Pace MediSystems

19/01/2026

It happens because “done” was never clearly defined.

If you’ve ever delegated a task…
Only to end up redoing half of it later…
You’re not alone.

And it’s rarely because someone got it “wrong.”

More often, your version of done stayed in your head and never made it into the conversation.
I see this pattern all the time:

🔸A manager thinks done means documented, filed, and communicated.
🔸A team member thinks done means the part they understood is finished.
🔸A doctor thinks done means it’s off their plate.

Different definitions.
No alignment.
And a high chance of rework.

Leadership isn’t about doing the work.
It’s about defining the finish line.

Clear outcomes don’t limit initiative — they make it possible.

When people know what “good” looks like:
🔸Work moves faster
🔸Ownership increases
🔸Fewer decisions bounce back to you
🔸Rework drops

Most leaders don’t need to delegate more.
They need to delegate more clearly.

One simple habit that helps:
Before delegating, clarify:

1. What does “done” look like?
2. How will we know it’s been done well?
3. Where does it live when it’s complete?

It takes a few moments.
It saves hours.

If rework is eating into your week, it’s usually not a people problem.
It’s a clarity problem.

And clarity is a leadership skill that can be built.

I’ve created a simple Definition of Done template to support clearer delegation and reduce rework.
If it would be helpful, just let me know and I’m happy to share it.

Reflection question:
Where might rework be pointing to unclear outcomes — rather than poor performance?

15/01/2026

Systemisation Is the Antidote to Urgency and Decision Fatigue

By mid-January, the cracks start to show.
Urgent requests pile in.
Decisions build up.
Everything needs your attention—right now.

Earlier this week, I shared how:
🔸Urgency can start calling the shots
🔸Decision fatigue builds when ownership is unclear

If that’s sounding familiar, the solution isn’t pushing harder.
It’s building systems that ease the load.

Start by reviewing the tasks that regularly land with you.

Ask yourself:
🔸Does this really need my involvement?
🔸Is it part of my role—or just something I’ve always done?
🔸Is it repeatable enough to be handed off?

Daily, weekly, or recurring tasks are a great place to start.

Then look at how your systems hold up:

🔸Clarify decision points
When ownership is unclear, everything slows down.

🔸Assign by role, not person
If your system only works when you do it, it’s not a system.

🔸Add simple checkpoints
Small reviews reduce rework and build confidence across the team.

Systemisation isn’t about stepping back.
It’s about making sure your practice doesn’t rely on you being the answer to everything.

If January is already showing you where the pressure still lands—take that as useful insight.

Need help making the shift?
DM me or click the link below to book a free
Clarity Call : https://calendly.com/denisepacey/30min_clarity_call

14/01/2026

Decision overload doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes, it just feels like quiet exhaustion.

Once urgency kicks in, decision fatigue often follows.

Not because leaders want control—
but because everything still ends up on their plate.

🔸“Can you just check this?”
🔸“What do you want us to do here?”
🔸“Is this okay?

Each question seems small.
But over time, they drain your thinking capacity.

In coaching sessions, I hear it all the time:
“I’m exhausted—and I don’t even know why.”

It’s rarely the workload.
It’s the number of decisions one person is quietly carrying.

When decision ownership isn’t clear:
🔸Leaders become the fallback
🔸Teams hesitate
🔸Pressure builds under the surface

This isn’t about avoiding decisions.
It’s about knowing which ones actually need you—and which don’t.

Good leadership isn’t about making every call.
It’s about creating clarity so others can make them confidently.

January moves fast.
But if every decision is still bouncing back to you, that’s the pattern to look at.

Which decisions are landing with you out of habit—not because they have to?

12/01/2026

January tends to make everything feel immediate.
🔸Emails stack up.
🔸Decisions come faster than usual.
🔸Everyone wants answers, right now.

It’s easy to slip into a cycle of reacting all day long.

In coaching conversations, I often hear:
“I didn’t stop to think. I just had to deal with it.”

That’s the trap: urgency gets mistaken for importance.

Urgency keeps you busy.
Importance requires clarity and intention.

When urgency sets the pace, decisions get rushed, priorities blur, and leadership starts to fade into the background.

This isn’t about slowing down or doing less.
It’s about knowing what truly needs your attention—and what needs a better system.

Strong leadership doesn’t ignore urgency.
It puts urgency in its place.

January will always feel full.
But leadership is shaped by what you protect, not what you chase.

Something worth asking:
Where is urgency deciding for you—when you should be deciding with intent?

09/01/2026

Most delegation doesn’t fail because of your team.
It fails because we treat delegation like a trust exercise — instead of a leadership skill.

🔸You hand something over.
🔸You explain it once.
🔸You assume it’s clear.

Then it comes back wrong… or not at all.

The familiar thought creeps in:
“I’ll just do it myself.”

Here’s the reality I see time and time again — delegation isn’t about who you give the task to.
It’s about how you set it up.

Strong leaders don’t just delegate tasks.
They delegate clear, owned outcomes.

When delegation breaks down, it’s usually because something was missing:

🔸Who actually owns this end to end
🔸What “done” really looks like
🔸How success will be checked along the way

Without that clarity, people fill in the gaps themselves.
And guesswork almost always leads to rework.

What’s interesting is that this often happens with capable, motivated people.
Once roles are clear and outcomes are documented, the same team suddenly performs better — because now they can.

Delegation isn’t about letting go.
It’s about leading with clarity.

If you’re tired of carrying everything in your head, this is where leadership meets systemisation.
Curious — which do you find harder?

