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• What I’ve Learned

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“This appliance is a God-send.

It will save you hours of time-intensive human labor, transform your day, make your family happier, and allow you to live the life you deserve.”

In the early 20th century, a survey asked a group of housewives, “how many hours per week do you spend on household chores?”

The answer:

~35 hours per week.

The biggest culprit?

Washing clothes.

Laundry took 2-3 hours of intense hand wrangling, wringing, scrubbing…. and that didn’t even include drying!

But then things changed.

We mass-produced an appliance that revolutionized household chores.

All you had to do was dump your dirty clothes in, set it, forget it, and this laundry ‘machine’ would take care of the rest. An instant 2-3 hours given back. Heaven on earth. Ad copies raved about the flexibility, the happiness, the joy.

But years later, the same team followed up with a new survey asking the same question.

Except they found that housewives were clocking in more hours per week.

5-10 more hours.

….Why?

While laundry machines did usher in efficiency and time savings, they did something that all technology eventually does: It changed expectations. Husbands expected to have a clean shirt every week. Standards rose to offset the benefits.  

Efficiency advantages turned into standard expectations.

This week’s lesson comes from a few orthodontic lectures on new technology, patient expectations, and practice lifestyle:

When we listen to an orthodontist speak about “how great and efficient” their practice is, the time they save, the appliances they use, the new tech they have….don’t just be ‘wowed’ with how great they have it.

Maybe they do; maybe they don’t. Rather, look at it like you would a laundry machine, an email, paperless documentation, and anything else taken for granted today.

Ask if you’re witnessing patient expectations…changing ?

Orthodontists report working more hours per week in their practice than ten years ago. And while time savings and flexibility are huge benefits from today’s tech, take a different approach. What are my parents and patients now expecting? Is what we’re doing meeting these new expectations? And what happens if we don’t?

Or, if anything, ask a person doing laundry this week:

Aren’t you happy with how much time you’ve just saved this week!?

Judge their reaction accordingly.