5 ways to create time to work on your business

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Hi, docs. Welcome to the Entre MD Podcast where it is all about helping amazing physicians just like you. Embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, Dr. Una.

Well, hello. Hello. Welcome to another episode of the Entre MD podcast. Today we are going to be looking at five ways to create time to work on your business. Now, I talk to a lot of physicians and one of the things I hear is like, you have no idea how busy I am. I don't have time for a business. I really want to start a business, but I can't imagine where I'll find the time. And today I'm going to show you five ways you can find the time. Okay, now, before we get into that, you guys know Entre MD Live is coming up on June 27th. It is our annual business of medicine event. I think it is the ultimate business of medicine event. And it's going to be virtual this year, but it's going to be off the chain. It's not going to be a zoom meeting. It's going to be a virtual experience that will leave you inspired and empowered. You are going to see what other successful physician entrepreneurs are doing, all in different stages. Whether just starting out or, you know, right there trying to hit that part where they become profitable or they have established businesses and they're just like, now I'm ready to Scale this. I'm ready to do this bigger. Okay? So whichever category you fall into, there is a place for you. And you are going to leave with blueprints, frameworks, roadmaps. Like, this is how you do this. This is how you make this work. And the reason why that is so exciting is because as doctors, we are hard workers. We're not afraid of work. We believe the imposs. That's how we became doctors. We just need a roadmap. We just need to know this is what you do to get there, so we can go there. Okay. All right. So I love watching basketball, and that is because my husband loves watching basketball, you know, so it just makes for a great marriage. So I watch Mark Cuban a lot, and he is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. And you see him, you know, with his T shirt on, you know, looking all casual, but always, always really riled up, you know, when his guys are playing and all of that. Stu gets lots of fines and stuff like that because he interferes with the game and stuff like that. But I remember looking at him and going, like, but wait a minute. This guy owns at least 150 companies. And even if he only had one employee per company, which he doesn't, It's a lot more. It's still a lot of employees that he has to manage. And a lot of different people he has to manage for the different businesses. And I'm like, where does he find the time? Like, how can you run 150 companies? I'm running four or five, and I'm going like, oh, my goodness. You know, Then I had an aha moment. Because I was like, I need to figure this out, right? I had an aha moment. And that's what this. What the aha moment was is everybody has 24 hours. He has 24 hours. I have 24 hours. So it's not so much that I don't have time, is that I am not using my time the way he is, right? Because he's able to do all that stuff within the same amount of time that I have. So I think we're gonna get a lot out of this episode. And I want you to just listen with an open mind. Cause sometimes we go like, no, you don't understand. My life or my situation is different. I want you to listen with an open mind, because everybody you see out there who's doing a lot of stuff, they have the same exact amount of time that you do. That I do. All right, so five ways to create the time. The first thing, the very first Thing is to fix your mindset. The very first thing you have to come to terms with the fact that I don't have to do everything, but I have to do the most important things. Okay, So I want you to think about it. You are never going to have enough time to do everything that you need to do. You're just not. You're always going to have more books to read than you've read, more podcast episodes to listen to than you can listen to, more obligations at work, more forms to be filled. Like you're just going to have more than you have time to. So since you're not going to have time to do everything, then you definitely need to make out time for the most important things. So if there are things you are procrastinating on or things that you're delegating or things that you're eliminating, those should be the less important things. You should be doing the most important things. So the first thing is to come to terms with the fact that I don't have time for everything. I don't have time for everything. I don't have time for everything, but I have time for the most important things. You have to tell yourself that I have time to for the most important things. I have time to do the most important things. Okay, so that's the first thing. The second thing is something that I learned many, many, many years ago, probably my first or second year in private practice. And I remember I would work all day and then I used to pick up shifts at the er. So I would work some of those shifts and then I'll come back and then I'm doing my notes. So I've been gone all day. My kids are happy to see me. They run up to me, we hug, we snuggle, then I chase them away so I can focus on charting. And I was like, this makes no sense. I went to work all day to come back home and then tell them to go away so I can work. And then I read in Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy, you guys know I love Brian Tracy and I love Eat that