Being Busy is Being Lazy

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Hey, tribe, welcome to align your practice, Dr. Joe and Dr. Cliff, brought to you by align life where we want to give you the tools to find and create your aligned life. I am super excited to continue this journey on utilization of time effectively. And so today we're going to be talking about busy as being lazy. And I think that was like, Joe and I were talking about that I learned it from Darren Hardy was the first place I heard that. And I shared that with Joe and it's just kind of rocked both of our worlds because I think I always was so prideful and how busy I was. And

I don't know, yeah, it's so true. So true. Me too, I felt there was like an identity of being really busy. And I've started to break that over the last number of years. And and it's just, it's hard to let go of identity. So there's so many things in our lives or that were in practice that we grew up with, that are affecting our productivity and practice or outcome or our income or relationships because we're holding some type of identity. So breaking the busy as as a prideful thing is, is a breakthrough. Because we need to sometimes slow down to speed up in business and doing the right things. I love what you said, and I don't want to go on too far of a tangent. But offline cliff, you said looking at your time, there's study and learn time. There's creative planning time. And there's production and work time. And just having that separation in your mind of where you should be allocating your time that sometimes you you're not in a sense, busy. When you're in your creative planning. Right, you're not busy. So when we say busy, it's the third one that Cliff said and this is cliffs, this is his genius, study and learn creative and planning. Those are two different time. Utilization of time for those two, the third one productivity and work. That's where I felt, and I think you felt that we we felt better as a person and is just productivity at work. So I felt more guilty if I stopped and studied and was learning right? Or I wasn't in my creative planning the in a sense of guilt for that. And what slow down to speed up resonates with your, your principles here, right?

Yeah. And like honestly, when you bring those two up, like the study and learn, like that was a fun place for me. So I didn't feel like I was busy. And I didn't feel like I was then adding value.

Yeah, I love to study and learn I could do that all day and night. But there was always guilt around it. So I liked that you broke those down. So those you want to take notes on that cliffs genius is allocating time for three different types of production versus what him and I always thought in, in our career is work productivity, like actually produce. But the other times studying learn and creative planning, you should schedule and you should be inspired by instead of feel guilt that you're not working or producing. So I love that clip. Good job on that.

Thanks. And I think the prep time I think is we're talking about how to shift from being busy to productive for like the doctors out there. Like we think it's like oh, being in practicing patients. That's the productive time the the two studies that are the two spaces I want to talk about is one spaces for every hour of prep time, you get six hours of production, because sometimes we just get busy and we're running the wrong direction. So we're getting further away from our goal rather than running towards it. So taking that time to set our compass like okay, here's where we want to go, here's our plan. This is how we're going to get there versus like, hey, let's hop in the car and I'm gonna drive to Chicago, from North Carolina, without a map or without any planning that is going to I'm never gonna get there. But if I just take an hour to plan my trip, okay, I'm gonna take a left here, I'm gonna get on this freeway, I'm gonna get on this highway, then I'll get there faster, even though it doesn't feel as productive.

I love that. And one of the tools in a line life that we teach is the is the huddle and we also teach subgoal in which was taught by CJ Mertz years ago. What a great lesson that is. So huddle is where we get together before we see patients and we set the stage for the day. Someone may, you know, read a testimonial that we got off Google or read a prayer or an excerpt from a book or play a song or just just talk, grab a spine and teach the staff how neurology affects you know, heart function or something. Just some 60 seconds of inspiration and then we go over the day and go over today is what we call a sub golden is where we look how do we serve the patient and serve the product This at the same time. So we're procedures, promotions, policies, and clinical are things that you're gonna look at every single person, if you're serving 40 That day, you're gonna say, okay, Michelle needs, she's got pronation feet, I want to schedule, get orthotics, I know that's affecting hello back, Michael didn't come to the better results, faster workshop, I want him to come, I want to promote it with his wife. So they come to the workshop next week. And John is keeps missing appointments, I want to talk to him personally about policies so that we get them back on schedule. So it doesn't keep causing missed appointments at the front desk, losing our structure. So that's sub going. And that was the most impactful thing of any Polit any procedural thing that I experienced, when I subgoal, I exploded the practice because I was serving the patients serving the practice. But that's a slow down to speed up is like let's just stop and do a huddle. Right. What you said is intention throughout the day of like, what are you trying to accomplish? Right? Plan the day. So you generate the outcome, not just serve what's given to you, you create an outcome of the day, you're creating new patients, you're creating opportunities, you're creating better clinical, that to me is a game changer.

