Episode 166: Don’t Let Procrastination Derail Your Dental Practice

“Why didn’t you finish that? Well, I dunno, I just got busy on other stuff.” ~Dr. Bruce B. Baird

Procrastination. 

This word just came up recently and hit me between the eyes. All those things we think about, but never do. I also like to call this the “Yeah, buts.” Tell me if the below sound familiar:

Yeah, I’ve always wanted to change my service mix, but I don’t know where to start. 

Yeah, I’ve always wanted to update our referral program, but I’m tired at the end of the day. 

Before you listen to this podcast, ask yourself the following question (and be honest with yourself): what things would be better in your life if you weren’t procrastinating about them?

Whether it’s your practice or your life, join me today for an open conversation about tackling procrastination and setting aside the “yeah, buts” that are holding you back, including:

• Why you’re not completing your great ideas
• What worry has to do with procrastination
• Some ideas about how to overcome procrastination

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Regan 0:00
Hi Dr., Regan Robertson, CCO of Productive Dentist Academy here, and I have a question for you. Are you finding it hard to get your team aligned to your vision, but you know, you deserve growth just like everybody else? That’s why we’ve created the PDA productivity workshop. For nearly 20 years, PDA workshops have helped dentists just like you align their teams, get control of scheduling, and create productive practices that they love walking into every day. Just imagine how you will feel when you know your schedule is productive. Your systems are humming, and your team is aligned to your vision. It’s simple, but it’s not necessarily easy. We can help visit productivedentist.com/workshop that’s productivedentist.com/workshop to secure your seats now.

Dr. Bruce Baird 0:47
Why didn’t I finish that? I don’t know, I just got busy on another project. Are you getting busy on other projects, stuff that really isn’t going to matter? Now sometimes I’ll do things that are just fun stuff. Like go, go out and play golf and go do other things and that sets a priority, spending time with my grandkids, spending time with my kids. You know those take priority over you know, be completing some of my thoughts and ideas. Hello, everyone, this is Dr. Bruce B. Baird and you’re listening to The Productive Dentist Podcast in this podcast I will give you everything that I’ve learned over the last 40 years in dentistry working with 1000s of dentists. I’ll tell you it’s not that my way is the only way, it’s just one that has worked extremely well for me and I’d love to share that with you so you too can enjoy the choices and lifestyle the productivity allows, more time for things you love, increased pay, better team relationships, and lowered stress. Let’s get into it with this week’s episode of the Productive Dentist Podcast

Dr. Bruce Baird 2:01
Hi, this is Dr. Bruce Baird with the Productive Dentist Podcast and hopefully you guys are having a good summer and I’ve been on the road for the last few weeks, but something came up in my travels that kind of, kind of hit me between the eyes and it is, it’s the word procrastination. Any you guys ever procrastinate? I think MTS Manji. used to call it “Yeah, buts” it’s you know, there’s, you know, do you want to go to the beach? Yeah, but I’d like to, but I have something to do, or I’d like to do my evaluations of my employees, but you know, I’ve got something going on right now, or I’ve always wanted to, I’ve always wanted to take a course on implants, but you know, I just, I’m just happy where I’m at and sometimes, you know, I tell my wife that, you know, I think I’m lazy and she says, “You’re the least lazy person I know,” and I think that people with  ADD or ADHD, when they’re not going crazy, they are, they feel like they’re not doing anything and I read an article that Leonardo da Vinci was apparently had ADD and ADHD. He had over 7000 pages written in his notepads or his notes, and 1000s of inventions that he never completed. You know, where are most of the ideas in the world? Well, they’re in the cemetery, because people get these great ideas, but um, we don’t do things with them. Now, I’ve been fortunate, you know, have an ADD that I’ve also learned to hyper-focus somewhat, but that still doesn’t release me from, suffering from, from the app, but I have to do this or just procrastination and, you know, we’ve started multiple companies and I look back and I go, “Why didn’t, why didn’t I ever pursue this, or why did I never pursue that?” You know, great ideas, but things that didn’t go forward. Compassionate Finance was was one and yes, we were able to get it, where, where we wanted it to go and it’s helped millions of patients, but and 1000s of dental offices, but you know, what about the other ideas? What about the other things that are, that are out there? Do you have any of those? Have you been thinking about any of those? Is this some that, is there something that you’ve wanted to accomplish, but just haven’t done yet? And I’ve kind of reset myself to, after reading and thinking, looking at all these different things that, that I haven’t completed my golf glove dryer. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s all designed, I already have it completely drawn up and everything else, I just never took it to manufacturing and marketing. You know, it actually hooks onto your golf bag, you just attach your glove to it, hit a button and it dries your glove out. Now, that’s not a problem if you’re in Cabo where it’s dry, but it’s a real problem if you’re in Texas or anywhere, really across the country right now, because of just humidity, you go through three to five golf clubs and, you know, every time you’re out playing, whereas this you can have a couple of gloves that you keep, and you know, they’re not gonna they’re gonna stay dry, they’re not coming mildew and tear up. So why didn’t I finish that? I don’t know, I just got busy on another project. Are you getting busy on other projects, stuff that really isn’t going to matter? Now sometimes I’ll do things that are just fun stuff, like go, go out and play golf and go do other things and, and that sets a priority spending time with my grandkids, spending time with my kids. You know, those take priority over, you know, me completing some of my thoughts and ideas, but I will tell you that I’ve had, I’ve had, I’ve had multiple opportunities to finish the golf club dragger. I’ve had multiple opportunities to do finish, other projects that I have going on, same-day smile centers, we’re working on it, but it just seems to take forever and it’s because I’m not committed, you know, and what I’m going to say, on this podcast is, you know, figure out the things that you want to do and I will worry about procrastinating. Isn’t that crazy? You know, it’s something that, you know, “Oh, gosh, you know, I really need to get that done. Oh, I really,” and I’m worrying about something that I created. So but I could worry, they say the average person worries, seven and a half years of their average lifespan. Now, what is, why are we worrying? You know, what I would say is most of the time when we’re worrying about something, it’s, it’s, it’s in our mind, you ever wake up in the middle of the night and you’re going, “Oh, man, I got to do this, or I got to do that,” and you’re thinking to yourself, you know, and then you can’t sleep, or I got to call this or I got to do this, or I got to do that, but yet, when we wake up, we don’t do it and then the next week, we have that same issue. I was listening to a sermon at our church, and this past weekend, and they were talking about changing the channel. In other words, if your channel is a channel of worry, and you keep taking about gosh, I need to, you know, I need to work on all of the things that are going on at the office, I need to work on those things, and then you don’t do it, or you’re just worrying about it all the time, change the channel to saying, “I’m going to complete this by this amount of time. I’m gonna give myself two weeks, I am going to initially start immediately,” and begin to put the ball in motion and I think that that’s important, you have to put the ball in motion, you have to start the process and then you know, once you start to process, you have a much better chance of finishing whatever it is you’re trying to do. I know, you know, in the office, we want to look around and from the patient’s perspective, what is the office look like? We think about it, but we rarely ever do it. You know, and let’s go through and look at the outside, look at the shrubs, look at the front door, look at those things. Do we do that? Well, you know, we think about it, but are we actually doing it? Do we ever look at our procedure mix? Do we ever think that we’re going to plan this year out better than ever and I’m going to look at every, every procedure that I did over the last year, and how does that compare to the year before? “Yep, I want to do that. Yeah, but I’ve got so much stuff going on right now. We’re busy. We’re busier than we’ve ever been. I don’t have time to do those things,” but then again, do we have time not to do those things? Yeah, we’ll find out find ways to procrastinate and think about things I need to do.

