A Problem Focusing

Business Of Dentistry Podcast

In episode 081 of Business of Dentistry I revisit the topic of maintaining focus. We discuss getting things done while simultaneously keeping our eye on a single idea within our practice. More About Business of Dentistry Recently I had a meeting with a young man who just finished his undergraduate degree in Media Studies. I brought him in to discuss some marketing ideas and side projects he could work on for my practice. Our meeting lasted for almost 2 hours, and as we talked we went down the proverbial rabbit hole. After he had left I reflected on what we had talked about and made some notes so he and I could move forward. I realized that we talked about a lot of ideas, but we didn't focus on one thing. I noticed I have a problem with that: focusing on one thing. I have difficulty in focusing on what I need to do in the moment. I've been working on it in my practice and I've gotten better at it. but I bring it up on episode 81 because I'm wondering if anyone else has that issue or if it's just me. I find that we get more accomplished if we focus on one thing and go after it til it's done. For example, my focus one day might be on completing my office notes in my electronic medical record before I leave the office. some days I'm great at fulfilling this and some days I am not so great at this task. I believe it boils down to a lack of discipline along with a lack of focus on the task. I struggle with focus and discipline quite frequently to be honest. And I realized I did this during my conversation with this young man. During our meeting I didn't even allow him to respond to one idea before moving on to the next. That's problematic! If you have that same issue consider this episode as a reminder to focus on the one thing until it's completed. To be effective, you have to go through and decide what is the most important thing in your day or in your meeting - and then get that one thing taken care of and addressed before moving on to something else. Sometimes that one thing you are focused on isn't the fun thing, but you have to buckle down and do certain things to keep you on track. Otherwise you leave a lot of things undone, there are days when I look around at the end of the day and feel like I got nothing accomplished. And the reason I feel that way on those days is because I didn't focus on the one thing that I needed to do. I've really struggled with this lately because we've had a lot of things going on here. I mentioned this in my last episode: I found out certain things weren't being done that I was told were being done (and these were things I was paying to have done). When that happened I decided to revisit other people I've been in business with so I could verify we are getting what we are paying for from them. Things like that can really negatively impact our businesses so I wanted to trust and verify all of our existing business partnerships. That's something not everyone understands - that we have to wear many hats and do many things as private practice owners. I's easy for us in our situations to lose focus because we shift our focus a lot. So my pep talk on today's show is don't lose focus! Pick what you need to do and knock it out. And I'm talking about this to call myself out. This is not meant to be me preaching to you, it's about reminding myself to be conscious of what I'm doing and focus on one thing at a time. I hope this is something you are good at or are working on improving, too. I appreciate you being here to listen! After you're done I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's episode of Business of Dentistry. Tweetable: “Pick what you need to do and knock it out.” Episode Resources Episode 80 - IT issue episode Episode 01 - 3 Hats of a Private Practice Dentist The One Thing, by Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey Voices of Dentistry Summit 2018 Email me Business of Dentistry on Facebook