Ben Lynch:Yeah. Hey, Siri, call Jack O'Brien.

Jack O'Brien: Hello.

Ben Lynch: Are you joining us for the podcast?

Jack O'Brien: Yes.

Ben Lynch: Today, this week? Yeah, I'm coming. OK. Here he is. Hi.

Jack O'Brien: I was busy cooking a pizza for my wife. Oh, that's great.

Ben Lynch: G'day, good people. Welcome to the Grow Your Clinic podcast by Clinic Mastery. Here's what's coming up inside of this episode. I think a lot of clinic owners say they want more time, but actually they need more focus.

Hannah Dunn: I don't ever want to see work on the business or admin. Admin, that's a classic one.

Ben Lynch: Pomodoro, what is it? How have you found it used effectively?

Jack O'Brien: Sounds like some tomato paste that you put on a pizza. The point is short time blocks, short rest. What do you mean, Hannah, like get rid of your phone?

Hannah Dunn: Like out of the room, out of sight.

Jack O'Brien: Task lists must get out of the list and onto the diary.

Ben Lynch: What are the top three things that I should prioritise in my week? That's an impossible question to answer. No, come on.

Jack O'Brien: I'll tell you the answer.

Ben Lynch: Alright Hannah, I've got an answer but you go. This episode will be right up your alley if you're looking to get more time to work on your business. Stick around for when Hannah shares a personal insight about how she juggles family and business without working crazy hours. Plus, you'll want to hear Jack's story about a clinic owner going from 60 hours a week to zero hours a week in their consulting. Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by AllieClinics.com If you're the kind of clinic owner who loves to feel organised and stay ahead of the chaos, you'll love Allie Think of it as your digital clone. It's the single source of truth for all your clinic's policies, systems, and training. Test it for free at AllieClinics.com And in other news, applications are now open to work with us one-on-one at Clinic Mastery. If you want support to grow your clinic and bring your vision to life, just email hallowettclinicmastery.com with the subject line podcast and we'll line up a time to chat. All right, let's get into the episode. Welcome. This is your first time listening into the podcast. This is episode 308 of the Grow Your Clinic podcast. We've been doing this since 2018. If you're returning guests, thank you again for tuning in. We haven't made you too bored of us just yet. We try and change it up each week and discuss an important topic for clinic owners navigating a sustainable growth journey, a meaningful growth journey in creating what we call a clinic for good. Before we dive in, across the desk, Javier, I've been out of the office, put the autoresponder on, but what's news? We've got some things that have come through your desk there, in particular around new members into the community.

Jack O'Brien: Yes, certainly. We'd love to welcome a couple of new clinic owners to the Clinic Mastery Business Academy and Elevate. In the last couple of weeks, we've had Francis join us, Marie, Reena, and Chris. So, across the spectrum of podiatry and speech and all sorts of professions. So, welcome to the community to those four legends.

Ben Lynch: Awesome. Excited to work with them and play a role in their next chapter of growth. And we do have some really exciting news on the alley front. It's coming. It's coming. Can we tell them? No, no, not just yet. No, it's like, it's really exciting.

Jack O'Brien: Well, I'll tell you what, if folks want to peek behind the curtain or in on the secret beforehand, just send us an email, ben.clinicmastery.com, and we might be able to tease it out a little bit. If you're not going to share it here, Ben, publicly, we can do it privately. Yes.

Ben Lynch: I'm very excited. Anyway, let's dive into it. Today, we're talking about time. So many clinic owners come to us and say, you know what? I'm working like 60 hours a week consulting. I need to decrease my clinical load to free up more time to work on my business. So I'm going to put it to the both of you to put your advisory, your coaching hat on. A clinic owner comes to you and says, I need more time. And you are determined to help them find some extra time, let's say a day, free up a day a week, somewhere between the next seven days and seven weeks, that's your timeframe, to find an extra day. What is your go-to playbook for freeing up an extra day in the week of a clinic owner's life so that they can work more on their business? Hannah, you look ready to answer this.

Hannah Dunn: Sure. It's, I think one of my favourite things to do because their flow over effect is incredible. I think just starting first with that audit of the calendar and seeing where is time going and really looking at what we can block together. Cause what we'll often find is that clinicians who are directors as well are working on like two clients here, 20 minutes or half an hour. of the business and then they've got another client coming in and then back to business work and flowing back and forth between that. So really looking at how do we streamline those calendars and get in good flow to allow us to find that time. Because often it's not about, like it eventually is about doing less, but at this point it's just about really blocking that time so that we can have some concrete time to work on the business rather than in the business.

Ben Lynch: I like it. Your go-to is what we might otherwise call the McAfee. After Ryan McAfee, I remember these years ago when we were doing one of our internal training sessions here at CM, and we were talking about how do we support clinic owners to get more time. And for those that know Ryan McAfee, he just very straight, he's just very direct, said, show me your calendar. that he got them to screen share the calendar and actually look at it and start to move around appointments and time blocks. So it sounds similar to your approach there, Hannah, as your go-to, your playbook for freeing up an extra day a week is, show me a calendar, let's start to move the time pieces. J.B., what else do you find really useful and how would you approach it?

