As a physiotherapist and clinic owner, the biggest obstacle I face day to day is the mismatch between daily administrative tasks to grow the business and the demands of my clinical role. Last minute emergencies with patients often interfere with day to day running of the clinic and my long term planning and there are times I feel drained when trying to attend to the latter. 

After experimenting with the techniques and principles in this course over the past couple weeks, here's the 3 biggest changes I found worked best for me coupled with the relevant principles, laws and habits:

1) Every morning I prioritize and plan. 

The first twenty minutes of every day, I work with an eissenhower matrix template on my remarkable tablet. This allows me to delete tasks completed in real time on a whiteboard-like format and identify the 3 biggest tasks for the day. I then open up my daily planner and slot these 3 biggest tasks into my schedule, making the appropriate block in my clinical schedule so my team knows where my time is being directed. This employs Eissenhower's principle and the Pareto Principle, ensuring my time is better concentrated on the 20% that generates the 80% returns. This also fits into the Time blocking principle

 

2) At the end of every day I reflect

In my daily planner, I list the three wins/achievements/task completions of the day. This can be anything such as something fun that stood out in the day, a key task I got completed that's been on my mind for a while, or just a positive outcome I achieved with a patient (keeping the identity of the patient confidential ofcourse). This aligns with the habits of gratitude an reflective practice and keeps my focus on the aspects of life that generate the biggest returns (law of diminishing returns). I also list at least 1 challenge/lesson and some strategies for incorporating the lesson or addressing the lesson into my daily practice. 

 

3) I batch administrative tasks and block them into my Clinic Calendar

I group administrative tasks that require a similar focus or relate to a similar aspect of the business (for example, "recruitment" or HR). I then block off 1 hour gaps in my day to get them done. This ensures that I devote dedicated gaps of time in my day to get these things done and that I batch tasks that require similar resources. This relates to the task batching and time blocking habits discussed in module 5.