Leaks in our therapy practices unintentionally divert our attention and energy away from our priorities and contribute to therapist overwhelm.
Actively plugging leaks allows therapists to reclaim their time, energy and dollars for activities that are most important to them; inside and outside of the therapy office.
I would argue that almost all (if not all) therapy practices are experiencing at least one of the types of leaks described in this post.
Even when we actively work on plugging leaks, new ones can (and will) pop up.
Often, leaks are an invitation to consider creating or tweaking a system or outsourcing a task.
There are three common types of leaks that occur in therapy practices.
These leaks are often interrelated; meaning that when you identify a leak you may discover it actually falls into more than one of the categories described below.
- Time
- Money
- Energy
Time Leaks
Examples:
- Manually doing tasks that could be automated.
- Re-creating things multiple times (Not using templates)
- Projects that take a long time because they are outside of your skillset
Money Leaks
Examples:
- Auto-payments for services you no longer use
- Paying for duplicate services
- Investments that aren’t demonstrating the anticipated impact on your practice
Tip: Look through your expenses for the past 30 days and ask yourself if each individual expense is needed and if you are getting what you need out of each expenditure
Energy Leaks
Examples:
- Things you spend a lot of time thinking about…and little time taking action on.
- “Unfinished business” Tasks that linger for a lot time because you don’t decide what to do about them.
Actively plugging leaks allows therapists to reclaim their time, energy and dollars for activities that are most important to them; inside and outside of the therapy office.
Re-evaluating and plugging leaks in our practices is something that should be done on a regular basis.
I’m happy to connect if you feel stuck figuring out where to begin in plugging the leaks in your practice. Access my schedule here to claim a complimentary 20-minute call.