Jack O'Brien: In a similar vein to Hannah, I'd say get all of your patient consulting in consistent blocks. If they're scattered across five days, jam all of your patient consulting time into two to three days and compress that as much as possible. And I would also say to theme your days and batch your days together. So for instance, for me, I tried to play off a little bit of alliteration. And so Monday would be marketing. I'd spend my time on my Facebook ads, my Google ads, my partner nurturing, doing all of the things that would generate new clients. Thursday was team, went for a tea alliteration. And so I do a lot of my one-to-ones, we do our weekly huddle, we do our culture days, we do all of our team-related things on one particular day. So, theming your days and squeezing all of your clients as back-to-back as possible will mean that when you are on the business, you are as productive and as focused as possible.

Ben Lynch: Love that. But what about the clinic owner who says, Jack, Susie Smith, Patty James, these patients, they're in these time blocks and I've got them booked in forever and I've just seen them for years in this time spot. I can't move them. How do you go about helping a clinic owner who's acting as a therapist as well to navigate shifting those patients that have been there forever?

Jack O'Brien: I'm not going to lie. It's tricky. It's a little bit tense. But those patients that have been loyal to us for a long time, they get it. They often understand. And if they don't get it or they sort of arc up or get really selfish, then are they the types of patients that you really want to be seeing on a weekly basis? So, to be really practical, what I would say to Susie or Patty or whoever the case is, is I'd love to continue working with you. Moving forward, my availability to be able to work with you is on Tuesday or Thursday. I no longer have capacity on Friday. So, I'd love to see you on one of those days. Here's the time slots that would suit both of us. If that doesn't work for you, that's completely fine. I'd love to introduce you to my colleague Hannah down the hall. She's got capacity on Fridays and to be honest, she's a better therapist than I am and I can run her through all that we've worked on previously. You'll be in great hands and I'll still be around. I can pop my head in and say good day, but Hannah's probably best positioned to help you on a Friday or alternatively, I'd love to keep helping you on a Tuesday or a Thursday.

Hannah Dunn: Hmm. And I think that point about, um, you know, I'll be around and I can pop my head in or, um, you know, they're a better clinician and I mentor them. So, you know, if they've, you know, I'll be able to support, I'll still be, um, support.

Jack O'Brien: Chip off the old block.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, absolutely. And so I think that's where we get that statement from the people that we coach of, oh, but they won't see anyone else or they won't go to see someone else. And so it's really about that phrasing and supporting them to understand that They can see someone else and that, yeah, you're there to do it.

Jack O'Brien: We need to, Hannah, I'm interested in your experience. We need to be very assertive and clear and plain in our communication, right? I no longer have capacity to help you on a Friday. There's no ifs or buts or like, oh, look, if you could see me on Tuesday, that'd be great. But if it has to be Friday, then I can squeeze you in at lunchtime. No, no. Be assertive, be confident and be strong. And when you've done that, Hannah, what have your patients been feeding back to you?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, it always works out. I think often what we find is that we're too flexible in what we offer, and we're always working to whatever the client needs. But why are we bending over backwards? They will also bend over backwards if they really want to see you on those days. So providing options and choices is awesome in regards to, you can see me on a Tuesday, or you can see someone else. Keep your therapist and different time, or keep your time, different therapist. I often try and get people to think about it in a mindset shift of, like, they'll say, oh, but, you know, people call the clinic and they just want to see me. I go, okay, well, let's pretend like you are fully booked, like you've got 60 clients in your week, you can't see anyone else, like there's physically no more time. What are you saying to that patient? Well, that one then I would hand over. Okay, great. So if you do it then, why can't we pretend that your book is completely full with immovable appointments? and changing that mindset. Or when people say like, I wanna get ready for having a family and it's the woman who says that I'm gonna be going on mat leave in 12 months time or in two years, I wanna work towards that. Awesome, let's work towards that now because when that day comes, you're gonna be forced to hand over those clients. So let's pretend that's happening now that you're forced to hand those clients over and getting that mindset.

Jack O'Brien: Because I think the key issue is trust. That's ultimately what it comes down to. Those patients that have seen us regularly in that slot trust us and they trust us more than our colleagues for very natural reasons. And so therefore it is our responsibility to increase the trust factor, to transfer the trust. If our patients have enough trust in us and our confidence in our team, then they'll trust us to transfer and trust us to transition. And if they're a little bit hesitant or reluctant, that's our responsibility to fix and address.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point, Joby. As you were just talking through that, Hannah, I was thinking about, we've also recruited that therapist on the team. So, we should have trust that we've recruited correctly and that this person can actually help. And it's also a great vote of confidence, right, for those therapists when you are triaging them or handing over, progressing those clients into their diary. It sort of says, okay, you know, the boss trusts me here as an example. They trust me enough to hand over a loyal, long-standing client of theirs. I remember going through this process back in the day when I was a therapist and Dan was referring his caseload to me. Similar to you, Hannah, in your point around Dan and his wife Julia were expecting their first child, Emmy, and they were preparing to have a couple months off. You know, the start of family life can be a bit chaotic. And so Dan had that reason or excuse to be able to transition his caseload down. And in doing so, many of those clients came my way. And what we did was we sat down and we worked out what are some areas that authentically you have better interest in, insight in, skills in, that I could use when I'm speaking with those longstanding patients who are like, I only come to see you, Daniel. And so then to your point, Jack, of like being really crisp on the communication, that message was really clear. We picked two or three things that, yeah, certainly pigeonholed me in a good way that allowed that transition to happen. So J.R.B., you spoke about how you would theme the days. I love that. I found that particularly useful, and it probably comes to a meta point. I think a lot of clinic owners say they want more time, but actually one of the starting places is they need more focus. Can you just elaborate? Because it's like all of us wish we had more time to get to the never-ending to-do list. But some people are just more effective than others with the time that they have. It is true resourcefulness. So just talk a little bit about the clinic owner who can't make maybe some big changes or quick changes, how you help them really laser in on what's most important.

