When we aim to become more efficient, it helps tremendously to be proactive. We often deal with wasted time trying to put out fires. We also deal with urgent but unimportant tasks because we are often unprepared for the challenges ahead. High-performing individuals and teams practice and prepare for their work. Abraham Lincoln said, “give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.”
Mise En Place
Chefs who run effective kitchens prepare and are proactive in the culinary world. Mise en place is a French term for preparing your ingredients and setting up before cooking. Professional kitchens prepare their workspace, prepare their equipment, and gather the items needed for their menu offerings. Before starting food service, they measure, cut, peel, slice, and grate their ingredients.
Chefs understand the critical time. “Showtime” is when the customers arrive and sit and order from the menu. They can concentrate on the client experience and refine detailed work when all basic steps are complete. There is no delay in preparing their ingredients until dining begins, so their kitchen runs efficiently and proactively.
Proactive Orthodontics
In the same way, as a chef and his team prepare for dinner service, an orthodontic team can follow the same principles to prepare for clinical work. We should be spending time working on the business and not just in the business. We train our teams, set up systems, gather supplies, and prepare for our clinical work ahead of time. For example, we prepare clinical trays for the scheduled appointments each half-day in our practice. We arrange brackets into bonding pads for the start appointments. We also preload attachment templates for patients starting clear aligner treatment. These and other techniques reduce clinical time in each patient visit to gain scheduling capacity and keep appointments shorter and more efficient.
Consider all of the areas in your orthodontic practice where the team focuses on proactive work so each day can run more smoothly. When we follow the principles from mise en place and put everything in place, we gain greater productivity and reduce stress.
