Dental Consultant | Schedule Blocking: Finding More Time in Your Schedule
Time is a limited resource. Schedule blocking is a way to plan your day visually by designating blocks of time for specific tasks. This strategy is particularly helpful for arranging your schedule to fit a variety of tasks–both inside and outside the office.
Redirect Your Focus
As an office manager or business owner, finding more time in your schedule will allow you to focus on the business. You’ll be able to have a better handle on the health of the business, including growth goals, finances, your team’s efficacy, and patient experience, to name a few. Being successful takes deliberate actions, it doesn’t happen passively.
Time Budgeting
Utilizing schedule blocking allows you to delegate your time and energy for specific tasks. By setting aside a set block of time for different tasks you’ll optimize productivity and can your team a good idea of when you’ll be available.
Stay Organized
Organization is easy! It’s easiest to practice schedule blocking using an online calendar. Time block schedules minimize the need of keeping track of important notes and tasks on paper or needing to commit them to memory.
Many find using a color coding system to differentiate tasks helps them stay organized and keeps their schedule easy to read at a glance.
Sounds Great! How do I start?
Take a few minutes now to jot down your goals for the next few days. As you prepare to put them in your calendar, review some of these tips to help you get started with blocking your schedule:
- Set Goals and Due Dates
With your list of goals for the next few days, take some time and set deadlines for each task. When you have a written set of goals with due dates, you hold yourself accountable to getting them done. It’s a lot harder to push something off that you have a written, visual deadline for than something you’re only mentally keeping track of.
- Make Every Minute Count
Schedule your whole day and include everything–from morning emails to closing procedures. When you schedule your entire day it helps you get more done and leaves you with more free time. By accounting for all the tasks–big and small–you’ll find you have less stress throughout the day knowing you haven’t forgotten anything.
- Prioritize
When reviewing your schedule for the day, prioritize the most important tasks to be done. Schedule blocking helps you prioritize tasks based on what’s most important. And by color coding, it’s easy to stay organized and arrange your schedule based on levels of importance.
- Maximize Your Schedule
Set realistic time goals for your daily tasks. If you know a task usually takes one hour, you can allocate an hour by blocking your schedule without worrying about where you’ll find the time for the task. Time blocking prevent overbooking yourself and affords you the appropriate amount of time to finish your tasks each day. Time blocking also reduces the amount of time you spend planning for a task and offers you more time to execute the task.
We hope these tips help you take control of your day instead of allowing your day to take control of you!
If you need help with schedule optimization in your practice or other practice consultation services, please contact us to learn more and to get started today!