Jack O'Brien: Hmm. What we choose to do with our time is a reflection of our priorities. And so you will give time and attention to that, which is a priority to you. And so if you're busy dilly dallying around, checking the post office box and running the office works and doing all the Bunnings going to Bunnings. It's probably a reflection that you don't truly connect with your priorities. Again, clinic owners will often delay or avoid updating their desire statement or reflecting on their blue sky vision or what really matters to them personally or their clinic and then they wonder why they're running around doing low-level tasks. If you spend a little bit of time, probably in your own personal time on a weekend or of an evening, maybe early in the morning, that's what it is for me. It's before the kids get up, before the sun gets up, truly reflecting on your core purpose, you'll prioritise that which actually matters. So, that'd be the first thing. And then I think I think we don't know what we want to spend that time on. We want to work on the business more, but what are you going to do and how long is that going to take? Specifically, how long is it going to take? What are you going to do with the minutes and what's the outcome of that work you're going to do? If you get clearer on that, it's less of these big four-hour time blocks and more a case of, I need to spend 20 minutes working on this project. I want to spend 25 minutes contacting six referrers. Get granular with your intention. Smaller, smaller time blocks because essentially it narrows the window or the margin for error. When you have a two-hour time block, Yeah, you kind of muck around, like things take as long as you give them and you never actually… That's Parkinson's law, right?

Ben Lynch: Is it Parkinson's law?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, one of those Anglo-Saxon names.

Ben Lynch: It'll fill the time that it's allotted. Yeah, yeah. So, Hannah, Jack raises a good point around being clear on your outcome or your priority. So, how do you guide, maybe how do you do it to determine what truly is the priority focus for you to make the most of your time?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, absolutely. It resonates so well. They're reflecting that you do each morning, Jack, on what the priorities are and what your values are. And I've spoken before in a podcast about my agendio and that I sit down on the, I'm aiming for Friday, but it's currently on Sundays, and looking at the week ahead that I've written out the week before. So I have the calendar on line and then hand write out and the reason I hand write it out is to make sure that I know what I'm doing, I don't have any conflicts and that my time is blocked well and I can see anything that is not in good flow and making sure that we get that fixed before we get to the time. So let's say between 11 and 11 30 I've got something that's not going to help me get whatever I need done. If I identify that on Sunday then I can fix it before I get to that time block on Wednesday and think, I don't know what I'm doing in this time or thinking, hey, this is a great time to go and get a cup of tea and I'll just flick through the diary and see what I've got on. I think what Jack was talking to you about before, getting granular, it's about not only having that 20 minutes, but in that four-hour block, if you've got it, if you're two-hour block, I don't ever want to see work on the business or admin. Admin, that's a classic one. Yes, admin. Absolutely. I want to see like, client journey. looking at where our referrals are coming into, have a look at seeing if we can identify our strongest referrer via searching on our drive or on your client management system or whatever it is, getting really granular in what the tasks are that you're doing. Because even though you're like, I don't have time right now, it's like half an hour at 7am. Putting that time into that and getting it lined out, what you're going to do is going to save you an hour at the end of the day or throughout your day.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point. J.O.B., you spoke to a couple of different outcomes. For that clinic owner that's just swamped at the moment, maybe they don't know what they don't know. And they're like, Jack, just tell me, what are the top three things that I should really truthfully prioritise in my week? What are the outcomes?

Jack O'Brien: That's an impossible question to answer. No, come on.

Jack O'Brien: I'll tell you the answer.

Jack O'Brien: Go ahead, Hannah. I've got an answer, but you go. I want it.

Hannah Dunn: Um, no, my one thing that I see the most is meetings over meetings over meetings, where you're meeting with the same people with different topics that save so much time when we streamline and looking at those points of contact, like how often are you meeting with each team member and streamlining all of those things, I think is one of the top things that saves a lot of time with systems. So I don't have all the answers.

