E219 | Two Ways To Improve Efficiency Today

Today, I wanted to do an episode about two things I have noticed with PT Entrepreneurs around the country.  These two things are undervalued and can drive significant change within your business especially in the early stages of starting your practice.

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Episode Transcription:

Hey, what's going on, guys? Doc Danny here with the PT Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm headed to the office this morning, so I'm doing a quick, a quick podcast for you guys in the truck on the way to my six o'clock patient that I've got this morning, which is cool that he's trying to run her first marathon, which is going to be the Honolulu marathon at the end of the year.

So it's fun. I get to work with her, building up to that. But, I want to talk to you guys today about two things that I've noticed with several calls. I've been doing with PT entrepreneurs around the country that I feel like are undervalued and drive significant change in, business in particular, in the early stages of your business.

And this is a lot of the people that I've been talking to, and you are just getting started, under that, roughly under that, that, that $10,000 a month range. And, that's, that's the the the group that I think has the. The most amount to change quickly if they can get a couple of things right. Number one.

The first thing I see is, energy management is, it's nonexistent. And the other one is wearing multiple hats in the same day is another area where they're losing efficiency, losing time. So here's what I mean by that. Thus, energy efficiency. Some of us are better first thing in the morning. Some of us are better, middle of the day.

Some of us are better at, at night, and for you in particular, and we talk about like working on, your business, working on sort of the creative side, whether it be. Advertising. Thinking about ways that you can partner with local companies. Anything where it's going to involve you taking your clinician hat off and putting on your business owner hat and taking a step back to work on the business in some capacity.

This is something that most of the time, people don't even realize that they have efficiency times just based on their personality and their circadian rhythms. So for me, what I noticed when I was writing my book, in particular, is I was, really, efficient and, and I could, I could be like transparent with my thought process first thing in the morning.

A good friend of mine that wrote a book as well, he, he was way better at night. He would write his book basically at 11 o'clock. And one o'clock and 11 p.m. or one o'clock at night. And that's how, you know, he stuck to the process to finish his book. Just basically in that time window and some people that they try and squeeze it in in a deadline, just whenever they possibly can.

And I want you to think about like when you're tired of your brain isn't functioning all that well, like how slow, how much lazier are you when it comes to the completion of a task, in particular, a detailed job like—working on your business. Like if you're trying to create a new page on your website, let's just say it that, and look, I get it.

Maybe somebody else should be doing that, but when it's just you, you're going to do pretty much everything early on. So you know, if you're trying to work on this late at night, and this is the trap that I fell into when I started my practice, I would do like of stuff in the morning before anybody would wake up, and then I would do the same.

I would do a bunch of stuff in a, in the evenings when everybody was asleep, and I wasn't worth a damn by that point. Because I'd been up since four 30 in the morning and then I would try to stay up until midnight to work on things after everybody else had fallen asleep. I would just, basically, the light of the computer screen was all that was keeping me up, so I wasn't doing an excellent job of managing my energy and understanding when I was efficient at a task that I was trying to complete.

I've been better off just taking those couple of hours, getting some sleep, pushing my, you know, 6:00 a.m. patient back and getting an extra hour first day in the morning. Then I would be trying to work a couple of hours at night. So I, I think that's something you have to look at. When are you most efficient?

Not everybody's the same. Everybody's going to have a little bit different, kind of rhythm-based on your genetics and the cycle you put yourself in, like when you go to bed when you wake up. And for me, I'm the most efficient first thing in the morning. The other thing that I can tell you that that I that I've seen is this idea of wearing multiple hats in the same day.

And what I mean by that, and this is almost, you almost can't afford. This to some degree, but you have to limit this and build structure into your, into your week. So if you're trying to, let's say. See patients squeeze in some time to work on like, you know, some sort of marketing campaign or go through some sales training may be that you need to do and then get some more patients in after that.

And then right there, you know, their notes and their emails and then follow up with somebody. You're, you're better off focusing on one task during the day. Let's say, let's call it clinical. Like today's, a good example today for me is a clinic day. So I have seven people on the schedule. I think, and what I'm not going to do is try to create, you know, some sort of, I don't know, marketing advertisement or initiative where I'm actually like trying to work on the business in the same day because.

What I need to focus on is being super present, for my patients and also working on all the things that go around that—for instance, following up with them, sending homework emails, you know, making sure that we're touching base documentation. All of these things that I need to do are part of the clinical process.

I focus on those because as soon as I, I take one hat off, I put another one on. It's energy costly. It's very, it's a brain expensive, like just this efficiency standpoint. It's hard to. To come back from that, and then you put your hat back on to be, you know, a clinician and it doesn't work very well. And so it feels like sometimes you don't have a choice like you have to do that.