Frog where he talked about hard time and soft time. Hard time being the time you're at work. Soft time is the time that you're with your family and your loved ones and your self care time and all of that stuff. And he's like, if you don't work all the time, you're at work during your hard time, your hard time will encroach on your soft time. So his principle is work all the while, all the time you're at work, work all the time. You're at work all the time. You're at work, work, right? And you might go like, I work all the time I'm at work. Yeah, maybe you do, but, but, but do you have those long coffee breaks? Do you have that random 20, 30 minute period that you are on Facebook or social media? Or maybe that 20 minute time where you guys just sat and fussed about your boss? Those are all times that you should be working, okay? So I adopted it. And he teaches the 4812 principle where put your head down, work for 48 minutes in the hour, for the last 12 minutes of the hour, put your head up, come up for air and then go back, okay? And so I started adopting that at work. And I haven't had to chart at home for years. Like I just don't do it because I finish all my work when I'm at work so that my soft time stays my soft time. And now if you're starting a business, if you're able to do that, that means when you are done with your job, you can go do some dedicated time for your business. Do you see what I'm saying? But work all the time that you're at work, okay? Same thing in your business. Work all the time that you're at work. And especially if you have a service based, coaching types, consulting type service, it takes a lot more discipline to work all the time you're at work, right? Because maybe some of your work is on social media and you're like, I'm going to go do this for my business on social media. You've been there for 45 minutes and you haven't even done anything for your business, right? Or you know, because you don't have to be anywhere, you're waking up later, you're taking extra naps, you're, you know, having extra time to talk on the phone. You know, that's casual when you should be working. So work all the time that you're at work, all right? Number three is spend all your time, well, most of your time on high priority tasks, all right? So I want you to think the 8020 principle, the parietal rule, that's what it's called, where you have to come to terms with the fact that 20% of what you do will give you 80% of your results. 20%, okay? So is the vital few versus the trivial many. You should not be focusing on the trivial many when you haven't done the vital few. Okay? So for instance, when I Go to work to see patients. What is my job? I need to see the patients. I need to complete my charting and my coding and all of that stuff. And I need to complete all correspondence, whether it's, you know, prior authorizations I need to sign or prescription refills, I need to take care of all that kind of stuff. I have to do that before I can do anything else. Those are my three big things in my entre MD business. What are my vital few? Vital few would include content creation, whether that's the podcast or a blog piece or, you know, posts for Facebook or social media, videos that I do, emails, all that kind of stuff. Content creation, that's one. Coaching, doing the actual coaching with my clients, that's two. And then collaborations, that's three. Those are my big things. And before I do anything else, like tinkering at a website, which is not my zone of genius, or, you know, scheduling clients, which is not my zone of genius, I need to have done my 20%. So what is that for you? If you have never sat down to analyze what that is, I want you to do that today because it will show you where you need to be spending 80% of your time. It needs to be spent on the vital few. But the vital few, that will give you the biggest bang for your buck. Okay? All right. So spend all your time, most of your time on high priority tasks. So how do you catch yourself during the day to see, is this what I'm doing? It's a simple question. Is this the best use of my time right now? Get into a habit of asking yourself, is this the best use of my time right now? Is this the best use of my time right now? And if you're doing something you shouldn't be doing, if you're doing something that falls in the trivial many, you can catch yourself and say, no, it's not because I haven't done 1, 2, 3, I haven't done my 20%. Okay, all right, so that's number three. Number four. Oh, my gosh, you need to say this out loud, except you're where you shouldn't be saying anything out loud. Delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate. How many times have I said that? Delegate, delegate. And doctors, we are so good at so many things, and if we don't know them, we figure them out. So this is something that most of us suck at. Okay? Most of us suck at. Delegate, delegate, delegate. If there are things you do not have to do, don't do them. Whether this is, you know, in a, in a clinical setting or whether this is in a business setting, if there are things that somebody else can do, especially if that person earns less than you do, you should be delegating it. Okay? And I have a whole episode on, you know, how to use a virtual assistant to grow your business. And you should go back and listen to that. And you probably want to bring, bring a VA on board, even if it's 10 hours or 20 hours to start with. And you need to start getting things off your plate. Okay? Now there's an exercise that I learned and they would have you. Actually, it's from Brian Tracy as well. And