Ben Lynch: It's a great, it's a great point. I've found that quite useful. And so much of this is like, constraint-based thinking or testing your thinking about different things. You mentioned a really good one there before. As an example, I would often think, what if this meeting went from fortnightly to monthly? What's likely to break? What do I think the second and third order consequences might be? Is it worth testing that for three months? If things come to the surface that don't work, can we go back to fortnightly? Probably the answer is yes. or insert any other variable of that. If I constrain this from a 60-minute meeting to a 30-minute meeting with my team members, can I still achieve the same sort of outcome, pastoral care, whatever it is for my team member, and keep our momentum? So I always like to look at those variables. Actually, I had a couple that I've used, and they come from about year three English. I think. I managed to pass, I think. Did I pass in year three? I don't know. But I certainly didn't pass in the latter years of English. Who, what, when, where, why and how. Such a simple framework when you're looking at your week, because there's so many different, like, setups for how you can run your diary and your schedule and people are testing different things over time. I have too. And then I'm like, actually, all of them come back to these, like, really simple questions. Like, what is the purpose of this time allocation, this meeting or time block that I have? Who needs to be there with me or who doesn't? Like, is this with my account, my bookkeeper, my practice manager, my clinical lead? Is it solo? Because often people can be a distraction. When do I do it? That includes frequency and for how long duration. How do I do it? Is it online? Is it in person? Some of the mechanics of that process, is there a checklist for it, an agenda for it? And then why am I trying to do it? If I come back to some of the outcomes, just to layer on, J.I.B., I think you spoke beautifully to Monday's theme, Tuesday's theme. Really, there's a couple of outcomes that we're anchoring to, I think, as clinic owners. It's filling the diary. And broadly that is, do I have enough new clients or what's my new client strategy at the moment? The retention of those clients, which is broadly a reflection of team training and mentoring. So that's kind of the second block. And then the sort of the engagement of the team. And then really it's like, am I in a recruitment phase or not? I mean, that is oversimplifying it, but I feel like, you know, Jack, we've got this beautiful structure in Elevate, right, which is, you know, fill your books, boost your cash flow, grow your team, like three just really simple focuses or foci. I don't know, I didn't pass English, I just told you that. To like, okay, well, they're the outcomes. I think too many people rush to the project and not the progress. What progress do I need to make in my business? It's like, I need to recruit. Okay, how much of your week, if I looked at your diary right now, is focused on recruitment? So JB, in terms of helping elevators who are at the early part of their journey, they typically are the ones that are working big consulting hours and trying to make this awkward transition to working on the business. What else have you found really useful in helping them navigate that transition sustainably?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, exactly what I was going to say. You need to know whether you're in essentially a get more team members phase or get more clients phase to very rudimentarily break it up. Do you need more clients or do you need more capacity? And then the three, you asked for three things. So I would say you want to do something that is hunting, i.e. quick, demonstrable results. You need to do something that is farming, i.e. playing the long game. And you need to do something that you're confident you will get done. And what I mean by that is I don't care what it is, but I'm going to go a little bit meta here, a little bit between your ears. So many clinic owners have convinced themselves that they are scattered and unproductive and distractible. You need to prove to yourself that you are a productive, inflow, get stuff done, doer kind of person. And so I actually don't particularly mind what it is that you do, but do it, tick it off and prove to yourself that you get stuff done so that when you wake up tomorrow, you can go, you know what? Yesterday, I'm a ticker. I tick things off. And today I'm gonna tick things off. You prove your new identity that you make progress. That's the key. It doesn't particularly matter what you're doing. but how you do it, but do something short-term hunting and something long-term farming.

Ben Lynch: I like the fact that you arrived at an answer there, but we just needed to give Jack a little bit more time to think through it, but beautiful. Well said. I love it. Hannah, how would you add to that and refine what JB mentioned there?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, I think the other thing that we see is people getting caught up on the system. So getting caught up on, like for Sam, we often will talk about 120 day plan and a 12 month plan and really putting time in to sit down and write those out. And for me, I use the CM template essentially that I've just put in a spreadsheet but it actually does not matter as Jack was saying like what your system is if you identify as being a ticker or whatever it is like it just needs to work for you and making sure that you've got that system but what I would say is that everyone needs to have to set that time aside to plan what it is that they are doing with their time and it can seem counterproductive saying that you need to set aside time to essentially not work on any of the tasks but to prioritise the tasks but it just helps out so much and I do think people get caught up on the systems or caught up on buying a new diary or buying the pens or buying whatever it is and just you've just got to use whatever's around you at this point and not use that procrastination.

Jack O'Brien: We often talk in some of our coaching sessions around what's the value of this action if you were to get it done. It's a really simple frame. Now, a lot of clinic owners will deflect the question and say, oh, it's too hard to quantify. No, no, no. What's the value of this action? If I'm going to spend 25 minutes of Pomodoro on a marketing activity, how many new clients would I expect it to generate? What's the lifetime value of those clients? And therefore, this time block is worth $4,000 of revenue.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point, JB. We'll come back to, I want you to explain Pomodoro in a moment. But even if it's hard to quantify, or you're not even going to set up those quantitative measures, just using that framework, I found super useful. It's a really great point that you bring up of like, okay, intentionally, I'm doing this thing to improve the satisfaction of clients to retain them, or improve satisfaction, engagement of the team to retain, like, whatever it is. You're getting clear on this is intentionally the outcome. If I could measure it, maybe you can. This is what I'm trying to influence. Come back to Pomodoro. What is it? And how have you found it used effectively?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, Pomodoro is effectively a 25 minute time block with five minutes of rest and recovery. And it makes sense on so many different levels, but we really want to condense the time that we spend working on something as much as possible. Chunk it down. I'll often go shorter. I'll just go for 12 minute sprints and then three minutes to quickly go and pour a cup of coffee or go and grab an energy drink or whatever the case may be. Well, maybe. Well, I like 15 minute blocks. So 12 minutes, three minute break. I can't seem to get my toilet breaks any shorter than three minutes. So if you've got any tips. So, you know, and that way I can get four things done in an hour. Okay. So that's how I like to work. And Pomodoro is some Italian word. I don't know actually what it means. It sounds like some tomato paste that you'd put on a pizza. The point is short time blocks, short rest. And this works like for those in the exercise space, you think about it energetically or physiologically, we can push out an interval effort and then we rest and recuperate. And our brains work that way. What we're really trying to do is talk our psychology or maximise and play to the potential of our energy and psychology.

