The Template You Need to Optimize Your Schedule

Expert consultants Tiff and Kristy give listeners a look inside their head when it comes to scheduling the most efficient and optimized way possible — and in a way that won’t feel overwhelming. Their advice, which includes the right verbiage and what to do when schedules change last minute, will start all team members with their best foot forward for various tasks throughout the work week. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back today. I have Miss Kristy with me. I stole her for the afternoon. If you listen to the job description, I don't know what they're gonna call it, but we talked about optimizing your job description basically and metrics. And if you listen to that one, you know Kristy is like my calm in the storm. and ending my day with her today, I was like, there's no better way to end a Monday. So if you have the opportunity to work with Kristy one-on-one, she is your consultant, you guys. I envy you. You get more time with her every month than I do. Truly, I envy you. And you also know exactly what I'm talking about, Kristy. Your calm is just incredible. I will never not talk about it. So thank you for ending your day with me today and ending. It's a good day. It's an exciting week for us, so thank you for being here. DAT Kristy (00:51) Yeah, thank you for having me. It is a good Monday ⁓ ending with podcasting with you and then we're on the heels of our live event. So excitement all around this week. The Dental A Team (01:02) I know, I agree, I agree. There's so much just, there's so much to be thankful for, so much to be excited about, and I think something that's been coming up a lot, and something that we do a ton in our own schedules, even just talking about, Kristy, your client's getting more time with you than I do, like even individually, you guys, individually, I think you see her more than I do. And there's no bad feelings, I promise, I harbor no anger. I am just slightly jealous. ⁓ But I think on that note, like it requires some really, really specific special skills to be able to plan a week and plan a day. luckily it's something we train on because I think we're really good at it and we have to be even within our own position. like Monday, we're ending our Monday with podcasting because Monday is kind of our meeting slash admin day. Friday is our secondary admin day. And then we have all of our calls Tuesday through Thursday. There are some. people in there that slide in other days, but they know the caveat is it may have to be moved because these are our admin days. So Kristy, I think it's just like divine that this is the conversation we're having. Today's conversation is all about optimizing your schedule, making sure what you're doing is optimized. But Kristy, before we really start talking about the in practice, like dental schedule, I think it would be smart to maybe even tell me how do you... when you look at your schedule, what is the thought process that goes through your mind on optimizing your schedule? Because I think business is business, schedule is schedule, how I schedule anything is how I schedule everything, and how I do anything is how I do everything. So how do you look at your schedule and think to optimize it? DAT Kristy (02:47) Yeah, well, I love that you started it with us and our schedule because with anything, you're either going to be doing it by default or you're going to be intentional about it, right? And so a lot of times when we do it by default, we'll look back at the days and we're like, my gosh, it was such a crazy day. And we look at the end dollar that we produced and it was like, ⁓ why am I doing this? And then there could be another day where we hardly did anything and it felt like, The Dental A Team (02:58) Mm, I love that. DAT Kristy (03:17) We won the world, you know, we hit our goal. And so I think just to your point by being intentional, it's not about being crazy, right? But to your point, Tiff, we have to start somewhere. And I think sometimes people get very overwhelmed with where to start. And so obviously I like to start with where were we last year? You know, what is my goal this year? ⁓ Obviously, doctors have to look at things from an overhead and business perspective, which is smart, and what percent are we expecting to grow this year. So knowing those benchmarks, first and foremost, but when it comes to specifically team and scheduling, ⁓ we need to know if that's our goal, where are we at today, and how can we bridge that gap to get there? So looking at what's our procedure mix. How many, you know, take your procedure count and how many have you done in the last year? I can want something all the time. And we hear this Tiff, we were kind of joking about it earlier, but you know, doctors want to do more implants and we do their ...