How to Schedule Appointments You’d Like to Forget

Pinecones!

Every June I’m astonished to find pinecones along my walking trails. The pinecones themselves aren’t the surprise. It’s the fact that they are around in the summer!

In my head, pinecones are a fall item, so I should never see them in June…at least not in the Northern Hemisphere.

This made me wonder: are there other instances in which I expect things to be a certain way and they aren’t?

While some, like pinecones, may be inconsequential, whereas others can make a difference in your health. Some examples:

• It hasn’t been that long since you’ve been to the dentist. Then you look at the calendar and realize it’s been 18 months.
• You feel confident that you have an annual exam with your primary care doctor. Oops, it’s been 2.5 years since you were last there.
• There’s an unpleasant test (fill in the blank) which you’re going to schedule “soon,” though you’ve been saying that for several years.

In some cases it’s deliberate avoidance (yes, I resemble that), other times it’s a matter of relying solely on your brain to be correct. Even if you have a good memory, you may remember something inaccurately or you may not remember it at all.

I’ve always had an awesome memory! Yet over the past few years, I’ve noticed some blimps in my recollection abilities. It could be aging. It might be that I’m taking in so much information that there just isn’t room to remember everything.☺️

A related factor is time perception, which is our subjective idea about the length of a specific event or an interval of time. In addition to our memory factoring into our individual perception of time, attention and emotion come into play. Also, context and our own expectations help inform our time perception.

Since I can’t even remember that the pinecones come every June, I can’t expect myself to remember to set up regular health appointments!

So here are some strategies that work for me:

• Rely on reminders from doctors who send them out. My dentists have always mailed reminders at the suggested intervals.
• Pay attention to reminders in my health portals. Overdue appointments and tests are listed on the home page.
• Create a calendar event to set up an appointment.

I choose not to put it on a to-do list because it’s easy to ignore.

Whereas if it pops up as a timeslot on my calendar, I can call the office or do online scheduling at that time. Of course, I make sure that the calendar entry is at a day and time that the office is open. Even when I can make an online appointment, I still do so when they are open. Sometimes there is a glitch in the online system and I have to call anyway.

Bonus tip: never call on a Monday just to make an appointment (unless it’s an emergency, of course!). Doctors are usually very busy on Monday’s and it takes longer to connect with the scheduling person.

While I’m sure that next June I’ll be just as shocked to see pinecones, I’m not going to put it on my calendar. I’ll just enjoy the surprise!

Since I like to avoid health-related curveballs, I’ll keep scheduling medical appointments. I know the system I use now may change as technology advances. That’s okay. I just need a way to remind myself to get it done.

Consider this question: how can you make it easier to schedule regular health-related appointments?