Ben Lynch: Interesting. I agree and disagree at the same time. I can't work in that way. I know Daniel cannot work in that way. He's much better to have a whole day and, like, immerse, truly immerse in something and do deep… I don't know anyone who does deep work as well as him. And his setup is completely different to mine, is to yours, is to Hannah's. So I see that side of it, of, like, having some, you know, runway to get it done. But then what I love about what you said, Jack, is to that constraint-based thinking, sometimes actually saying, if I only had 15 minutes to get this done, what would I do? Because like you said, otherwise it can fill a whole day and you get half the thing done or it's not complete. So I love that constraint-based psyche. If I only had an hour to do this, not a month, we often think, oh, I'd roll out this whole system. It's going to take like three months. It's like, what if it took three days? Or what if it took three hours? What would that version look like? And it might be good enough to keep going.

Hannah Dunn: going to say last year at the CM retreat and we did it a little bit this year but I don't feel like we did it as much. We did the whole pull your laptop out you've got 15 minutes let's just get it done and had these little power blocks of 15 minutes and it's something we've transferred over to DOTS and we're on our team days we just say great it like we might be working on other things and just say we've got 15 minutes spare now pull up your laptop you've got 15 minutes to finish off something start something do something And that just shows you how much you actually get done in 15 minutes. Like it really trains you to learn. 15 minutes is actually a fair bit of time when you're super focused on what you need to get done.

Jack O'Brien: I've taken some inspiration from our retreat and I run two monitors in my workstation here in the office and have a countdown timer on one of those screens. And it's super helpful just in your, or if you don't have a second monitor, I'll put a timer on my phone. if it's in eyesight, ideally it's not in eyesight, but if it is, it's like having in the peripheral a countdown timer. Now for some, I get that might be an uncomfortable pressure, but for most of us, it's probably a motivation or you could reframe it to be a motivation.

Hannah Dunn: We are a paediatric OT clinic and we've implemented these timers that I'm just sharing my screen with in our clinic room so that our clinicians finish their time and provide a warning to our kids and our parents about when our session will finish. So we set them for 40 minutes and then that tells them there's five minutes left for us to be able to wrap things up and also using that for yourself for setting that. And it's not as aggressive as a number ticking down because it's not digital. It just the rainbow disappears. You can get lots of, there's kiwis, there's a whole lot of fruit versions. But also not using your phone because your phone can become that distractor and just getting that away is really important.

Jack O'Brien: What do you mean, Hannah? Like, what do you mean when you say get rid of your phone? What does that actually mean for you?

Hannah Dunn: Like out of the room, out of sight, Wok started putting his in a drawer, me and my husband share an office, so out of sight. He was reading something recently that said even the visual of having it on the table isn't going to distract your brain. And so it's making sure like if you were in a meeting and it's another one of those mindset things. It's like if you're in a meeting, you wouldn't answer your phone. So why can't we put it in another room for an hour and pretend we're in a meeting and know that it's OK that we're not going to answer that phone call or that text straight away?

Ben Lynch: Is it the Cal Newport books? Cal Newport is an author, talks a lot about this sort of productivity distraction focus. So does Mir Eyal. I hope I pronounced that correctly. Quite funny, actually, because he created a book which is called Hooked. How do you create apps and products that just tap into the brain's wiring and get you hooked? And then wrote another book, which is called Indistractable, I think it is. or along those lines, like the antidote to it, which is really interesting. Just a quick one, Hannah, just can you bring that back up on the screen just for those listening in? Yeah, what is the timer? Can you just describe it and the brand name?

Hannah Dunn: It's on Amazon. I've shared it with a few people. It is just visual timer for kids, 60-minute countdown timer. Nice. I was too efficient in closing off my tabs, which is another hack for keeping you focused with getting rid of all your tabs. 60 minute countdown. Is that sharing?

Ben Lynch: Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah.

Hannah Dunn: Um, timer for classrooms, anything, but there's lots that if you, um, search like timer, we do timers for kids visual, but, um, so many different ones that come up with different shapes or you can, can get a mix of the number in the middle. We tried a few different ones and we found that was the most effective for our team.

Ben Lynch: Yeah. That's cool. Nice. For those listening in or watching, you can check, check that out. I was also pulling up deep work and hooked.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah. Cal Newport's a fantastic author to read on this stuff. His recent book called slow productivity is wonderful. It's really for those who find the, the hyper energetic kind of drive, drive, drive. If you find that a little bit, um, not aligned with your style. I don't think you'd really resonate with slow productivity. It's not about getting nothing done. It's about being sustainable and in your flow of genius, which is really key.

