Can changing your morning routine change your practice?

It's Monday morning and you enter your office with a hot cup o' joe and a fresh outlook for the week. Before you even make it to your office, you've been hit up by your hygienist to remind you that she's leaving early this day, your receptionist who tells you there is an overbooking at 9:30, and your office manager informing you that it's Susie's birthday and cake will be delivered at noon. And there sits Mr. Johnson, early for his appointment, holding his right jaw in pain.

Jay Geier is the president and founder of the Scheduling Institute.

To top it off, you remember you need to transfer funds over to another account to cover some recent expenses. Immediately, your fresh outlook has turned sad, tired, and all too familiar. You begin to fantasize about a special hiding place where you can escape. The fact is, you don't need a hiding place -- you need a better routine.

It's time to make some changes. But not in the office. Let me introduce you to something I call the early morning success ritual. It is proven -- I've been doing it for decades. It is effective. And it can change the way you run your practice.

It's rather simple, but it requires discipline and planning: All my wealth-building activities occur before I leave in the morning -- every day.

Before I leave the house, I go down into my home office, and I take care of all my transactions. So I play chief financial officer in the morning: I look at my checking account, go over my savings, and move the money where it needs to go. I spend about 10 minutes doing it. Then I review my calendar, and I get very intentional about what I'm going to do that day.

Then I go to work. I now have the ability to fully focus on the daily activities of the office, because I got all the important transactions taken care of. There are no distractions.

Engagement

Transfer this practice to your situation. If you are running from patient to your office to get on your computer, you will never be fully engaged with your patients, and I can guarantee you the productivity in your office will drop. When you're in the office, you have to be fully present and engaged in treating patients and dealing with the staff. It has a direct impact on the success of your practice.

Think about it. With all the other stuff taken care of, you can now have an intentional conversation with your front desk about scheduling without thinking about remembering to pay the landscaper. You can work to alleviate Mr. Johnson's pain quickly without wondering if you've ordered that additional chair for your new treatment space.

And it's important to reiterate that this has to be done before you come to the office, not after you've left. The fallacy that people have is that you'll still have enough energy and focus at end of the day, after meeting people's needs and treating patients, to be able to hit the pavement hard at home. It doesn't work that way.

So I urge you to carve out that time in the morning for the benefit of you, your staff, your patients, and, ultimately, your practice. If you continue with your normal routine, you will continue to suffer. So then you have to be the one to make the change.

Jay Geier is the president and founder of the Scheduling Institute.

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