episode, Kiera shares advice on how to actually get the important to-dos done each day — as an owner or another position.

If you have dedicated time for your important stuff, it’ll free up your schedule (and brain) of stressors.

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Transcript:

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0:00:05.6 Kiera Dent: Hey everyone, welcome to The Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I have this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, filler, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices, coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental, and I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress and create A teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team podcast.

0:00:51.0 KD: Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera, and you guys, I hope you're having a killer day today, I hope it's been awesome. I am, you guessed it, I'm car-casting guys. I am... Shoot. I feel like I've been all over. I should be a tour guide for the State of Florida. I started out in Miami this week on Sunday at an office in Miramar, and then I traveled from Miramar up to Orlando. Definitely super happy to go to the office, also a little jealous that they're right next to Disney World, and then I am now driving from Orlando all the way over to Destin, because if you guys are travelers or if you're not, the roads have been a mess. Tiff and Dana, two traveling road warriors got stuck in Dallas for six hours each. And guys, I've gotta give a mad shoutout to Dana, if you are Dana's office, you know her, you love her. Dana landed at 4:00 AM, guys, her flight was delayed, landed at 4:00 AM and she was at the office by 7:30 in the morning, like mad mad kudos and shoutout. It's kind of crazy, that is the real life of a consultant, I had a potential consultant with me this weekend, he was like, "Kiera, I don't know how you do this." And I have found it's truly the passion and love for what we do and the people we get to serve in the offices and lives we get to change, it's... We're not just doing dentistry and systems, we're literally changing lives and impacting your practices and helping people be less stressed and more fulfilled and happier.

0:02:18.7 KD: So it's definitely a fulfilling job. That is one of pure excitement all the time. So today, I'm super jazzed, guys. It is car cast with Kiera today, and today I wanted to do one of my favorite topics, and that is on the urgent versus important, and urgent versus important is one of the things that I feel we get caught up in myself included, all the time, and so let's dive into it. Before we do, guys, please, as you know, go leave us a review. Those five stars help us so much to do our mission of positively impacting the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. So guys, go leave us a review, tag us on social media, shoutout to Jenny Purna, she was tagging us on social. We will re-tag you guys, and you never know you might get swag. So go leave a review if this podcast has helped you in any way, and just know I super appreciate it. So let's dive into it, we've got urgent and important things that happen to us all day long in our daily lives, in our professional lives, and I think it's oftentimes, sometimes hard to balance those two things interchangeably, right?

0:03:21.3 KD: You gotta think about it, all day long we are faced with decision after decision after decision, and you have to be really good at making those decisions at to deciding. Alright, what things should I spend my time doing? Because we only have so many hours in a day, and so oftentimes it is the whirlwind, and when I go into an office and I hear, "Kiera, I just don't have time." My thoughts are, "perfect." We've gotta learn how to prioritize our time because we always have time for the things that we want to do. It's often the things we don't wanna do or the big things that will actually move our company forward that we often don't have time for. For example, as a scheduler making those re-care outbound calls. If your schedule is open right now, odds are you probably aren't making enough outbound calls to actually fill the schedule. If our doctor's schedule is not full, we might not be tracking our treatment, we might not be reviewing those, we might not be perfecting our craft, and we might not be doing unscheduled treatment calls, or we might not be diagnosing enough. But do we actually take the time to dive into those metrics and those numbers to see?

0:04:28.5 KD: Probably not, and I would say that's a very important thing to do. What about tracking overhead in the business side, looking at those numbers to see where are we overspending or underspending? What can we do to grow the practice? What about in billing? Are we taking the time to look at the claims that are coming back to us to figure out what we could do proactively so we don't get as many denied claims? What about in the dental assistant department? Are we training... So all the assistants can do all the procedures, proactively, hygiene department, are we spending time, making sure all the hygienists know how to co-diagnose with our doctors and truly doing actual training? What about in Doctor's side? Are we proactively taking CE that will move our practice forward? Are we taking care of doctor calibrations? Owners, are you doing one-on-ones with your team members? Are you taking time to look to see what are the trends in your practice of where we could be improving? Billing department, are you looking for trends to see what claims are paying? What claims aren't paying? Which ones are coming back at low-fee schedules? How could we get those fees higher?

0:05:33.4 KD: Those are all important things. Those things often don't get scheduled into our planner, if you will, because they are not urgent. Urgent things are when a patient calls and cancels, when we're running behind the patients on our schedule right now, when we have team members that are upset and wanting to quit, those all become absolutely urgent and they often will trump the very important things. However guys, urgent things are going to whoop your booties all day long because they never stop. The only way important things get done is if they're actually prioritized in our schedule. So how do you actually do this?

