Spring Cleaning
Erma Bombeck said, "My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?"
Every spring growing up, my Mom declared Spring Cleaning Week. It was met with the same enthusiasm year after year - none at all. In fact, if you tried to escape, more chores were given to you.
Windows were thrown open. Rugs were aired on the clothes line.
Window sills and baseboards were scrubbed and glass made to sparkle.
Spring cleaning is a time to remove the clutter. A time to do the things that need to be done to make your life more efficient, more effective.
A time to throw away or donate that which you are not using, which is simply getting in the way.
A time to reorganize that which needs to stay.
In my blog last month I asked, "What scares you more: Spring Storms or Spring Cleaning?" The week I wrote the blog, I huddled in a my "tornado shelter" (aka enclosed bathroom), with baseball helmet on, corralling the fur babies. It seems to be a weekly occurrence in Texas this time of year.
Let's talk now about spring cleaning relating both to the external and internal aspect of your practice.
I KNOW I'm not the only one that has managed to avoid what needs to be done. But just to bring you to the same page, here are some very poignant questions.
First, find a spot in the main work area of your practice (or home) that gives you the broadest "view." Now, look. Take a good, long, sweeping look at everything. Soak in all the little details of what you see.
Do you have an area where everyone "loses" what they walked in with and it has stayed there for over a week, month or year?
Are the window sills clean? Is the refrigerator incubating a new science experiment?
Look at the door frame. What about the immediate surrounding walls? Fingerprints, dirt, or grime?
Are nails still in the wall where the picture frame once hung?
Or is there a hole in the wall where the nail once hung?
Is it time for that wall to be spruced up with a fresh coat of paint?
Are the wood chair
legs
scarred from reception area abuse?
Are the waiting room magazines/children's books ratty-looking and outdated?
How do you start?
Let's approach this logically. Just as in your QuickBooks' Practice Management Chart of Accounts, divide your practice (or home) into six logical areas, for both interior and exterior. I suggest:
- What surrounds us: Walls & Ceiling & Floors & Windows
- Furniture: clean, repair or replace?
- Equipment: clean, repair or replace?
- Drawers & Filing Cabinets: organize, shred or recycle?
- What's outside? Parking lot holes?, shrubs & flower beds?
- What you don't see... Internal Cleaning
I believe in the touch once time management theory. If you pick something up, put it away. If you start with a rag & something to clean the walls, then clean all the walls while it's in your hands. So, if you are of the same mindset, do likewise.
If not, go room by room to give yourself a sense of accomplishment.
The object is to "get 'er done" regardless of HOW it's done!
Plan ahead.
I am a list person. Dig out a note pad and a clip board. Make two columns on the note pad. In the first column, write everything down that needs to be done. In the second column, delegate the duty. Just start by doing something.
My goddaughters LOVE this game (haha): "Find Something Out Of Place & Put It Away." Have you been walking around something that needs to be donated to Salvation Army or thrown away, but you just haven't gotten around to it? Load it in the car! Quit stumbling over things that are simply in the way.
Be intentional with your spring cleaning - schedule time when you are
not
seeing patients. Setting time aside for the purpose of spring cleaning will help you NOT procrastinate. Recruit for a Saturday to tackle the list.
The goal of spring cleaning: to make your life more efficient, more effective, more appealing to you and to the patients. Let's look more at those six logical areas.
What surrounds us: Walls & Ceiling & Floors
Fingerprints. The dirtier the hand, the oilier the skin, the sweatier the palm...well, you get the point. Clean their remains away.
Repairs. Chips in the wall. Shabby paint fading in different areas. Holes needing to be filled. These are all things that can be done by you. Spruce up the look by painting a wall. And then listen to your patients rave! Perk it up!
Floors. You may not even realize how dirty the floors are until you clean them or have them cleaned. I don't use chemicals on carpet, just steam. And steam clean those tile floors - you'll be amazed at how clean the grout can look!
Windows. Use newspaper and a vinegar & water combination for your windows. Yes, your hands will be dirty BUT your windows will sparkle! Don't forget to clean out the window sills with a rag and soapy water.
