Prioritization

“There just aren’t enough hours in the day!”

“Where did all the time go?”

“I can’t believe it’s five o’clock already. I didn’t even get half of the things done today that I’d hoped to do.

If you find yourself having frustrating thoughts such as these, you are not alone. One of the most difficult things about being a managing optician is trying to balance all of the responsibilities and relationships in which we find ourselves involved. The owner of the business is interested only in the bottom line. The optometrist has patient care paramount in her mind. Your optical staff has endless needs and requests. You had better not forget the patients and customers either. You feel pulled and tugged in all directions by all of these people who depend on you to be a touchtone of sanity in what can sometimes be an insane environment. All the while, the clock keeps ticking...

There is no shortage of comprehensive information about many different strategies when it comes to “finding more time in your day.” The best advice is that a frustrated manager needs to apply real, conscious thought and attention to how his or her time is spent; and specifically decide on some real criteria in making that decision – that is prioritization. If you are serious about being more efficient with your time, start to experiment with some different ideas. You will eventually hit on some ideas that “work” for you and your staff. Here are a few random thoughts that will start you on your way.

Identify High-Influencer Activities. Before you can do this, you will need to meet with key staff members and discover what their top priorities, needs, and goals really are. Once you have that deep understanding it will be easier you to distinguish between a “High-Influencer Activity” – something that gets you closer to achieving those goals; and “Low-Influencer Activities” – something that does not. (Maybe refilling those patient records could have waited after all.)

Be Proactive. If you are familiar with Stephen Covey’s, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (and if you are not, you should be), you know that “Be Proactive” is Habit #1. Sadly, most optical managers are the opposite of proactive. They are reactive. They wait for a problem to occur and then try to fix it. They constantly feel like they are putting out fires. If this describes you, see #1, above. When you have a better understanding of top goals and priorities, you are better able to “forecast,” and take steps to head off problems before they occur.

Hard/Distasteful First. Some people find that when tackling a “To Do” list, doing the hardest and most distasteful items first is sometimes worthwhile. Knocking these things out first thing in the morning while you are fresh and energetic leaves the less taxing items to be achieved throughout the day.

Quick/Easy First. The opposite of Hard/Distasteful, some people find it more effective to “knock out” 10-12 insignificant, less time-consuming things first, which then leaves them the rest of the day to concentrate on that one, really important item.

Urgent/Important. A hallmark of the Covey method of time management, this process encourages managers to construct a four-quadrant grid, and consciously place all of their day-to-day activities into each of the quadrants, based on specific criteria. Quadrant I is for Urgent and Important things. Quadrant II is for Important/Not Urgent things. Quadrant III is for things that are Not Important/Urgent things. Quadrant IV is for things that are Not Important/Not Urgent. To gain a real understanding of this method of prioritization, read the 7 Habits. The following three methods can be readily researched on the Web.

Ansoff/Boston Matrices. An Ansoff/Boston matrix is helpful when determining action based on the relative risk involved in the decision-making process.

Pareto Principle Analysis. You may have heard that generally speaking, 80% of all your success is achieved by 20% of your efforts. That is the Pareto Principle at work. Using the Pareto Principle Analysis will be helpful when there are many things that need to be done, and there is not a lot of time to do them.

Nominal Group Technique. This final technique may also be used when there are many decisions that need to be made, and many people have different ideas of what is most important and most urgent. Interested parties are invited to participate, and may all “nominate” certain things that they feel need to be done. Then after some discussion, the entire group anonymously casts a vote (usually 1-10) for each item, based on what they feel is most important. The chips then automatically fall, as the group assigns priority to each item. While all of these methods have their advantages and disadvantages, this one helps to ensure “buy-in” and “ownership” with the group. They feel emotionally attached to the goals.