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Wired for Success by Alan A. Curtis, DDS, MS, Editorial Director, Orthotown Magazine

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2013 Calendaring

by Alan A. Curtis, DDS, MS, Editorial Director, Orthotown Magazine

When it comes time to plan for 2013 (or any year for that matter), what is your plan of attack? How do you decide what hours to work, what days to work and when to take time off with the family? As I am in the process of planning my 2013, I thought it would be a great topic for discussion.

Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan
On a blank piece of paper write out all of the things you'd like to accomplish (i.e., work goals, retirement planning, family vacations, continuing education, staff team building, improving your golf game, college football trips, ski trips, charity/volunteer activities). Write out your ideal work hours and the number of days per month you'd like to work. (Example: "I'd like to work one 7 a.m. start per week and I'd like to work 10-12 days per month. I'd like to volunteer in my child's school once a month. I want to have every Monday off and would like to work half day every Friday. I'd like to have one full week off per month.") You get the idea. I have colleagues who work six days a week, three weeks a month and then take a full week off every month. No desire is too crazy! (Getting your staff to buy into the idea is another thing.) Shoot for designing your ideal schedule by beginning with the principles that are most important to you.

Gather Resources
  1. Download a Word or Excel calendar from the Internet (www.wincalendar.com).
  2. Go to the local school district Web site and download the school schedules.
  3. Have a planning meeting with your spouse to discuss vacations, etc. (Don't forget your anniversary!)
  4. Gather information about CE (AAO meetings, regional meetings, manufacturer forums etc.).
Lay out the information you have collected onto one calendar. Color-code vacation, patient days, admin days and your days off. Compare your days off to holidays, school testing schedules and school breaks to make sure you are working smart. Great days to close the office and do staff meetings are the first days of school, standardized testing and the last day of school. Parents love to make the most of long school breaks – if it fits your values and goals for your office, schedule a lot of production appointments during these times (exams and starts). While the things I've just mentioned are obvious and make common sense, mapping them out into a strategic plan for your ideal schedule doesn't always spontaneously happen. It took two years in practice before I realized the importance of knowing the schools' standardized testing dates. Somehow all of the appointments I'd scheduled seemed to have fallen apart!

Once you have filled out the schedule to reflect the values, goals and priorities of your practice (taking into consideration schools schedules), evaluate whether you have enough days to meet the financial and practice growth you wish to achieve. Analyze this schedule with a bird's-eye view. Share the calendar with a non-competing colleague for feedback. Share this calendar with a trusted management employee (office manager, TC, lead assistant). Compare this calendar to your current year's calendar to see what days worked well and which ones seemed to fall flat.

Online Calendar
Our office uses e-mail hosted by Google (called Google Apps). http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html.

This service is free for businesses (up to 10 user accounts) and uses your own FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name Example: CurtisOrthoAZ.com). Once you have created your Google Apps account and have it up and running, you can use the calendaring feature to share your work calendar with your employees. By transferring your Excel annual planning calendar to this online calendar you will now have a calendar that you and your staff can access from anywhere via your smartphone and is always up-to-date, even if you decide in May that you are going to take the family on a trip to visit the world's largest ball of twine. Staff will know when the monthly staff meeting is, when the holiday party is and when the continuing education course is.

Practice Management Software
Now that you have designed, evaluated and shared your ideal schedule with your team, it is time to put this calendar into your practice management schedule. This last step is oftentimes the first step with most offices. Plugging the newly created calendar into the practice management software one year in advance allows you to schedule recall/observation patients into specific template appointments. Schedules should be constantly massaged to fit the changing environment of your practice. The key element to planning the ideal schedule is to plan your work and work your plan.

Orthotown Magazine
September 2025
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