What about the Surface Areas?
I'm not really talking about the ever changing piles but the piles that have been long ignored.
Figure it out. Is it: Recycle? Donate? Shred? Throw Away? Or Organize?
Have a designated area for recycle, a paper sack for things to be shred and a garbage sack for trash. After shredding, it is recycled.
If the item is in the "Organized" pile, is it "organized" to be stored or to be used now? I love clear storage containers but tape a
contents
description on the outside end of the container so you can see the list without opening the lid.
Some things have been put in these piles that you do not know what to do with but the time has come for you to do something. Touch once & gather like minded things.
Furniture: clean, repair or replace?
Have you made a recent inventory of your furniture in the practice (or home)? Take another sheet on the pad you have and make five columns: Where, What, Clean, Repair, Replace. You might need to turn the paper landscape style to have enough room for the columns.
Go room by room (Where). Write the furniture down (What). Look each piece over carefully and determine what needs to be done. Has this piece of furniture seen better days? Does it need to be cleaned, repaired or replaced?
Clean thoroughly with the appropriate cleaner. Decide if a fresh coat of paint or stain would salvage the piece or donate it and buy a new fresh replacement for the practice.
Equipment: clean, repair or replace?
Remember what you did in the previous step? Repeat Step 3 for your equipment.
Drawers & Filing Cabinets.
Are your filing cabinets overflowing? Are your drawers a mess? Systematically go through one at a time. Touch Once! Put in three piles: to be organized, to be shredded or to be recycled. Once the pile has been created, you will see like minded information. Organize, create folders and file again. If you do not have a good cross-cut or confetti shredder, purchase one.
What's outside - parking lot, shrubs & flower beds.
You may think this does not apply to you if you are leasing space in a medical building. BUT, even then, have you made a list of suggested outside repairs and improvements to give to the landlord?
Holes in the parking are potential fall issues and can look ghastly. What does the outside of your practice say about the inside of your practice? Are the bushes alive? Are there weeds and no flowers? YIKES. It's time for image control.
What you don't see - Internal Cleaning?
Have you checked whether it is time to defrag your hard drive?
A fragmented hard drive can reap havoc on data type software. Typically if I see problems in a practice's QuickBooks file, the hard drive that it has been run on is fragmented.
Are your Windows updates current?
How about QuickBooks? How about your Practice Software? How about your Anti-Virus software? If you are told not to update the software for a variety of reasons, just be sure you are not creating greater issues by not updating. Updates not only add new features but fix security vulnerabilities and prior issues.
What about your practice software and QuickBooks? Have you compared a YTD Collections report (practice software) with your YTD Profit & Loss report (QuickBooks)? Does the collections match the income in QuickBooks? Why not? Can you easily compare these two?
Have patient reimbursements been designated correctly in both software? Run a QuickBooks report on patient reimbursements & check them against the practice software adjustment report. Then, reverse check the practice software against the QuickBooks report.
Are your QuickBooks' transactions designated as they need to be?
Do you need to review what has been designated as Miscellaneous?
Are your Patients designated as Customers in QuickBooks? Are the vendors in your Vendor List truly someone you do business with in the course of your practice?
It is time to inactivate Vendors, Customers (Patients), & Other Names in QuickBooks that have not had a transaction since December 2013. It's also time to inactivate employees no longer employed!
Is it time to re-organize your QuickBooks so you can understand your financial reports?
If you don't understand your reports now, then the answer is yes. It is time to clean it up!
You truly do not know your practice's health if you do not understand your reports. There is a very simple remedy - quick and painless.
The QuickBooks Extreme Makeover was designed to clean up QuickBooks, reorganize, & memorize the reports you need.
Tired of waiting any longer?
Click
here for more information.
Remember the purpose of spring cleaning:
A time to do the things that need to be done to make your life more efficient, more effective, more appealing to you and to the patients.
That should be enough to keep you busy until next spring! Remember, I am only a phone call or email away should you get stuck! Get busy - you have a lot of work to do!