Ben Lynch: You know what? I hate task lists. I hate inbox. And I hate feeling constrained. So for those like listening who are like, oh, this feels burdensome, like I feel you. And I feel like I've tried a lot of different things over time from time blocking every minute of my calendar, giving it a colour, emojis, fun, diary, paper to digital, all these different things. And I just say to people, like, continue to test different things. See what works and what sticks for you. Because like you said, J.O.B. and Hannah, we each have different preferences and you kind of find what works. And it might be for a season. You know, what I did three years ago is different to today. And that's where I've kind of come back to the who, what, when, where, why and how. If I can be intentional about those things, I've found that useful. But coming back to the task list, a version of this, So many people open up their computer screen to that point of showing me a diary, like, let's do a screen share. There's like 15,000 unread emails in the inbox. There's about 27 open tabs on their Chrome. That just gives me anxiety. I know some people can operate in that, but I see that and I go, wow, how do you focus? How do you actually do deep work that's undistracted? Certainly doesn't work for me, but this is just to share at least an opinion, a perspective that, you know, if you're listening or watching in, may be similar or not. I found task lists more of a task to manage than I would care to do so. I'm constantly reprioritising the task. I'm like, actually, all of this is to get an outcome. There's at least one key outcome, so I will have at most three outcomes. that are somewhere in my visual reference on my screen or on my desk at any one time. They're very specific outcomes, JB, like you mentioned earlier. Recruit new clients, something commercial measurable. And I find just anchoring to that every single day helps me prioritise what is the most important thing for me to achieve that outcome. And so I'll definitely go to that version rather than go to the to-do list and then go, okay, which one should I do now or which one should I work on? Not right for everyone, not saying it's the perfect way, but that's what I find useful because I just find task lists overwhelming.

Hannah Dunn: Have you seen that viral video of those two girls who do a podcast and one of them says like, yeah, sorry, what do you mean you don't have a calendar? And she says, no, I don't use my calendar. She's like, no, no, no, hand over your phone. And she takes her phone. She's like, this is blank. Like, what do you mean? Like, we've got a wedding. She's like, I just remember it. And it just started this whole debate on like, how do you function? When you say you can't do task lists, I'm like, what? How do you run your life?

Jack O'Brien: Your brain's not designed to remember. So, we want to make sure we're not trying to remember things. I think the trap or the black hole that people get into with when it comes to to-do lists or task lists, is you just open it up and like you say, you've been forever prioritising or you don't know how to filter through it. Task lists must get out of list and onto the diary, into the schedule. If you don't allocate time, which is budget, if you don't allocate time to a task, it's clearly not a priority.

Ben Lynch: That was the mic drop moment. We just paused for effect.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah. That's right. Yeah. The internet's a bit laggy right now. Another thing I'll throw to, and Ben, you probably don't remember this Ben, but when you were coaching me in my clinic ownership journey, I doubled down, tripled down on the notion of accountability. And so, it's all well and good to have a beautiful looking calendar or write it out in your agendio. But if you don't share it with anyone, you're accountable to yourself, which is a wonderful thing. So, I would encourage clinic owners, because we are a law unto ourselves, we are our own boss, we're accountable to no one, embrace extreme accountability. And the point is that it doesn't matter what the other person does or says. But I remember texting you, Ben, and going, I'm working on this thing for the next 15 minutes and I'll send you a screenshot when I'm done. And it would force me to get it done and send you a screenshot. I still have those colleagues. Some are in our CM world and others are mates from church or whatever the case is. And I'll just text them randomly through the day and go, I'm working on this thing for 30 minutes and I'll tell you when I'm done. And I often put a cost or a deal on the line. If I don't get this done in the next 30 minutes, I owe you a book. I'll buy your book on Amazon or something to that effect. But embrace transparency and accountability and lean into your coach. That's one of the benefits of coaching in the same community. We've got accountability channels inside our membership so that people say what they're going to do and then prove what they've done.

Hannah Dunn: And we know that whole theory of like being able to work to those deadlines, like you've created a deadline for yourself that otherwise would not have had that tangible deadline in place. I think it was you Ben mentioned like working on low level tasks earlier as well. people forget how much you can delegate out to others. Like we want to make sure that we're finding those tasks as well and doing a task order and seeing who else in your team might thrive with that opportunity, might be an opportunity for leadership or an opportunity for them to take on a project so that you can free up some of your time. Things that I do, and this is very Lush, but one of my team actually manages my emails, which is crazy. I feel like, but I just was one of those tasks that was taking me so much time. So she'll just send me a message and be like, hey, here are the number of it's one of my admin team. It's our practice manager Eleanor. who is in our Practice Leaders program at CM too. And so Eleanor will just send me a message and say, hey, there's a couple of urgent emails there. Because I was getting to my emails, but sometimes it was just a bit later than some of those emails needed attention. And so that's one example. I know I've spoken at CM as well about we have a house manager at home. which frees me up to do some work tasks that I need to be able to do because I've got three kids at home and my husband works in the business. And so looking at the actual tasks that you're doing and whether there is someone else where what you were talking to Jack about, like, what's the value of that hour or what's the value of that task and how does that translate? So if I can do a four thousand dollar task, but paying, you know, four hundred dollars for that support, then it's probably a no brainer in being able to switch that over.

