Thanks for a Great First Year!

Last month marked the one year anniversary of Clarity Eye Care opening for business inside the Thornton Costco.  In the past twelve months, we have learned tons about what works, what doesn’t work, what to expect, and what not to expect in the practice.  It’s been a crazy, great year.

I’m happy and grateful to say that we have seen growth during our first year, and that’s sort of the impetus for this post – to thank everyone who has helped grow this practice.  When I took the practice over last year, the previous doctor had only been seeing patients about 25 hours per week.  We immediately bumped that up to a more full-time schedule, and I was worried about how long it would take to fill it up!  Certainly a number of our patients come to us largely because of our convenient location inside Costco, but we also see a lot of new patients who tell us their friend recommended our office to them.  Thank you for that.

Thanks for trusting your eyes to us, for trusting us to take good care of your friends and family and sending them to us; and for appreciating our focus on clear communication and pricing, as well as efficient, technology-driven exams.  Thanks for coming back year after year and for taking good care of your eyes.

Moving forward, we certainly still have room to grow, so feel free to keep telling everyone how great we are  🙂  I feel strongly about being available for walk-in exams as needed, so measures will be taken to ensure that we’re never so booked up that we’re inconvenient.  But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there – thanks in advance for helping us get there!

If there’s anything we’re NOT doing to meet your eye care needs, please let us know so we can continue to improve.  We’re grateful for the opportunity to be your eye care provider.  Thanks again.

 

Less is More, aka “Life, Simplified”

Communication (Photo credit: elycefeliz)

I recently had the opportunity to take a week off and go on a trip with my wife and three boys.  Beyond providing the simple joy of relaxing apart from the cares of the world, our vacation also reminded me that our modern American lives tend to be full of way too many distractions!

Especially when we haven’t had a chance to get away from these distractions for a while, I don’t think we truly understand how much they complicate our lives, clog up our brains, and increase our anxiety levels.  When we’re not anxiously checking Facebook for status updates, we’re compulsively checking our email – which, by the way, comes directly to our phones so we can obsess about it at all times.  Texts and calls must be returned immediately, lest we miss out on something or feel less than 100% connected.

While I am all about interpersonal relationships and connections, I do find it funny to ponder how different this life philosophy is from even just 5-10 years ago.  I used to write letters . . . on paper . . . and wait at least a week for a reply.  And somehow I survived.  Surely I don’t need to spend half my waking hours sending and receiving texts, checking my email, or surfing the web for that next great meme.  Not to mention the fact that if I am so consumed by these activities, they are likely crowding my subconscious thoughts even when I’m not directly participating in them.

What point am I attempting to make with this unfocused blather?  Basically that I would like to figure out how to manage my interpersonal communication so that I’m reasonably accessible to my family, friends, and patients; without letting it consume me.  I was more or less off the grid for an entire week, and yet my life did not fall apart.  It was beautiful.

It’s not easy, though.  Old habits (addictions?) die hard, and I still find myself gravitating toward my phone, iPad, or computer when I have idle moments.  But in case you ever send me a text or email and I don’t respond imMEDiately, there’s certainly a chance that I’m trying to simplify and de-stress my life.  Hopefully most people can appreciate and support that pursuit  🙂