Yeah, I love that. And so John wouldn't he would spend two hours to prepare for a one hour practice. And this guy won the most NCAA championships ever and still towards it towards the end of his career, you're still spending two hours for every practice. And he planned every single minute. He's like, This man will be doing this. It's been we'll be doing this. And I think as a doctor is like planning for those huddles, planning for those things. You need to be knowing the answers before you ask the questions. So your team is like onboard and on point with that stuff.

That's interesting, even with practice on my sister was divvied Division One soccer player, and my son played soccer. So I wanted to become a coach. So she became head coach, and I was the assistant coach. And I figured I knew what I was doing. I remember the coach, I didn't play division one soccer. So I remember soccer when I was in as a young kid. And we all stood in one line, there's 23 of us in a coach would kick the ball, we'd run up and kick it to the goal and you spend 20 minutes, or half an hour, 20 minutes waiting for your turn. And that was the practice. Christina coming from division one soccer she, she looked up and spent time preparing this, she had six groups of kids, three of them in a circle, touch, touch, touch, touch another three over here, another three over here, everyone was getting the interaction. And to your point, that took a lot of time for her. And it was a magical experience versus me wait in line to kick the ball what's so the outcome of the team based on her planning, it was a different, a different season. So that the season your practice is the same thing of what Cliff saying, but I love the sport analogy, because I experienced that with Christina.

Yeah, so that was huge for me. And then the other thing, I think doctors a lot of times we miss sharing the philosophy with the team. Like I know, some of our best trainings in align life is when we just unleashed the philosophy of chiropractic and like the doctors get lit up, the team gets lit up. So don't miss that opportunity. Always bring it back to like clinical or like the philosophy of chiropractic sometimes don't get lost in the data.

That's so big, because you're in the room. And a woman comes in and says, I haven't had menstrual cramping for the first time in 15 years, and she's tearing and you hugger. And then the next one's coming in, it's like my numbness is gone. They give you a high five and you're going through this journey, then you come out of the room at the end of the day and go to the front desk, how many we see how much should we collect? For and they're like, they're like God, he is she is all about money and and you're still have tears dried up on your face from the 19 experiences of lives you changed, and you're all mission based. And at the end you put on your business and say how did we do? Right? They didn't hear anything that you heard, they didn't live the mission in the room. So it's a close point, come out of that room. Share the win of the day before we close and you should put on your business and say, you know, what did we deliver? What kind of exchange we do economically? How many numbers do we see you should after you spend a moment on mission? So I love that you said that cliff because I would come out of that room lit up and sometimes I wouldn't share.

Yeah. And one of my ninja moves I did in practice unconsciously. I had no idea what I was doing. But when somebody would tell me something there, I'd say Hey, could you go share that up front with Jen? Oh, to hear all the wins? I do. So then she has a room full of people. The person sharing with the front so they're getting lit up. Everybody else is hearing the story. And then the other the person who's sharing the story is getting better at sharing their story and then they get called on their story.

I just bought this mic I want to drop this mic. That is big. Teaching them how to tell the story to Oh my goodness. All right, guys, please everyone do that. And that is golden golden golden. Wow. So so that point is crucial. It's crucial. We talked about slowing down to speed up, take a moment, stop the business and bring some lesson, I was told that I wasn't doing that type of thing. So I would bring the spine and say, Do you know this nerve goes through this Plexus, and then it goes right to your hand, or it goes to your digestive system and, and then I would show how it comes from the brain and they draw on the floor, someone has worked with me for 10 years, did not know that it actually went through the spinal cord. They just thought the nerves came out of nothing on the sides, like, Oh, you mean the brain is connected to the spinal cord? I'm like, Oh, my goodness, yes, it's all one thing they didn't know. And we can't expect them to know the simplicity of what we would think is silly to talk about, right? Just get to the basics. So amazing.

So I know this on time management, this is really a way to leverage that time. So you're not spending your time sharing the story and inspiring your team. And so some of the things I really want to dive into is like some of the lessons Joe some of the tools you use for your time management. So you are productive versus Busy.

So I came up with even pagan his his lessons essentialism as another great book, if you guys want some tools. I studied some of what you and I are looking at Darren Hardy's work. So what are your influences and readings? I think you brought up effortless as a book, essentialism that I read, I didn't read it effortless. But you said that was meaningful.

I'm midway through and it's been like really impactful of understanding of like making what's important, the most important and I think that brought me back to like Stephen Covey's like seven habits of highly successful, it's an oldie but man, like, honestly, like, I think so much is built off of that. But understanding like, what are the three or four most important things in your life? And then does your calendar mimic that or reflect that?

