Simplicity = speed and ease

Over the past two weeks I mentioned a book called "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying" by Marie Kondo. It challenges you to clean up your home and thereby live a simpler but more enjoyable life.

There's one more work area where you might want to look at "tidying" — your procedures.Here are a couple of examples.

Years ago I bought a practice. In that practice they had a standard set-up of instruments. I followed along for a couple of years and then one day I looked at the set-up.

I realised that 4 of the instruments I never used. They sat on the tray creating clutter and a cleaning job for the staff.

We eliminated the instruments and our efficiency improved.Some time later I figured out a method to make sure that people never came back with sensitive teeth after posterior composites.

It worked great — zero return visits, but it was tedious, time consuming and the materials were expensive.Then I eliminated one step. Time, and cost was saved and still zero sensitivity.

Then I eliminated another step. More time and cost saved and still zero sensitivity.Have you looked at your procedures recently to see what you can get rid of?You might be surprised.

So often we do things because "that's how we've always done things".