Ben Lynch: The house manager?

Hannah Dunn: Yes. What do you get them to do? So folding our washing, changing the clothes over from size two to size three when they're growing out of them, our supermarketing, sometimes some meal prep. I did on this time think about getting support with our emails, with all the school emails, all three kids. are at three different schools and so or like kinder and then two different schools. And so, yeah, it's a nightmare with the amount of stuff that's coming in. I'm still managing that, but it does allow me to do the bits that I want to do. And also things like clearing out the cupboard, doing like going through the pantry. We were talking about this the other night with some friends when you're like, I clean the pantry out like every 18 months and it doesn't matter. You still find something that's out of date four years ago. You're like, how did this happen? So those sort of things that take up a lot of time and need to be done, but you could use your time differently.

Ben Lynch: So take us back to the decision to bring on a house manager. I imagine you would have been nervous trying to weigh up the cost benefit analysis of this is a big step in a business sense. You totally get it. Yes. Am I wrong? And how did you navigate making a decision like that to bring on a house manager?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, I think Wok and I were just feeling like we were being pulled every which way. My husband. And so we had three young kids. We still wanted to be really involved with their care and things like that. And so we actually started with a split role that was a nanny and a house manager. And so she had two days with kids and one day with just without the kids at home. And then that sort of evolved our role. Then at the end of last year, she finished with us And Wilke and I were like, our lives are so good now, she's organised us, we can manage this. And we were like, we're going to miss her, but the kids are all in way more care now. And we lasted, what are we, July? We brought someone back on in May. So we lasted, I think, four and a half months. after Bex left us, and we were just like, nah. It's just all those things were adding up and taking us away, which put a lot of pressure on our times. Like parents out there know about the kinder pick up at three o'clock, the school pick up at 3.30, drop-offs not till nine, like how are we working in these hours? And then getting the house sorted as well. I'm sure there'll be another thing she does too.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, I remember a quote that was shared with me years ago about being penny wise and pound foolish. The idea that we tend to want to keep hold of these really small low value tasks at the expense of some of the higher value things. Jack, I want to sort of dovetail this into a member that you helped very meaningfully, Darren. go from 60 to 65 hours consulting a week down to zero. What were some of the critical elements that you helped and that form part of his progression in making that a reality?

Jack O'Brien: So, in the first instance, we documented and systemised how he treats. Even all the way back to the conversation at the start of today, he was the most trusted professional basically in Australia in his niche area of expertise. And so, if we could document and systemise the training, he then would have confidence to transfer some of that caseload to his team. And then we went down the path of recruiting. And so a good way to think about it as a clinic leader is for every day that you want to come off the tools, so to speak, or step back from clients, every day you want to step back, you want to have at least one full-time equivalent team member. And so he was working effectively seven days a week. And so we went through the process of recruiting five to seven full-time equivalent therapists over the next 12 to 18 months. So one every two or three months, one every quarter. And over time, the reason those maths work out is because, you know, you've got to factor in therapist wages and investment, there's profit margins, all those types of things. So, for every day that you wanna come off the tools, hire someone else. And so those two things combine the training of the team and then the systemised consistent recruiting. You can't just recruit one person to take your caseload and happy days. No, this is an 18 month process of recruiting and recruiting to be able to replace yourself and give you the space to decompress and then refocus your energies on what truly matters.

Ben Lynch: in that process of documenting the training, what did you find really helpful? Because most of the week is taken up with consulting. So I can't imagine there's like, yeah, we've got heaps of time to shoot these modules and create this learning portal. And how did you actually pull it off?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, so we just committed to doing one or two trainings per week and so he would roll out two or three or five new client assessment consultations per week and so in that process, if you do a new client assessment, document part of that, that afternoon or that evening. And so, and a lot of us just talking to the camera and looking at yourself and recording what you say. So we're really more about documenting what actually happens than trying to manufacture and create something fresh. Just once you've done something, document it. And over time you build out this library, you can polish it and refine it later, but you've got to get something down on paper, on the canvas, into the Google drive, as it were. And we can tweak that over time these days with things like A11y, the resource hub inside A11y. It's such a easy way to document a training, add it to a playlist and bingo, your new team members are ready to be trained.

Ben Lynch: Yeah. Hannah, how did you go about it as you were transitioning more from clinical caseload through to working operations being more full-time business owner? What did you find really useful in those early days of making that transition?