0:06:15.3 KD: To me, the answer is and has been and will be prioritization. We have to actually put it in the schedule. And what I found is when we actually will prioritize it, so that can be admin time, CE time. For me, I call it Bis Dev, my business development time, you can have CEO time, whatever it is, but you actually prioritize it. So the way I do it, this is what I currently do as an owner, so I'll give an owner perspective first, and then I'll give you guys office manager and other position ideas as well. But as an owner, I literally think about what projects are the hard projects or things that are actually going to move our company forward? Writing guide books and onboarding. I hate every ounce of that, that's going to move us forward with the hiring issue. Creating protocols, for me it's reworking products in our company and figuring out better consulting for our clients, or mapping out content for events that we're going to go speak at. Those are big projects guys, that will become urgent if I can't hire people, or if I get to the speaking time and haven't done it, or if we start losing clients because I haven't taken time to review it and get cut client feedback, then they become urgent, but I'd rather proactively work on those things.

0:07:33.6 KD: How many of you would just love to DIY and get the secrets of people who have been there, done that on your own time? Because I know for me, I love to learn from the best of the best. The people who have been there done that and can give me the shortcuts, that's why we have created our Dental A Team Virtual Academy. Where it's on-demand courses for you at your fingertips, where you literally can learn the secrets from all of my experience, all of Tiffany's experience. Britney, Dana, our entire team's experience at your fingertips, so stop taking the hard route, guys. There's a shortcut sitting there waiting for you, and it's also CE. Head on over to the dentalateam.com and click on our Virtual Academy. Be sure to use coupon code podcast and get started on that DIY and become the practice of your dreams.

0:08:20.3 KD: I often look... Most of the time, it can come from an urgent problem, like what are the issues currently in our company, they can also come from my company goals, but I really like to see what are my important projects. I also have a list of important projects that I actually schedule in on my business development time. Maybe for some doctors that's also for you doing like big cases and consults that could be during that time, could be making your ortho cases, it could be having one on ones with team members. But what we do is we actually schedule that in, meeting with the CPA, reviewing our numbers, looking at the PNLs, as much as I hate those things, put them in the schedule. Anything that you can create a cadence and an accountability for as a set schedule, do that.

0:09:04.4 KD: So for example, if I know every quarter I'm going to review my P&L to look for low-hanging fruit, I will schedule that in, so I don't have to think about it. I personally have a Business Development Day. Mine are Wednesday mornings from 7 to 10 AM. That is just what has worked well for me, my business development CEO time has shifted over the years. When I was full-time five days a week and didn't have business development time, I would block it out at the end of one of my dates. For me, Kiera, know thyself and be free. I know I work a lot better in the mornings, so I'm going to block my most productive time in the morning, maybe you block out one or two hours of patient time. No, not patient time. Right? We always get so scared of patient time, if you can actually work on the things that will move your company forward the most, that is actually going to be what we wanna work on, right? We are going to wanna work on those important things, even if it doesn't feel like it, even if we feel like, "Oh gosh, I actually need to work on those items right now, I'm gonna take away patient time?" The answer is yes.

0:10:09.4 KD: If we're productive with it, you will actually make massive moves. So my recommendation is if you already have it, can you maximize that time? Like plan it out even better, if you don't have it, could you maybe add one hour per week starting now? For team members, I don't have all team members take admin time but for office managers, billers, schedulers, treatment coordinators, lead hygienist, lead assistants, I absolutely block one to two hours per week depending upon the position of admin time.

0:10:42.2 KD: Same thing for office managers, admin time, focus time, CEO time, big project time. I think it's really important to write it. That's why I call mine business development, because I'm thinking of, What am I developing the company on? For you, you might call it big projects, you might even call it the name of this podcast of important time. These are the projects that are important, these could be the projects that move us forward in time. This is the big projects, this is not checking my email, it is not sending claims, it is not confirming appointments, it is not ordering supplies. I mean, it could be ordering supplies, but we're not doing day-to-day things that we know are going to get done. Ordering supplies, I feel like you're going to get that done, just schedule a time where you know you're going to get that done, but I promise you if we run out of gloves, that's gonna become urgent real quick. But making an onboarding book, probably not gonna be put onto the list and probably won't become urgent, but could make our lives radically better, so we just block it in.

