Never Mind the Trick: Taking My Seat on the Speeding Train

By Derrick B. Stark

Do you ever get the feeling that you are the cartoon character on the front of a speeding train trying to stop it Fred Flintstone-style? I certainly do these days as I find myself overpromised and overextended.

Then it occurred to me...I am sitting in the wrong seat. I am supposed to be in the engineer's seat where there is an actual brake. What am I doing out here on the nose of a speeding, out-of-control train? I forgot that, even though it may not be obvious how to at times, I can and must control speed. Sometimes, I have to slow down and stay in a straight line to cover the most forward distance in the shortest time.

So...here and now...I am prioritizing all of the things that I need and want (and have committed) to do this week. I am publishing them here both as an accountability tool and as a personal reminder that I am fortunate that my job comprises neat and meaningful work, and it would be shameful to tarnish it with a flawed seating arrangement.

I am prioritizing based primarily on cascading effect and deadline importance. For example, this article is first because I am holding up my editor's jam until I draft it.  To save you the suspense, my editor does not like held-up jam. Moreover, the deadline is pretty difficult to move because there are so many other tasks it affects.

Starting today:

1. Rewrite this week's Never Mind the Trick post because I just don't feel like the piece I had queued up is the right thought at the right time for the right audience.
2. Review the year-end financial statements prepared by our internal accountants...because taxes.
3. Train new staff. I am lucky to have two new employees that I think are going to be great additions to the MiraVista Payments Division. The better I train them, the more capacity they will create for my tenured staff and me to work on higher-level problem solving and deliverables. I am embarrassed that I have misfired already in their training because I am...I guess I am too busy to do it right? Anyway, that stops today.
4. Complete preparation for our webinar A Nerdtastic Guide to Making Money with Billing Data, scheduled for Thursday, January 26. I want to provide the most useful information I can to the attendees that I am so grateful to have.
5. Complete an Excel macro project. One of my clients, an owner, is spending 15 hours a week managing a personal spreadsheet that tracks pending orders! Now is not the time for him to learn new software, institute major changes in the company's processes, and all of the other things that would make his situation ideal...that can come later. He needs those 15 hours back pronto so he can spend them with his referral sources for the good of his business. If I can write a few Excel macros to automate the data entry that consumes most of his spreadsheet maintenance effort, then that needs to happen.
6. Complete coding updates for the next release of our internal workflow application, VistaBase. VistaBase prompts our staff clients with the information they need when they need it without a lot of sorting and hunting. Sorting and hunting wastes time I want them to use on being experts in their field instead of report makers and sorters. For example, VistaBase automatically queues lists of the denials that require resolution today, the unapplied payments that need application, and the patients that will be eligible for RUL restarts in the next 60 days. My staff needs to spend 100% of their attention on getting results, not browsing big reports picking needles out of haystacks. VistaBase 2.22, engage!

So that's it. Wish me luck. I will post an update on my progress next week.