Hannah Dunn: having a baby so that I physically could not see clients is actually when I came off the tools. I had one and then I came back to seeing clients and then I had a second and said, I'm not going to do that again. And so I haven't seen clients myself since then. But it is about those like we talk about the rolling break even about knowing those numbers, about knowing what the cost is and having certainty on those numbers so that you know that because the fear of coming off the tools is a fear of revenue not being present and the fear of failing there. And so getting that rolling break-even document and being able to have a look at what are the numbers that I need to achieve, and then seeing, as Jack said, that slow progression of bringing those people on and being able to take steps backwards. And I think for me, it was really about what I spoke to earlier about pretending and creating that physical barrier and saying, if I actually had a client booked at this time, I would not be able to see that one. So I can't say, yes, I need to learn to say no. And the more comfortable you get with saying no and seeing that those clients will move for you and have flexibility, the more confident you get, just like when you were talking about Jack before, teaching yourself that you are a list person or you are a productive person and you are able to do this, training yourself that way in the same way.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah. And so I think, you know, to the point of having a baby or having an extended holiday, getting out of the physical premises matters. And you might not be taking a big chunk of time away from the clinic. You might just be reducing your consulting capacity by one day per week. Don't go to the clinic on that day, even if it's just for a temporary couple of month period. For me, that was in the first instance, Ben, you remember coaching me through coming off the tools on a Friday. Don't go to the clinic on a Friday. One, I'm more productive away from the distractions of the clinic. Two, it releases and empowers the team that there's an essence when you're there that they feel like they need to depend on you. So get out of their way and let them flourish. And then thirdly, it means that the clients that you were used to see on a Friday, they physically cannot see you in the space. So get out of there and you'll get more done. They'll get more done. Everyone's happier when you're not in the room.

Hannah Dunn: And clinicians will say to us like, but I need to be there because I need to make sure that it's the way that I would do things. And to that we say, that is your systems, that is your processes, that is the training that Jack just spoke to. And so you don't, let's change that mindset. You don't have to be physically present to be present.

Jack O'Brien: It's a mindset. It's often an ego or a belief, which stems from a lack of confidence in these things. But we're actually not as important as we think we are. And we have to get over this identity of like, I need to be seen to be busy, or I need to be the expert watching this in real time. No, no, we can debrief. heaven forbid, are not going to literally harm a patient. And so we can review their notes, we can debrief, we can observe, look at Heidi notes, all that thing after the fact. You don't need to be there in real time. And that's a hard belief and an ego to overcome, Ben.

Ben Lynch: It is. Yeah, it's very challenging to do so because we're helpers, we're problem solvers, we own the business, we care so much. I've used this little mantra that is, you go from consulting your clients to consulting your team. And that's one of the key changes that happens, is that you're present for your team. J.B., I remember this conversation. I've mentioned it on the podcast a few times over time. And that was, Lauren was speaking to me and Lauren had been in the clinic nine to five, open door policy, you know, coming when required. And things just weren't going particularly well. We made the decision for Lauren to work from home, not be there physically, as you said, and instead change up some of the connection points that she had with the team, the mentoring structure, where it was more about how they're going. There was more structure to it. She was actually doing less. less work. And her team reported back, it feels like you're more present. And it was like, she was more present for them when she was having those interactions, not physically present, but like intellectually, emotionally present, because there was like structure to the mentoring connections that we had. And she wasn't there physically. And that's always just stuck with me about being able to separate yourself does not mean you're giving any less to the team. In fact, could be the direct opposite. You're giving more to them. Well, as we put a wrap on this episode, I want to share screen and share a resource for those that are listening in, but I want to sign off in a moment, Jack and Hannah, with your one key recommendation, whether it's a book, an action, something people listening in to today could enact, could use for them to reduce their clinical load, increase their time working on the business and find more joy and sustainability in their journey. But let me share screen because we have packaged up a lot of the how-to. A lot of these mechanics are fairly easy to follow. And if you come along to clinicmastery.com, go to the resources section on our website. There's a dropdown that says free resources. If you're listening in, follow along. If you're watching I'm sharing screen here on YouTube scroll down past the abundance of awesome things that we've got here and go to the coming off the tools download this is a how to prepare your team prepare your clients literally with things to say, some of the scripts to use to give you some guidance on preparing those people for your transition in coming off the tools, our version of reducing your clinical caseload to spend more time working on the business and supporting your team. All right, JOB, to sign us off, what have you got as a key insight for listeners?

Jack O'Brien: stream accountability, share, be transparent and embrace the collective community accountability. Just go hard on accountability.

Ben Lynch: I love that because we go from being employees to working for ourselves. It's easy to let standards slide. So I like that call to action. Hannah, what about you?

Hannah Dunn: Just sorting your calendar out, like getting that audit happen of your calendar time and seeing where the flow is. Something we didn't talk about today, but I'm pretty sure it's episode 302 in systemising your clinic without losing its soul. We spoke about not allowing your team access to your diary and what you were just talking to about not having them just drop in. So you need to be in control of your time and not let others be in control of your time by booking in whenever they need to.

Ben Lynch: Nice. And a calendar link where you've constrained the available time. There's plenty of options, but they can still book in. I love that. Mine would be what you both said. And also, I suggest people go six to eight weeks out in their calendar right now and make the changes in their diary from that point moving forward, because it's always easier. You've got time to reschedule clients, reschedule your team, make those shifts. So you don't necessarily have to make the change as of next week, but six to eight weeks from now, make the change and you've got something to work towards. It's like the light at the end of the tunnel. It's so inspiring. J.O.B., Hannah, thank you so much for your input today. We'll see listeners on another episode. J.O.B., you're having a bit of a break. You're having a few weeks off, so it'll be just Hannah and I. Yes.

Jack O'Brien: Don't miss me too much. I'll come back with a tan from sunny Queensland winter.

Ben Lynch: Very nice. Well, we'll see everyone on another episode very soon. Bye-bye. Bye.