they'll have you calculate your hourly rate. And your hourly rate is whatever number you want to earn in a year divided by 2000. Okay? So let's say you said, you know, I'm building a multiple six figure business. We're going to bring in $500,000. If you're going to do, annual rate is $2,500. What that means is the tasks you should be doing are tasks that will produce twenty five hundred dollars an hour. And if they want, you shouldn't be doing them. Okay? If you're like, oh my goodness, I want to crack my first six figures and all of that stuff, then that means your hourly rate comes to 50 bucks an hour. And you shouldn't be doing anything that doesn't pay 50 bucks an hour. Do you see what I'm saying? Like delegate, okay? If you are doing something that you can pay somebody 10 bucks an hour to do or 20 bucks an hour to do, get it off your plate. And then focus on other high priority tasks. Okay? So delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate. I think I've said it enough. One more delegate. Okay? So get things off your plate, things that somebody else can do, get them off your plate. Number five. Number five is time. Batching. This is one of my favorite things, okay? So when you are on a roll, stay on the roll. When you take all this time to psych yourself and to get started and all this stuff, stay on the roll. So for instance, if you produce videos and you want to do a video a week, a video a week comes to four to five videos a month, depending on the month. When you go to do your videos, sit down once, do all your outlines, create all your videos and be done, and you're done for the month, okay? Especially if you don't like doing it. Oh, I have to go start. I have to go do this video. And then you think about it for a whole day and you Procrastinate on it. And then maybe by the third day, you record the video and you're like, oh, my gosh, next week I have to do this over again. No, just time batch and get it all done. Okay. When I do podcast episodes, I don't do them every Wednesday so that you have an episode every Monday. No, I batch them. Sometimes I'll do three at a time, sometimes I'll do four at a time. And why do I do that? Because I want you to have a new episode episode every Monday. I do. And the only way to do that is a time batch. Okay, so how do you save time? Like all the time you just spent? Think of the fact they have to do it. Setting up, getting in the mood, getting your mojo going and all of that stuff. Rather than having to do that four times a month, you can do that once and you're done. And then you're done. And people are like, oh, my gosh, you're so consistent. You go like, yes, I am. But you know, it's because of time batching. Same thing with, say, in a clinical setting. And you're going to see patients see them. You're going to do your notes. Do like, focus and do that. If somebody comes at you and says, I need to sign this, I need you to sue this, just tell them I am going to be signing all documents on Tuesdays and Thursdays just before lunch or once I walk in the door in the morning. So that you don't have those constant interruptions. Because every time you get interrupted, it takes 11 minutes for you to find yourself back, back where you were. It's not as simple as a one minute thing. And that way you don't get constantly interrupted and you can quote, unquote, time batch what you do clinically. So think about where you can apply that in your business. Think about where you can apply that in your clinical practice so that you can focus. Don't say, oh, I'll work on my business when I get time. You can schedule time. And you're like, this is the time I work on my business. Okay? And then you batch what you do at that time. So these are five ways that you can find more time. So first of all is the mindset piece. You have to make a decision. You have to agree with the statement that says, I don't have time to do everything, but I have time to do the most important things. Okay, then work all the time you're at work. And then every time you're at work and you're wasting Time, realize that that's the time you could have used on your business. That's the time you could have spent with your family. You don't have that time when you go to work, work, and then save that time to do other stuff. Number three, spend all your time on high priority tasks. The question to always be asking, is this the best use of my time right now? Number four, delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate. Get things off your plate, okay? And if you don't know what to do, you can come in the Entre MD Facebook group, and if you're not a part of it, you should be. And you come ask, what kind of tasks are you guys delegating? And you get tons of ideas from there. Okay? Number five is time. Batching, batch away. All right, so apply these five things. Free up an extra 3 to 5 to 6 to 10 to 12 hours, depending on what you do to work on building a business that will give you the financial freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. You can do this. And if you're going like, I'm a doctor, I don't really think I can do this, you need to go listen to the episode 7 Reasons why Physicians make the Best Entrepreneurs. Because you, my friend, are the man or the woman for the job. Alrighty. So thank you for listening. I look forward to seeing you June 27th for Entre MD Live. Okay, so if you haven't got your tickets, go get them entremd.com event. Looking forward to seeing you then. And also on the next episode of the entremd podcast. See you later.

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