Planning and deciding wear you out differently than patients do, and they need their own time on your calendar.
A full week of patients is tiring, and you know how to do it.
Sitting down to set a target or make a big decision tires you out in a different way, and it’s easy to put off.
If you run a physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech, or mental health practice, you know both kinds of tired.
Two co-owners working on values and targets
I was coaching two co-owners through their values and their targets while they kept running a busy practice.
One of them said they felt like they were toggling between the business as usual and these new thoughts, and hoped there would be less toggling as it all came together.
I told them the work is hard because it’s thinking work. Doing is what we’re great at, and seeing eighty patients in a week is routine.
Sitting down to think, project, and decide on targets, and then be held accountable to them, takes a lot more energy. Once you set a target, you can’t change it every day.
It was also on top of everything else, because they were running the practice the whole time.
I told them the heaviness comes down as things get put in place.
Thinking work uses a different kind of energy
Researchers who study task switching found that people lose time every time they move from one task to another, and more time when the new task is more complex or less familiar.
Treating patients is familiar and setting targets is new territory, which means every switch between them costs more.
That’s the toggling those two owners described. It’s also the reason thinking work never fits in the gaps between patients.
Give it a block of its own, away from the schedule, even when the schedule is full.
Three ways to make room for thinking work
You will keep running the practice while you do this, which means the work has to be small enough to survive a busy week.
Do it in small pieces
The co-owners started with one value at a time. Each got a short description and one example of how it shows up in the practice.
For targets, I asked for a simple list: the handful of numbers that matter and what each target should be.
An analysis of knowledge workers’ daily diaries found that making progress in meaningful work is the single biggest lift to a person’s workday, which means a finished piece counts for more than a perfect plan.
I told them progress was the goal.
Decide once and let it stand
When they wrote their targets down, they found one set below what they actually expected people to reach.
That gap let people who weren’t meeting the real standard pass, and it left the people who were meeting it unrecognized.
A target only works if it stays put. Decide it once, write it down, and hold to it.
Share it with your leaders and give it a standing slot
Start with your next-level leaders. Re-establish what the practice is about, show them the plan, ask for questions, and get their buy-in before it reaches the rest of the team.
The co-owners planned to meet with their department leads that Friday and to meld their drafts before our next call, which was set for the same time two weeks out.
A standing slot gives the thinking work a place to live.
The payoff is a lighter week
- Edwards Deming estimated that 94 percent of a company’s problems come from its system rather than its workers. Thinking work is how you build the system.
When the co-owners ran their numbers, they saw that if everyone simply met the targets they had already set, with the same staff and no new expenses, their profit margin would more than double on paper.
That number only showed up because they sat down and did the thinking.
Block time for the decision you keep putting off
Pick the plan or decision you keep pushing back.
Put a block on your calendar this week, away from patients, and bring a rough draft to someone who will push back on it.
PPS starts Thursday in Colorado Springs
We’re at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs for PPS, which starts Thursday. Find us at Booth 820, right next to Prompt.
Stop by and ask us what your practice is worth.
If you want special access to something we’re putting together during the event, email Grace at grace@practicefreedomu.com. Spots are limited.
Want to be a guest on Freedom By Design?
We’re recording the next round, and I’d like to talk with you.
If you’re a PT, OT, SLP, or mental health practice owner who has grown to multiple locations or sold your practice, you have a story another owner needs to hear. Somewhere out there is someone stuck right where you used to be.
The form takes a couple of minutes:
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