Suzanne Thames Blog

Friday, September 18, 2015

London tipped to lead the fintech world

UK's mix of government, finance and IT said to be too strong for Silicon Valley.

Your Guide to Effective Time Management

A lot of people complain about not having enough time.

Sound familiar?

Truth be told, it isn’t minutes and hours they lack, but the proper organization of them.

There is a popular saying that we’re all given the same 24 hours in a day.

Think about it. Are you really getting the most from your time? If not, this article might be just what you need.

Why Is It Happening?

Misuse of time happens for a huge number of reasons. For instance, when considering employees, people can suffer from poor time management when:

A job doesn’t suit them
Abilities are overestimated
A worker or the whole company lacks working plan
There is no motivation to work
They lack understanding about what their work means to the company

These are just some of the reasons that may lead to a time management crisis. In the real world there could be hundreds of factors that affect productivity negatively.

Remember it’s impossible to organize your time properly if you allow factors like those to go undetected and unresolved. Work on eliminating them — then get to your time planning.

Organizing Time

People face a lack of time in all sorts of different situations — at school while writing an essay or doing homework, or at home when a person can’t find time to clean up the house or go for a morning jog.

It is true: Time can be our enemy, and the best way to defeat it is to organize it.

There are numerous ways of organizing your time. Here are some of the methods that have proved themselves over time. Check them out and pick one that suits you most. Or try combining them. Who knows? Maybe you’ll create your very own method of time management.

The Eisenhower Method

I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.”
– Dwight D Eisenhower, 34^th President of United States

The idea behind this method is to determine whether the task you’re facing is important/unimportant and urgent/not urgent. It is recommended to draw a box with four equal sections and organize your tasks in following order:

Important/Urgent (Upper Left Corner) — These are the tasks that should be done immediately, or the consequences will surely affect your health or well-being in a really bad way. Examples might be taking your medicine, meeting an impending deadline or handling an emergency project. These are the most important tasks that cannot wait and should be done immediately.
Important/Not Urgent (Upper Right Corner) — Those tasks can wait but still should be done as soon as you finish the urgent tasks. It might be something like visiting your sick relative or doing exercise.
Unimportant/Urgent (Lower Left Corner) — You encounter such situations all the time. It could be something like answering a call from a friend who just wants to chat or leaving the room for a smoke. Mostly they affect your work in a bad way. It is recommended to ignore such tasks during work hours.
Unimportant/Not Urgent (Lower Right Corner) — These are tasks that you actually should cut out of your life. Basically, they’re just time wasters. Like browsing Facebook or trying to lift an apple using mind power. If you want to manage your time efficiently, you should forget about those activities. They consume too much time and have no positive effect on your life or work.

It is essential to be honest with yourself and give every task the label it really deserves. It may be hard, but it’s worth it. Eliminating time wasters and setting up priorities will drive you a long way.

Method Of Chronometry

The idea behind this method is to note every action a person does during the day and time spent on it. If you do this, you’ll get the list of your daily activities, that will look something like this:

9:00-9:15 a.m. — Browsing Instagram
9:15-9:35 a.m. — Drinking coffee and chatting with coworker
9:35-10:00 a.m. — Completing a report
10:00-10:15 a.m. — Browsing Facebook

It is easy to determine which of your actions should be eliminated from your daily timetable when you have such list on your hands. It may be inconvenient to record everything you do during the day, but the possible productivity gain is usually worth it.

Pomodoro Technique

You know the drill. Taking short brakes during work increases mental agility, and this technique takes advantage of that. Divide your work time into 25 minutes intervals, and take a short break (3-5 minutes) after every interval. After every four intervals, take a longer break (15-20 minutes).

Something to remember, however: After every 25-minute interval, write down the amount of work you’ve done. It will help you to understand how much time you need for completing particular tasks and will give you the opportunity to track your progress.

By the way, this technique is named after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer the creator of this method, Francesco Cirillo, used when he was a university student. (“Pomodoro” — Italian word meaning “tomato.”)