So let's break it down a little, like you just said in the calendar and productivity. So I schedule my morning rituals. And I want to define ritual verse habit. A habit is something that you do often, a habit is something that requires your executive center, the brain, this the cognitive part of your brain to make a decision. So it's like I often workout. So I'm going to decide today I'm done with practice, should I go to the gym, I'm going to ask the question, and then I'm going to either be too tired, or I'm going to have energy, I'm going to decide to go or not to go, that's a habit, a ritual is brushing your teeth. You don't hold a toothbrush and say should I brush today, I did brush yesterday, I'm gonna brush tomorrow, I'm a little tired. Now, I think I'll do that tomorrow, you grab your toothbrush. When you shower, you're not even thinking but you're moving your body the same way your hands to wash your body. It's just instinctual. It doesn't have any executive reasoning to go into the activity or complete the activity. That's a ritual, not a lot of cognitive function. What you want to do is take your self care stuff as rituals like the workout, it's Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, I'm not going to talk about it asked my brain about it, I just it's a ritual, whether I'm tired, whether I'm energetic, whatever it happened, I'm going to do that activity. So do whatever you can to turn self care processes into rituals if you can, and then try to leverage as much of it as you can, at a certain time. Like for me, the morning ritual is I'll stretch, get a massage, listen to a podcast. And I'll do all that within about 4550 minutes. So compress those kinds of things. But schedule, your self care. That's my first piece of it. The second is productivity time, 90 minute, Windows Darren Hardy talks about this a lot is hit that 90 minutes, take a half hour break, II, relax, stretch, whatever you do in between, and then take another 90 minute hit and begin your day with 290 minute hits. Now, if you're in practice, that may not be as productive because you're seeing patients obviously, but you may have during your Tuesday or Thursday, you may be able to hit these productivity times, which I have in my schedule. And then on Friday, I schedule those windows and I named them and I put the tasks in, but they're really locked in my productivity times throughout the week. So I know where I'm going to be productive and I just have to decide what I'm going to do any refinement on that clip from your perspective.

No, I love it. And even when you're in practice, like I like my 90 minutes, my 290 minutes before I start work. But even in practice, you just mix them in your day like here's my patient time and then you create a 90 minute Production is

your true, I think about that you're right. So you have your prime time. And that's your patient time. And then you have a time that you may have a patient great if you don't. We're producing like, yeah.

And then I love that habit versus ritual. I think a lot of mine are still habits that I'm in graining, but like having that morning routine. And so I think that's critical. Mine's the same. I've heard it called the Power Hour. Mine is like, I have my book. And I think one of the things so I started out with this book and the way I when the morning is I when the evening so my last 30 minutes of my day is planning my next day, if I start planning my morning, I've already missed it. Like if I wake up in the morning and try to start planning it, I don't have a clear thought I'm like, jammed up. So plan your day, the night before, then you can hit the ground running.

I don't do that. But I love that. And I want to embrace that. That is that is smart. Because there's so much creativity in the morning, that if you're planning, it hurts my creativity. And I didn't realize that till you just said that. That's that's breakthrough for me. And then plan your week at the end of the week. So everything in your brain is about cycles. And we're gonna go through this next time on attention units, but I want to give you a little sneak peek into it. We only have so much attention to give to things. And you got to be careful. So your brain wants to close cycles. Tony Robbins talks about this the cycles of action, like you want to close it up. So when you close your week, you end the week put a stamp on it hit the gavel on the table bone that week is over? How did we do? I had five productivity things, five outcomes, and I accomplished three. And state the fact that you were x productivity that week, and own it, and then look at your stats and plan your next week, and then shut off your brain on the need to produce. Yeah, enjoy. Enjoy life. So I'm gonna, I'm going to take note of that myself, Cliff. Thank you for that.

Yeah. And then the other big one that was really impactful. And I learned this from Darren Hardy was he calls it Sunday planning. And so you put your three most important goals that you want to accomplish that year. And you put those and then you put all your planning for the week inside of that, like, what are the things I have to get done this week? Where do they fit and then you have a fourth box, he calls the devil's vortex. And that's where you put all the other things you have to do that aren't related to your three most important things. And so he says, the tighter you can get that Devil's Vortex the more productive you are, because then you're really focusing on what's important. And so the Sunday planning is really important.

So I'm confused a little. So the three things for the year or the week, the end of the week you're looking at. So Sunday, you're writing down the three things for the year that you're trying to accomplish.

Yeah, because well, because you have to make sure like everything you're doing that week is moving you closer towards that otherwise it lives in the devil's vortex. And so like when I look at my schedule, like I put in like online, like my three priorities for the 2023 is healthiest version of me, I have an earning goal. And then I have getting my financial house in order. And so then what I do on my Sunday planning is I put all three of those, and then am I working towards those? Or am I filling my stuff up with a bunch of busy stuff? That's great. That's great. So if that's the most important thing, it has to be the most important thing.