Dr. Bruce Baird 9:41
All day long and you know, after listening to that sermon talk, and then talking about gosh, you know, we waste seven years worrying. I am going to change my I’m going to change my channel. I’m going to start thinking about things and say I’m gonna compartmentalize. I’m gonna say you now this is an idea Oh, that I’m gonna put over here to the left, it’s going to be a potential someday deal that I want to do. It’s not that I need to do it. It’s not that, you know, I’m going to worry because I haven’t done it, but then I’ll evaluate those things and start and start you working on, I can say that about my golf game. You know, I really want to play better. Yeah, but you know, I don’t really want to go out and hit balls when it’s hot. You know, I really want to be better. I want to, I want to spend more time with my grandkids. Yeah, but now Lee, it’s hot out here by the pool may scream or aloud and they’re making all this noise and, you know, do I really want? Yeah, you know, when I think back in my life, I think about times with my grandparents, the times that I have, and I think back to those very fondly. You know, I want to make sure my grandkids look back the same way. And so whether it’s your practice, whether it’s your, I don’t know your imagination on how you know what things that you think you can make the world better. You know, I look at somebody like Elon Musk and I think that time must never procrastinate. You know, he just gets so much done, you know, the Jeff Bezos of the world, you know, they just made it happen, but, you know, I think Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk probably have hundreds of ideas. Certainly, in the case of Elon Musk, you know, hundreds or 1000s of ideas that he wants to do and that has to be frustrating. I don’t know exactly how he gets around it, by continually working. I know he sleeps on the floor. I don’t really want to do that, you know, he sleeps on the floor at SpaceX, he’s, he’s doing all these things, but from my perspective, I want to live, I want to live the good life. I want to be able to travel, I want to be able to do all those things and in order to do those, I want to make sure my business is run at the highest level that you know, I’m able to enjoy family and friends and specifically say, I want to go do something with somebody. You know, we procrastinate about going out with friends. we procrastinate about going out to dinner, you know, I’ve been wanting to call Randy but I just you know his wife, we had so much fun last time we went out but that’s been nine months and let’s go do that and let’s make a plan. Let’s, you know, I’ve been sitting there thinking I gotta get a dermatologist. My sister was a dermatologist for 40 years and she always was checking me and burning, burning places on me and then I haven’t done anything in four years because I just haven’t found anybody and I procrastinated that can be life-threatening. So I guess the whole point of this podcast today is what things are you procrastinating? What are the things that your life would be better if you didn’t worry about it? Your life would be better and your family’s life would be better if you weren’t procrastinating. So these are the things that I’ve been thinking about this last couple of weeks, I’ve been on vacation with a bunch of grandkids, and I’ve been from the West Coast to the East Coast, and then back to the west coast and then back home over the last three weeks, but I’ve been able to sit and relax and think about what are what are the things I want to have happen over the next 10 years, over the next year, but even more importantly, this week and next week, what are the things that I’m going to do to make my life better to make my kid’s life better my wife’s life better, you know, across the board and you know, just think about it. If it’s something that you separate with send me some questions. I’ll be more than happy to tell you how I’ve been able to build multiple businesses, but there’s so many more things that I want to do about you. All right, good talking to you guys this weekend. I look forward to next week’s podcast. Tell your friends about us and we hope to see you next week. Thank you for joining me for this episode of the Productive Dentist Podcast. If you found this episode helpful, make sure you subscribe, pass it along to a friend. Give us a like on iTunes and Spotify or drop me an email at podcast at productive dentist comm don’t forget to check out other podcasts from the Productive Dentist Academy of productivedentistpodcast.com Join me again next week for another episode of the Productive Dentist Podcast