Essential Rules Of Time-Management

Regardless of which techniques you use to manage your time, there are a few things to keep in mind:

Keep Your Workplace Clean. It is proven that people with messy desks spend up to 30 percent of work time on searching for some document or other item. Keep it clean and you will not only be respected by your colleagues but will also increase productivity.
“No” Is the New “Yes.” It is important to be able to say “No” when needed. If a coworker lures you into a time-wasting conversation, it is better to politely reject his or her offer and get back to work. Let them know you have nothing against them — you just want to use your time effectively.
Don’t Try to Do Too Much. It is much better to have some bonus time left than to be out of it. When planning your day, be sure not to take on too much work. Do as much as you are able to. And if you’ve completed all your tasks and still have time, you can always find something more to do before going home.

Remember you can apply those methods and rules not only to your work but to any aspect of your life, whether it’s studying, exercising or household chores.

Being productive is an important task if you want to succeed in life and build a notable career. It may sound funny, but just following the tips and trying the methods mentioned in this article may be a crucial factor in achieving your goals.

(Photo by StartupStockPhotos / CC BY)

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Running a Medical Facility: New Methods to Increase Your Patient Reach

Though the medical industry is a billion dollar business, it is still important for doctors and medical facilities to continue to reach the general population.

Just like any business structure, medical facilities rely on funds from insurance companies and patients to stay afloat.

As such, patient retention and reach are of the utmost importance.

Keeping patients satisfied and bringing in new patients is the only way for medical practices to survive the competition. If you’ve found that your patient reach has slowed or become stagnant, implementing changes and new marketing strategies is always advised.

Developing an Online Presence

In this technological age, the average person uses the Internet as a means for learning more about their health.

Whether they are looking to be informed about an existing condition, learn about signs of potential medical conditions or to find a healthcare professional to receive treatment and care from, chances are this will all be done with the help of the Internet. As a result, it’s essential medical facilities develop a strong online presence.

Through developing this strong online presence, Internet users become familiar with medical professionals and facilities, thus opening the door for new relationships and potential new business. Below, are just a few examples of how medical professionals are staying connected and develop their brand through Internet marketing strategies.

1. Social Media

Social media has far surpassed the idea of simply being a platform for friends and family members to keep in touch. Businesses of all types have begun using social media as a means to develop their brand and reach the masses. Medical professionals and facilities can also utilize social media to their advantage.

By setting up an efficient social media page, medical facilities can easily share pertinent information, connect with members of their community, and interact with existing patients.

Through cultivating stronger relationships with the online community, medical facilities essentially make a name for themselves as authoritative figures within the medical community.

Social media users ideally become comfortable with a particular medical resource and feel more compelled to visit.

2. Website Creation

If you’re a medical facility without a website, this is something you really need to invest in sooner rather than later. With an average of one in three Americans searching the Internet for medical information and resources, you could improve your customer reach and thus improve your business.

Having a website loaded with tons of information in medical jargon is not going to suffice. It is imperative that when creating a website for your medical facility, the terminology used is easily understood by your target audience (the patients).

The easier the information is to understand and access, the more likely potential patients are to utilize your website as a valid medical resource. Ideally a highly optimized website will also improve your web presence, thus increasing your chances of being noticed by potential patients.

3. Medical Profiles

As consumers rely more on the Internet and reviews to determine which medical practices they will consider, creating an online medical profile just makes sense. Healthgrades, an online medical resource used by millions, is such an example.

Medical professionals have the ability to create a profile that can display things that include educational and professional experience, quality of their healthcare facilities, and, more importantly, patient experience.

Such a profile can help both established and new medical professionals reach millions of potential customers in their area.

SolutionReach, a company specializing in cloud-based medical solutions for doctors and patients, has recently partnered with Healthgrades, thus giving all medical professionals (including out of network and independent doctors) the ability to promote their services.

The Healthgrades Premium Profile through Solutionreach is noted as ranking at the top of search engine results through Google when it comes to consumer reviews. Not only will factual and positive information about your practice rank high, but it will also provide you with an authoritative source to point to if you are looking to mend or improve your online reputation.

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Long gone are the days where potential patients just come walking through the door because you’re a local doctor. In the age where information technology reigns, more and more patients are looking to the Internet to learn about medical professionals and weighing their options accordingly.

If you’re looking for ways to improve the number of patients in your medical practice, implementing some of the methods described above is ideal. Each of these methods helps to improve your online presence, brand, and eventually the success of your business.

(Photo by DarkoStojanovic/ CC BY)