“Your business will always shout for you”

5.30am

I’ve got two children, a boy and a girl, who are 13 and 11, and they are both swimmers. My son swims six days a week and goes to the gym the other morning, and my daughter swims three days a week. On days that I do the swim runs, I’m up at 5.30am and they’re in the pool at 6am.

8.30am

In the past year, I’ve got back into running. I make a point of going to a gym. On Thursdays, after my son has swum and I’ve dropped him at school, I also do a personal training session.

It has become really important to me to carve out that time. Being a business owner, there is never a time where you don’t have a long list of things that you want to get to. I have to make peace with the fact that there will always be a to-do list – but carving out that time and making it a habit really helps.

9am

On Mondays and Tuesdays, I’m working in the practice. I will alternate testing on those days, to facilitate a bit of time for my other staff members.

When I’m not testing, I’m on the practice floor. That might mean looking at direct debit schemes or staffing, or business management needs with my colleague, Stacey, who is our supervisor. I don’t really know what I’m going to be doing those days. I always have a plan, and it rarely goes to plan.

10am

We are very busy, but we are at heart a very small business in a very tight-knit community. My name is above the door. I’m a local girl, and I’m very passionate about my community, about what I do, and about our business.

I feel strongly that people who live in Kilkeel shouldn't have to travel to Belfast or to big cities to get excellent care, service and products. I want to provide the very best eye care that anyone can have, within our local community. My passion is my hometown, and making sure that everything you can have in a bigger town, we can have on our doorstep.

With that in mind, it also means that when I am in the practice, if I’m available, patients will come in want to talk to me. My day is dictated by that.

Patients are my top motivation. When patients come in and say thank you, and bring in a box of chocolates, it makes everything worthwhile.

I want to provide the very best eye care that anyone can have, within our local community

1pm

We close for half an hour at lunch time, because otherwise you just don’t get that time. We stagger lunches over that half hour, because there might be a patient coming out at 1pm who needs to be dispensed – but we still have the doors closed for half an hour.

I try to make sure I do stop for lunch, but it is difficult. I have a full diary, and there are phone calls and other tasks that always need to be done.

I’ll generally have a salad, which I’ve brought in with me. I’ll chuck it all on a plate and chop it up – I’m like a ninja with a knife. A bit of protein, and a bit of salad – anything heavier, and you do feel you have a bit of a slump in the afternoon.

1.15pm

I also try to get five minutes to sit down with the girls in the lunchroom and chat. They tend to eat lunch together, which is really nice. We’ve got a kitchen and an upstairs room, and the front office becomes the lunchroom. It’s a nice space, looking out over the street.

My staff mean everything to the practice. They are the first port of call for patients – without them, the business isn’t anything.

Robert McKee Photography

Robert McKee Photography

Robert McKee Photography

3pm

I try, on my admin day once every couple of weeks, to say, ‘okay, what messages are we sending out to our patients? How are we communicating with them?’ and thinking about our social media presence.

I think you always have to be investing. For me, the question is always, ‘what’s the next thing?’ We set up a completely new computer system 2018 and then did a massive practice refit in 2019.

Then we had COVID-19, and then 11 maternity leaves within 18 months – three optometrists and nine optical assistants. During that period, my staff were amazing. I don’t know how we managed to continue to do what we do, and do it well, but we did.

Now that we have that behind us, we have the capacity to invest in what we do a bit more and get excited about new things. We’ve recently invested in our ortho-k offering – that is something new that we've been doing in the past year or two.

We offer myopia management, with glasses and the night lenses. We’ve just bought a new OCT, and we’re about to buy an Optos device. We’re also doing a bit more of a refit, because I want a new room downstairs to have the Optos in.

There’s always something, with a business, that is the next thing you’re doing. You’re trying to fit those things in and move those things along. Because it’s a small business, I do a lot of those things, rather than asking someone else to do them.

4.30pm

We have a late night on a Wednesday, where we are open until 8.30pm. Otherwise, the last test of the day will start at 4.30pm. We shut the doors at 5pm, which allows half an hour to get everything finished and to dispense the last patient. That means that the staff, hopefully, can leave at half past five.

6.45pm

I like to test, because I like to see my patients. But that means that every day is jam-packed. On a good day I’ll leave at half past six. On normal days, it’s quarter to seven or seven o’clock.

7.30pm

I get home at half past seven, and then it’s straight into mum duties – making sure the kids are where they need to be, and helping with homework.

8pm

I do most of the managing of the house, but my husband does a lot of the cooking. He works from home part of the week, and his dinners are phenomenal. Everything is made from scratch. A curry made from fresh spices is lovely in the evening. He cooks; I clean up. I’m happy with that.

8.30pm

I’m really involved with the Northern Ireland Optometric Society. When I first qualified, 20-odd years ago, my supervisor got me involved, and I was president about 13 years ago. Often, there will be meetings in the evenings.

As a business owner and a mum, your business will always shout for you. There will always be things that you want to do and that you’re passionate about doing in your business. But when you’ve got kids at home who rely on you being there, it’s a really good motivator to say, ‘Okay, I need to shut the door, and I need to go home now.’ That can be really good for your wellbeing, because it helps you prioritise what needs to be prioritised.