Let’s be honest, we all let things slide from time to time and may find ourselves more behind on certain administrative tasks than we’d like to be. After all, we became therapists to connect with and support clients not to keep up with documentation, respond to tons of emails and market our practice. Spring cleaning your private practice will help you get caught up on any areas where you have fallen behind.
Over the course of my time in private practice, I have worked on mastering systems and structures that allow me to get my work done more efficiently and turn off work when it is time to engage with my life outside of the office, yet each and every month I still take time to reflect on my practice and get things in order that I may have let slide throughout the month. Once every quarter, I take an even bigger picture look at my practice in order to see where things have been going well and where I want to make improvements. I work on cleaning up any backlog and tweaking my approach to my work to make things go more smoothly.
Spring cleaning your practice is all about giving yourself space to slow down, take a close look at your practice, take action to clean up anything you’ve put off and make any changes needed to avoid too much of a backlog down the road. I know you may not want to do it! But, I promise you’ll feel better if you commit to spring cleaning your private practice.
7 Reasons to Consider Spring Cleaning Your Private Practice
- You will find yourself enjoying being a therapist again because you are able to shift away from the “doing” associated with a never ending to do list. You will be better able to focus on being present and connected with your clients instead of distracted by what you need to do after session. The same will hold true in your interactions with loved ones.
- You can stop telling yourself, “I’ll prioritize my well-being once I get caught up on everything else.” After spring cleaning your practice, things will not be 100% perfect, but your to-do list will be more manageable and you’ll be able to step away from work with less anxiety about unfinished tasks. It’ll be easier to see how you can fit healthy eating, adequate sleep and exercise into your routine.
- Spring cleaning your private practice will allow you to get things in order, so you feel comfortable and confident adjusting your schedule or taking time off from your practice. There will be no need to think, “I can’t take time off because I am so far behind.”
- When done right, spring cleaning your private practice can help you identify effective structure and systems to avoid finding yourself as backlogged by the tasks you dread. The key is taking the time to reflect on why you are struggling in a certain area, how to work around these struggles and actually implementing the ideas you come up with.
- You will feel more confident holding firmer boundaries around your work. It’ll be easier to say, “I’ll save this for tomorrow or next week” because tasks will no longer seem as daunting. You will be able to keep up with your administrative tasks with more ease.
- You will finally see why other therapists talking about the flexibility that private practice offers because you have moved beyond treading water and have started to figure out how run your practice with the right balance of structure and flexibility.
- You will trust in yourself and your ability to successfully navigate the ebbs and flows of running a private practice and your family life because you know that even if things fall behind in one realm, you’ll be able to catch up again.
It sounds pretty good doesn’t it? I challenge you to commit to spring cleaning your practice this year. Please comment below and let me know if you’ll be accepting my challenge.
You don’t have to tackle spring cleaning alone. Let me know how I can help you.
Take Care,
Sarah
P.S. Vibrant Therapist Virtual Work Sessions are 2 hour co-working sessions in which therapists carve out dedicated time to work a task of their choosing, but get the added support and accountability of working alongside other therapists via Zoom. These work sessions would be great for working on spring cleaning your practice.