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Is the Day Ever Long Enough?
A fantasy of mine is to have a personal assistant who will take care of all the things that need to happen in my life, but don’t necessarily need my personal attention. He or she will waltz in each day and know just what I need to accomplish and will tackle it all with ease. Like I said; fantasy. In the medical practice industry, there are office staffs, teams and business partners who successfully do the tackling on a daily basis, yet the struggle to manage one’s own schedule effectively continues.
I Can’t Find the Time
For years, I thought I needed to “find” time. I have recently come to believe that the idea that we can “find” time is a cop-out, we have to make the effort. There is no easy way to do it, we have to commit and it takes focus and attention. When we decide to make a commitment and what it means for the outcomes we’re seeking, establishing a routine can be a pretty important consideration. It can also be anything but “routine” to get started…
I struggle with this myself. I’ve noticed recently that my priorities have shifted in a few areas of my life and I am devoting more time to the things I want to accomplish, rather than the things that seem to get in the way. (Insert applause here.) The biggest challenge has been maintaining some semblance of my daily routines, personal and work- related, while finding enough hours to make sure that these new priorities have a place a place, too. Sound familiar? I don’t quite have a routine yet, it’s going to take…. wait for it…. time.
Investment is not Just Money
We tend to forget that investment is not always monetary. Any investment that your medical practice makes in an effort to expand and provide a return will also be time. In this context, time often includes education, research, planning and implementation. The process is cyclical and as the effort progresses, the amount of effort invested tends to decrease as efficiency increases. Once you establish a process and a web presence/following, the ratio of time to return changes in your favor.
Time is of the Essence
We’ve all read statistics about the year over year increases in people joining social networks like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and others. And who knows, in a few more years they could all be passé as we shift to ever more progressive methods of interaction and communication. My point is this… if you believe that social media can be a marketing tool to help you grow your medical practice, there is no time to waste. The medical practice industry is one last industries to embrace the web as a means to improve the return on marketing investment.
Making the Best Use
At the risk of being cliché, I’ll wrap this up with a quote from Ben Franklin who officially coined the phrase “Time is Money” long before the rise of industry and technology which we rely upon so heavily today. “In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality; i.e. Waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both.”
