How do you keep the ‘Wolves’ from your door?

As Practice Managers become busier and busier what technique do you use to allow yourself to get the job done. I often touched and dealt with the short tasks first and left the bigger tasks to times of the day or week when I knew I was less likely to be disturbed. I did tend to keep an open door but when it came to the crunch and the open door wasn’t working I closed it firmly and along with the list below used various tactics with varying degrees of success. My top ten were:

1. Stop taking telephone calls
2. Closing my door even putting a DND sign up.
3. Saying I was going on annual leave or leaving early that day
4. Doing overtime or working on Saturday – never Sunday
5. Working from home
6. Not attending meetings
7. Telling them I’m doing the payroll – always worked!
8. Binning the task and not doing it at all
9. Keeping a list of tasks to do and showing the doctors!
10. Delegating the job – sadly rarely

What would your tips be and do they work?

(24)