Letting go… or getting clarity upfront?

06/01/2026

January productivity tip: stop using your brain as a to-do list.

If you’re starting January already feeling mentally cluttered, you’re not behind.
You’re just carrying too much in your head.

In a coaching session with a Practice Manager, we realised the overwhelm wasn’t the workload — it was all the “I’ll get to that” thoughts floating around.

🔸“I’ll remember that.”
🔸“I’ll do it later.”
🔸“I’ll write it down… just give me a minute.”

Those tiny mental notes add up quickly.

The shift wasn’t a new planner or a big system overhaul.
It came down to one simple rule:

If it matters, it shouldn’t stay in your head.
It should get captured.

If you’re not sure where to start, keep it simple:

1️⃣Choose one place for tasks
2️⃣ Capture things as they come up — meetings, calls, even while you’re out
3️⃣Don’t worry about organising yet, just get it out of your brain
4️⃣Check it once a day and decide what actually needs your attention

That alone creates breathing room.

When tasks stop living in your head, decisions feel easier, stress drops, and focus improves — without adding more work.

January isn’t the month for overhauls.
It’s the month for making things feel lighter.

💡 A tip that works for me:
I use Asana (free version) because it’s always accessible.
Phone app, computer bookmark — quick, efficient, and everything in one place.
If it pops into my head, it goes straight in there.

What’s one task you could get out of your head right now?

26/12/2025

December Is for Reflection. January Is for Decisions.

This time of year naturally invites a pause.

Not to judge what worked or didn’t.
Not to rush into fixing anything.

Just to notice.

What felt steady.
What quietly carried the load.
What required more energy than it should have.

Reflection isn’t about revisiting the year in detail.
It’s about creating the awareness that supports better decisions later.

January will ask for action.
December offers perspective.

19/12/2025

16/12/2025

Why So Many Practice Managers Burn Out, and How to Fix It

Feeling overwhelmed as a Practice Manager?

You’re not imagining it. When everything feels urgent, burnout sets in fast.

But the real cause of the overwhelm usually isn’t how much work there is.
It’s spending too much time on the wrong work.

That’s why the 80/20 Rule matters.
2020% of your tasks drive 80% of your results, if you know which ones they are.

Here’s how to apply it in your practice:

1️⃣ Start with high-impact tasks
Focus on what directly affects revenue, patient experience, or operational stability:
✔ Keeping bookings flowing
✔ Reducing admin errors
✔ Strengthening the patient journey
✔ Making sure key systems run smoothly (billing, phones, data)

2️⃣ Categorise before you act
Sort tasks into high, medium, and low value.
Then protect your time for what matters most.

3️⃣ Systemise repeatable work
If something happens daily or weekly, it should have a process.
This cuts down on rework and frees up mental space.

4️⃣ Stop multitasking
Every time you switch tasks, your brain needs about 20 minutes to refocus.
Batch similar tasks together. Switching just burns time.

A real example from this week:
A new Practice Manager was trying to manage phones, clinics, onboarding, patient transfers, and system issues all at once.

Once we applied the 80/20 Rule, her true priorities became clear:
✔ Patient journeys
✔ Revenue-related admin
✔ Systems that reduce rework
Everything else moved lower on the list, and the pressure dropped right away.

You don’t need to do more. Just focus on what actually moves the business forward.
What’s one low-value task you could delegate or systemise this week?

10/12/2025

Most of us move from year to year without pausing to consider how our own habits shape that experience.

We focus on goals, outcomes and responsibilities, but rarely on the small personal patterns that quietly drain us. And because of that, the new year often starts at the same pace as the last one ended… fast, reactive and crowded.

But a lighter year doesn’t come from doing more.

It comes from choosing one simple, sustainable shift that protects your energy and brings more clarity into your day.

If you’re unsure where to begin, try one of these:

• Your mornings: What’s one thing you could stop or start that sets a calmer tone?
• Your boundaries: Where could a small “no” make more space for what matters?
• Your mental space: What daily pause, even 60 seconds, could help reset your focus?

Last year, I changed one small part of my morning routine. I now start each day with a walk with my dog. No phone, no emails and no rush. Just movement, fresh air and a moment to arrive in the day.

That small shift gave me more clarity and grounded energy than any productivity hack ever has.

Sometimes the smallest shift creates the largest sense of freedom.

If there were one personal shift you could carry into 2026, what would you choose?

04/12/2025

For years, I wore "busy" like an achievement.

Back when I worked as a practice manager, I thought being the busiest person in the room meant I was doing it right.

My schedule was packed, my to-do list endless, and my free time?

Non-existent.

I thought it made me look hardworking, dedicated—even indispensable.

But here’s what I’ve learned: being busy doesn’t mean being effective.

In reality, “busy” often hides deeper problems:

🔸A lack of solid systems
🔸Poor boundaries and time management
🔸A focus on quantity over quality

Here’s the hard truth I had to face:

Being too busy made me less productive, more reactive, and constantly on the edge of burnout.

When I finally stepped back, I realized this:

The most successful people and practices aren’t busy; they’re intentional.

They focus on:
✴️Streamlining and delegating low-value tasks
✴️Prioritising what truly makes an impact
✴️Protecting their time for deep, meaningful work

So next time you catch yourself saying, “I’m so busy!” ask:

Are you busy, or are you effective?

Does your busy-ness serve your goals, or does it just feel “safe”?

Being overwhelmed isn’t a badge of honour—it’s a wake-up call.

What’s one thing you’ve done to reduce busyness and focus on what matters most?

Let’s inspire each other in the comments.