John Steven Jarstad, M.D., of the Evergreen Eye Center in Federal Way, Wash., has put the concept of core competencies to work in his practice. That means he concentrates on what his practice does best and discards what it does only marginally well. In the process, he’s added 26 free days to his schedule over the years.

He doesn’t do many blepharoplasties any more, for example, because he found that performing a really effective procedure took him 45 minutes. In that amount of time, he can perform three cataract surgeries or four bilateral LASIKs instead.