Well, it's interesting, we're doing a strategy session today later today. And it's a quarterly planning session. And what I what are the steps in we use EOS as a process what one of the steps that I didn't see is you going over your production you're gonna have your statistics but is reflecting back to the your goal is what's the Delta and gap that you're at from what you are going to produce so going back to the year because you're trying to move a ship in a certain direction then we get caught in the quarter which you should in the week which is should in the day, which you should but then you may lose where you're the ship is trying to go so that's interesting Cliff I definitely liked that a lot. I don't like I think cliffs bringing me more value that I'm bringing him I'm getting uncomfortable here. I have to find some juice in my history here to give you because that that was huge man, hey,

this doesn't happen often you guys like because most of the time, I feel like the the it's going the other way. So it is super critical because we need to that's why having that compass with that North Star is so critical. And in our personal life. It's our core values, but in our business life, or in our life. It's like we define like we get to consciously pick what's important, not when we feel good, not when we were like, This is what I want to do this year and then does everything line up with that or do I need to shift and change it And so but yeah,

I think that's great. I think it's good to leave off here what we want to do? Well, let's wrap up with some of the thoughts of what you can do just so you have if you didn't take notes. So what we talked about is 90 minute sessions, that's where the brain is most productive. So scheduled out, it's better first thing in the morning, plan the night before, as Cliff said, so you're not in your planning stage, when you're supposed to be in a creative state. That's my lesson learned. So in the morning, 90 minute session, if you can do two back to back with a space, you're seeing patients, you only may get one, and then maybe you do one. Later in the day are the days we have half days. So you maybe do two sessions on your half days. So try to do that, like Cliff said, plan the night before. And then at the end of the week, we want to plan for the following week, again, starting Monday ready to go not starting the plan, Cliff, you can express that final thing that you stated that I loved, just, you know, recap. On the devil's Devil's

vortex. So the Sunday planning, like when you're doing your Sunday planning, just make sure that you are planning for the week. So I put all the things that need to get done in that week. And then I plan my Monday. So that's what I do on my Sunday planning. My wife's like, she'll see me in the morning. And she'll be like you didn't do your Sunday planning or you didn't do your morning thing, did you? And I'm like, I'm like when I'm on, I'm on. And when I'm off, I'm off. And so when I get those things done, it's super critical. I like doing my 290 minute sessions. First thing, so then when I get into my workday, I don't feel like I have work, I have to do feel like I can be present for the people that I'm meeting with, or that are fires I'm putting out. And so that's where that's been really critical and crucial for me. And then yeah, planning the night before the devil's vortex, just be careful that a lot of times we will do things that aren't those three most important things that we need to get done this year.

So with the devil's vortex, let's say I gotta get my oil changed, I gotta go fix something in the house, I got to take my daughter somewhere, like those would go in there. And then you can do those. But you can't do stuff outside of that. On top of that, like it kind of controls how much you're not going to be productive, right? Because you're like 10 things. That's it, then you end up trying to do the other things. And it's self awareness saying, wait a minute, you're not only doing those 10 You got another 20 that you're trying to do. And you're totally off course that's I think that builds self awareness for me if I if I use that what you just said, That's great.

Yeah, and I don't know if there's a number because like, you know, taking your daughter somewhere, if building value in your family is something that's on your top three most important things for that year, that could go into that one. But if it feels more like an Aeron, then it's a different thing.

Yeah, I agree. I wouldn't put I would probably wouldn't put family in that box, because that's a value. It's more just distractors. Oh, yeah. I mean, your score, distractors of what you're trying to accomplish that year. That's, that's good. Okay, you

still have to get the things done. That's the thing, you know, like, like, I'm like, I have a oil appointment this afternoon. And so, like, it's my Devil's vortex, but

gotta do. Yeah. Alright, that's a good wrap. Cliff. I think next time, kind of we'll go over outcomes of like, being productive, meaning getting more done, because cliffs insights and the way you plan your day or the productivity sessions, that's going to help you create more stuff. But that doesn't mean better outcome. That doesn't mean more revenue. That doesn't mean more quality time with your family. It doesn't mean it just means you're doing more stuff. So what we're going to do now, first, the first podcast we did on this was opening the door to the fallacies about time management. This one we talked about is more about setting the stage of productivity throughout your day. And the next one is not necessary product to but outcome. Are you focused on the right things? So we're going to break that down next time. I'm really excited for this next one.

Cool. All right, Joe, again, thanks for your genius drive, have an awesome week. And be productive. Don't just focus on being busy and you know, figure out what's most important and do that. We'll see you guys next week.