You can be busy all day and still do nothing to move your practice forward.
As practice owners, we are really good at responding to what feels urgent. A team member needs something, a patient has an issue, or there is another problem to solve, and suddenly the time we set aside to work on the business is gone. The problem is that if we never protect time to think, plan, improve systems, and develop our team, the practice never becomes less dependent on us.
A few things can change that:
- Protect the time
Treat CEO time like production time. Put it on the schedule and stop giving it away every time something feels more urgent. - Make yourself unavailable
Close the door or get out of the office if you have to. Your team needs to know there are times when you are simply not available to solve every little problem. - Pay attention to what keeps coming back to you
Look at the questions, problems, and decisions that continually land on your desk. Instead of just answering them, ask why they still need to come through you in the first place.
The future version of your practice gets built during the time you keep sacrificing. Protect that time, use it to solve the problems that keep making the practice dependent on you, and eventually you will get a lot more of your time back.
If your CEO time has a way of disappearing too, the conversation below may help you look at those hours a little differently:
P.S. One of the best ways to work on your practice is to actually get away from it. Our next DPH Retreat is coming up in October, and weβre bringing practice owners together to step out of the day-to-day, work through the bigger issues, and get clear on what needs to happen next. Click HERE for more information.