And, and I guess early on you do in some capacity, but if you could do a better job of this instead, which we call kind of block scheduling. So think of it this way, if, if you can condense your schedule, your clinical plan, in particular, let's say down to like three clinic days to start with if you're going all-in those other two days if you can take those two.

And, and only work on business-related things, meetings with people locally, setting up, you know, events that you're working on. Look, looking at how to initiate or how to implement the marketing plan that you may have started if you did a marketing plan. You know, the beginning of the year of what you're trying to do, working on content, you know, working on connecting with people digitally, all these things.

If you can try and batch these on a specific day instead of just sticking them in throughout the day, you're going to be way more efficient at those. And not only that, but you allow your brain to focus on this sort of one side of the business instead of trying to jump back and forth between all of them because it's mentally draining.

And it, any of you that are doing this, you know what I'm talking about. Like it's surprising how, how much it can, it can fatigue you. And I mean, I get this, I get this all the time with, with having to, you know, not just our RPT business, but then, the digital business that we have as well. And then I would have to go.

You know, clinic, digital, business, local business, back to be a clinician. And it's like, no chance I'm not doing this crap man. Because it just literally ruins me for being able to problem-solve my patients and being present with them. And that's really what, what matters. Because when we boil this down, our goal is to get as many people in the door that we can help as possible, right?

The key there is helping them. And if you're at a, you know, at a clinic and you, you just are not there for them. It's going to be very apparent that people can, people can tell, you know, you're, you're going to miss things, and you're not going to have as good of a product. And, you know, there's a, there's a good story about a Chick-fil-A with, the founder, Truett Cathy.

He talks about, you know, somebody had come into their market, that was taking a lot of market share with another restaurant. And there are all these people sitting around their executive boardroom and true, Kathy's a very quiet man, like extremely intelligent, started Chick-fil-A, which is a ridiculously, you know, a successful company and they're all arguing about how they need to grow faster to take out this other competitor.

And he slammed his hand down on the table, and he said, well, we need to do focus on getting better. And if we get better, the market will demand that we grow. And that's a compelling thing if you think about it. Like. You need to get better at the service of whatever it is that you're providing.

Everything around it the experience, the results, communication, buy-in with people. All of these things will lead to success in the business and on the days that you are. You are forward-facing your people's faces. You have to focus on the people, and you can't concentrate on jumping back and forth to things that I, I, you should do this.

I'm very guilty of doing this myself, and this is why I can tell you it's not the right way to go about it. You will not be as efficient. You won't be as. As good in the clinic, you won't be able to connect with people as well. And that's really where it's at, like focus on being better and by doing that, blocking your schedule today, like it's clinic day, that's it.

I won't do anything, but clinically related things, and I might like to catch up on some emails or something like that, but I'm not diving into something that's going to take a couple of hours of my time. Realistically, on days like Wednesdays and Fridays, I blocked that time so that I can work on it.

The business. I can work on business-related tasks. I don't have any clinic time on those days and Thursdays, a staff meeting. So I have some patients in the morning, but then I have a two-hour block before our staff meeting so we can have everything together and prep everything for the staff meeting that we have.

So when I block my schedule, it's intentional so that I have clinic times, I have business times, and I'm able to fulfill on both those instead of trying to jump back and forth to each one of them. So. Take a step back, look at your week, try to figure out, okay, when can I batch time for working on my business?

Instead of trying to squeeze it in, in between, and people will condense in your schedule. That's the other thing like if you give them less available times, they will. Often they think, Oh, well, I don't have as many people come in. No. The perception is that you're just busier, and they will, they will, you know, mold to whatever your schedule is because they're coming in to see you once a week, maybe.

Right. Maybe less than that. So it's not that big of a deal for them to adjust, but for you to be able to have that designated time is priceless. It will help your business dramatically and drive it forward in the direction that they were trying to go and let you work on your business.

So that's it. Two things. Manage your energy, figure out when you're most efficient, and then manage your time by not trying to do multiple tasks on the same day. That should be a home run for you. If you implement, they'll just listen to the podcast. By the way, don't only consume content. Take what I take what I say on this podcast and do this shit.

That's the most significant difference between people that are going to be successful or not. You may listen to me and be like, Oh dude, that's a good idea. Okay, what did you do? Shit that you said to do. Did you create a schedule where you block time off? Did you do it right now? Like people that like they wait and say, Oh, I'll start.

I'll start on Monday. No, like create your schedule today. So by the time this podcast is over you, you need just to hit stop. Find some time to create a plan for yourself when you can work on your business when you're going to have clinical times and make a change right away. Don't wait till Monday.

Do it by the end of the weekend. If you're listening to this on a Thursday, do by the end of the weekend. Give yourself a deadline and then fulfill on that and make sure you stick to it.

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