A corporate lawyer and mother of three boys, Chanel understands the value of a New York minute. Her entire day is optimized toward her goals, from spending time with her children to making partner at the firm. That's why Chanel has a personal trainer, a personal shopper and a personal assistant. Inundated with work for an upcoming deposition, she found her productivity threatened by her worst friend: the beginning of a urinary tract infection. Call her primary care doctor and try to get an appointment? No, tomorrow will not do. Spend hours waiting at City MD? No, her manager would frown on her absence. Unable to interrupt her work, Chanel scheduled an in-office Urgent Visit. Impressed by the efficiency of having a doctor and antibiotics delivered directly to her office, Chanel wondered: How have I been living without a personal physician?! As if things couldn't get any easier, Chanel paid with pre-tax contributions from her Health Savings Account.
The very thought of waiting is so anxiety-inducing, you simply can't even.
As a New Yorker, it's your worst nightmare: you're trapped behind a slow walker. A Japanese tourist ambling with map in hand, a millennial meandering as she Snapchats her bestie, and little granny s-t-r-o-l-l-i-n-g with her walker. You try to harness that morning's Headspace to stay calm, but it's difficult; idling is anathema to your soul. The very thought of waiting is so anxiety-inducing, you simply can't even. That's why you seek ways to save time with messianic fervor: TaskRabbit, Seamless, Uber, FreshDirect, Amazon Prime Now, Handy. So why should your doctor be any different?
I've always admired the equity of time. No matter if you're a C-level executive at a Fortune 500 company or a homeless gentleman on the corner, there are 24 hours in your day. With a seemingly finite resource, is it actually possible to gain time? Yes; the solution is to increase functional time. Functional time is time utilized to achieve your goals. This means spending time with loved ones, advancing your career, increasing your physical fitness, traveling the world--working toward your goals whatever they may be. Any time not dedicated to personal goals is wasted time. The most common culprit of wasted time is waiting. Throwing a hypoglybitchy tantrum in line at by CHLOE, suffering a mini-stroke in anticipation of the N train, queuing all the way around Trader Joe's at an hour you were absolutely certain the store would be empty. How many of your 1,440 minutes are spent waiting each day? I bet a whole lot. Minutes add up to hours, hours to days, and days to years. Don't waste your life away; value your time.
Personalized services will optimize your functional time on a daily basis, but how do you increase the number of your days? It can be difficult to conceptualize the span of your lifetime, so let's consider your car instead. Which strategy will yield greater mileage: driving the car out of the dealership until the car stops running or providing periodic maintenance to catch and fix minor problems? Any car owner knows that maintenance is essential to longevity: checking the oil, refilling the cooling fluid, replacing the engine's air filter, inspecting the timing belt... Your body is like a vehicle: an engineering masterpiece that will run longer with regular maintenance. Preventive medicine is the practice of maintaining bodily mechanics. Habituating healthy behaviors--like consuming a whole plant based diet and engaging in physical activity--will promote peak performance of your organs. Your body is your most prized possession; take care of it!