This article was originally published in a sponsored newsletter.
It’s inspiring to connect with successful professionals within and surrounding our industry. I enjoy every opportunity to hear new thought leadership and trends to stay on the forefront of new potential. One common sentiment I hear is our desire to balance work and life, in whatever manner appeals to us, and many strategies exist to help us find what works for our practices. I’ve found and written about some of my best shortcuts to gain invaluable time in our practices each day, but I’d like to explore some private tips as well. After all, we don’t live in isolated bubbles; practice and personal often bleed together. Let’s dive into my best professional and personal time-savers.
Virtual Assistants (VAs). I wrote an entire article about this in 2023 and have since made some updates (see my “Mini-Refresh, Part 4”). Using VAs truly has been the number one best add to my practice in the past two years. They save me time with effective and efficient management of administrative tasks (such as patient follow-up), so I can be out the door earlier with an increased bottom line. In my personal life, I use VAs for email management, scheduling appointments, gathering and sending necessary documents for my kids’ school, creating schedules, meal planning, ordering groceries and more. VAs save me about three to four hours each week.
The list of tasks VAs can help with is literally endless and the financial productivity gained at my office affords me the ability to bring in help from a household manager and meal planning services.
Household Manager. A group of working moms in my neighborhood all had the same issues with the chores of life: laundry, groceries, organization, kids’ schedules, etc. I have a supportive spouse who helps with all those tasks, but he works as well. I wanted to have more time with my family, not just around them, so, for the last year, our group of moms has shared a household manager who helps our families for a few hours per week. This person comes over and does laundry and meal prep, organizes areas of the house and assists with scheduling household maintenance. I also ask her to prepare snacks for my kids to take to sports, archive my kids’ art projects, return packages and even help me research products that we might find useful so I can purchase them. Her help gains me about four hours every week.
Weekly Meal Planning. Planning, shopping for and prepping meals used to bog me down, but I’ve found a plethora of ways to help. No time to go to the grocery store? Enter a list of what you have in your fridge/pantry into ChatGPT and ask it to create a meal plan for you. If you do have time to get the groceries yourself or to use a delivery service, you can also find resources on social media that can create plans for you. I’ve found that keeping a journal of meals makes a good reference for ideas, too. Every week doesn’t have to be a novel food experience, but you shouldn’t feel that you are rotating the same five meals, either. Finally, I try to do some heavy prep of ingredients on the weekends, or ask my household manager to do so, which makes subsequent meal prep easier.
These tools have saved me time and money and have given me headspace to figure it all out. I estimate that I’ve reclaimed one to two hours each week using them.
Although this list is not 100% exhaustive, these are my favorite time-savers. With them, I gain more work and personal flexibility and feel a greater sense of peace and efficiency at the office.