0:11:41.8 KD: Find a time that works. So many people usually tell me, "Kiera, I'm so scared to do this because, one, I don't wanna lose patient time." Got it. "Second, I don't wanna abandon my team." And I always say, "Do you really think your practice in one hour a week is going to burn down? But what could you get done in that one hour in that week?" 'Cause the answer is No, your practice is not gonna burn down in that one hour, and how much could you actually get done if you had dedicated focused time on these bigger, more important projects, what could you actually accomplish? So maybe a fun activity would be set a timer for 15 minutes, that could be a long time, maybe you wanna go 10 and dream of all the big projects that you wanna get done in every single position. This could be a great team meeting or team activity that you guys do together, what are all those big projects that would truly move the company forward and let's just do a huge brainstorm session. I would do it by department, I wouldn't just do it as an everybody thinking of all ideas, I would do per department because instantly you'll build your focus time projects. Once you build that list, I would pick my top three projects that will ultimately move the practice forward in the next three months, and let's focus on those, the easiest, simplest ones.

0:12:55.9 KD: Let's get those ones done and done now, then you guys can move along, so really it's just... It comes down to a quote that I actually have in my kitchen guys, I stuck it in there 'cause I wanna think about my food choices, I wanna think about my life, and I'm in my kitchen a lot. And the sign says, "Discipline Equals Freedom." And that's what I think of often with urgent versus important is, it comes down to discipline. It is truly a discipline nature, to prioritize the important projects, to make time for the things that will move us forward. Does it feel good to work on one project for three hours? Not always I'd much rather check off a hundred things, but really I would rather check off one project that actually moved us forward than a 100 small things that I know I would just get done anyway. Same thing in my personal life. I'm prioritizing my physical health, I'm prioritizing my marriage, those are personal focus times, I'm doing a date night, all those different little pieces, those are pieces that you really, really, really wanna ensure that you have in place. So guys, I just want you to think about it.

0:14:03.3 KD: What do you spend most of your time doing? Are you scrambling on the urgent? The answer is probably yes, because I think 80% of our life is probably spent on those urgent reactive pieces. But could we spend 20% of our time on the important? And I would just ask you, after you make that whole brainstorm list, let's just talk about the results that would come if we actually worked on those topnotch, high priority important things, just paint a picture of what your life would look like in three months. Like for example, in your personal life, if I truly said, "Okay, I'm gonna work out 30 minutes per day, I'm going to put this in there, I'm going to make it happen." Who would I be in three months? Well, I probably would have a lot more energy, I would be more fit. I wouldn't be as tired, I would feel better about my body, I'd feel better about myself, and I would feel committed to myself. Sweet. That's a pretty good feeling. I'm gonna feel like freaking cloud nine if I really did work out 30 minutes every day for three months. I'm also probably going to realistically feel sore because if I do a two-minute wall sit right now, guys, my legs are on freaking fire and they hurt so bad, but that's what I would feel like in three months, let's think of...

0:15:17.6 KD: If we created in three months an onboarding packet for every position, so hiring was much easier. How would we feel then? Well, we would feel confident in hiring, we would feel less scattered, we would have more clarity, more direction, it would be easier to hire people. Sweet, let's do that. So figuring out what your top priorities are that you wanna get done in the next few months, and then how is that going to feel? That's gonna give you the leverage to move forward most likely. But at the end of the day guys, I really do think it is a matter of discipline, of disciplining yourself, of creating habits where you do focus on these high-level pieces. I will tell you every topnotch, high elite practice, those doctors, I look at them and they all have patterns, and one of the biggest pattern I see is they all have dedicated admin time or days where they focus on the big projects. My topnotch, mostly office managers do the exact same thing, so if you wanna be in that crowd do it. Success leaves clues. Follow it, there's no... I don't think it's a coincidence that they all do very similar habits, most of them all work out in the morning, they have a morning routine, they have set admin time that they work on high level projects and they consistently do it.

0:16:35.2 KD: So are you gonna be one of the top elite, or are you going to continue to be frantic and let life run you? I would encourage you to take the challenge, take it on for three months and let me know how it is. And if you want help getting this setup or having an accountability buddy, which I need all the time, I always think it's better with a buddy, so email me, [email protected]. I would love to chat with you and help you get out of the frantic frenzy and into the calm where you can actually see progress, see results, and truly live a very different life. I look forward to hearing from you and as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team podcast. And that wraps it up for another episode of The Dental A Team podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.

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