Time Management for Dentists: When Busy Becomes Burnout
Are you getting into work earlier, leaving later, missing lunch and still feeling that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day?
Perhaps it started with occasionally running behind, an increasingly long to-do list or taking work home. Now you’re rushing between patients, struggling to achieve your financial targets and finding that work is taking over more and more of your life. Perhaps you’ve reached the point where you’re feeling completely overwhelmed, exhausted or even questioning whether you want to continue in the practice you are in or even dentistry.
The problem could be that you have too much to do and you need to do less, or It may be that you are not choosing wisely how to use the time you have – your diary is running you rather you running your diary.
The hidden cost of being constantly busy
When you’re always running behind, something eventually gives, it might be your physical health, emotional wellbeing, relationships, enjoyment of dentistry or the quality of your life outside work. Continuing to work harder, longer and faster isn’t necessarily going to improve your results., it will accelerate your exhaustion, reduce your accuracy, deteriorate your relationships, increasing your stress even further. Imagine the consequences of you being exhausted, making a mistake resulting in a patient complaint with no slack in the system to resolve the problem.
Consider these truisms for a moment.
- You cannot manage time, you can only prioritise how you spend it.
- For everything you say YES to, you’re saying NO to something else.
- Even not making a decision about how you’re spending your time is a decision.
- Being busy isn’t the same as being productive
What would the impact be when you started to make conscious decisions about how you use your time?
Over 25 years of working with dental practices, I’ve met countless clinicians who tell me their appointment books are zoned, yet they’re still overwhelmed and not achieving the results they expected, and tell me zoning doesn’t work
Incorrect zoning doesn’t work. Correct zoning does. That’s why we’ve developed and teach clinicians how to SMART-zone their diaries, using a unique blend of proven, time-tested strategies.
Whether you’re a principal, associate, hygienist or therapist, if you’re self-employed, you’re running a business, even if you’re a business of one.
When is, now, the right time to make time for your work, your future and your life
Your diary needs to make adequate provision for three essential areas:
- Remuneration: Time spent generating the income your business needs.
- Recreation: Time to rest, recharge and nurture yourself physically, mentally and emotionally.
- Renewal: Time to think, plan, develop and shape your business and future.
Neglect any one of these you and the other areas suffer.
When you schedule time to THINK, time to PLAN and time to DO, you create time to LIVE the life you want.
Isn’t it It’s time to take back control?
If you’re becoming increasingly busy, overwhelmed and frustrated, the answer isn’t necessarily another practice, longer hours or even a different career. Working across multiple practices compound the problem rather than resolving it.
Time for a different approach, an approach that works?
Through personalised business coaching and training, I help dental clinicians rethink their relationship with time, SMART-zone their diaries and create a sustainable balance between professional success and personal wellbeing.
The goal isn’t simply to get more done. It’s to have the time to do what you love, with the people you love, when you want to do it.
If you’re ready to stop chasing time and start making it work for you, let’s have a conversation.
