What’s your time worth?
Trying to keep costs down may be damaging your productivity.
Recently I was giving a talk to a group of dentists and staff members.
During the talk I discussed a lot of ways to work more efficiently and one of the items that I mentioned was a single-use safety syringe.
Eliminate needle-stick
The safety syringe that I talked about has several advantages such as it:
is quicker to set-up
eliminates the need to sterilise syringes
is faster to dispose of
makes needle-stick injuries impossible
But the dentists were unimpressed. I asked why.
The answer was because:
“The syringes cost more.”
Firstly, I don’t accept that they cost more when you factor in the higher initial cost of buying re-usable syringes and the fact that those syringes have to be cleaned, bagged and sterilised after every use.
Plus those syringes wear out and need to be replaced periodically.
But, even if I did accept that the safety syringes cost more, it is an absolute maximum of $1 per use. That led me to ponder…
What’s your time worth?
Let’s do the maths.
Say, for example, you turn over $4,800 per day. A good sum but not outstanding. I know dentists turning over less and I know dentists turning over more. That means:
an hour of your time is worth $600.
a minute of your time is worth $10.
6 seconds of your time is worth $1.
If a disposable syringe save you 6 seconds of your time it pays for itself. If it saves you more than 6 seconds then you are making money by using it.
What lesson do I take away from this? The biggest one is to…
Stop penny pinching
If you find a material or piece of equipment that saves you time then buy it. Quite often I see dentists not buying time-saving materials and equipment in an attempt to keep costs down. The problem is that by using sub-optimal materials and equipment they reduce their productivity.
I take an entirely different view. I say that you cannot penny pinch your way to prosperity. My viewpoint is…
Dental materials aren’t expensive. Your time is expensive.
You will do far better by maximising your clinical time and to do that you need every possible assistance you can get.
If a material or piece of equipment saves time, then it is a bargain that you should not turn down.
It’s about mindset and the proper mindset is to want to be as productive and efficient as possible when you are at work.
Live, in-person seminar, Melbourne 16 May 2026
