Getting Organized in Your Private Practice

Getting organized in your private practice is essential for setting you up for success! When you’re a brand new entrepreneur, contemplating private practice, or just setting out in the launch stages, this can seem like an overwhelming (or even impossible) task. 

 Let me assure you that it’s not! 

Here are my best tips for getting yourself organized so you can reduce overwhelm, achieve clarity, and set yourself up for success!

Create a Vision

If you don’t know where you are headed… you will likely never get there. Creating a comprehensive vision for your practice is the first step that I recommend all counsellors and therapists take before setting out on the road to private practice. 

What do you want your practice to look like? How much do you want to earn? How many clients do you want to see? What kinds of client will you treat? How will you achieve work-life balance? 

Writing out a clear vision of where you are headed, in detail, is the first step to organizing yourself and setting out on the road to success!

Set Long & Short-Term Goals

Once you have your vision set, begin breaking it down into both long and short-term goals. Is your vision for 1 year from now? 5 years from now? 10 years from now? However long, I recommend creating 1-year goals, as well as monthly and weekly goals. 

Once you’ve got your goals broken down, it’s much easier to focus on what’s in front of you and break these smaller goals down into manageable tasks. 

Focus On One Thing 

At any given time, you will likely have at least 20 things on your to-do list! We all know by now that “multi-tasking” isn’t really efficient. When we lack focus, we actually waste more time by shifting from one thing to the next. 

Once you have your weekly goals broken down into tasks, work on one thing at a time and stay with it until it’s complete. Trying to do too many things at once is a great recipe for disaster and is also more likely to leave you feeling overwhelmed. It might seem slow-going, but by focusing your time and energy on one aspect of private practice at a time, and seeing it through to completion, you will achieve your goals much faster!

Set Aside Time 

Many therapist entrepreneurs I meet, especially those who are struggling, spend most of their time IN their practices, and an insufficient amount of time ON their practices. 

To achieve success, you must treat your practice as a job in and of itself (besides your role as a therapist/counsellor!). Your practice clearly won’t run itself, and it requires dedicated time each week. Schedule out a half-day or a full day each week to dedicate to the administrative aspects of your practice, outside of client time.

Keep It Simple

Especially when you’re starting out, one of the pitfalls we can experience is overcomplicating things by buying into systems or processes that we don’t yet understand, that aren’t necessary for the stage of business we’re in, or we simply can’t afford. 

Believe it or not, starting up a private practice doesn’t have to be difficult … and keeping things simple at the beginning will help you achieve your goals faster and create a sense of ease!

Thinking about private practice? Just in the launch stages? We’d love to help you launch a wildly successful practice, with clarity, ease and confidence! Check out the  Launch Your Practice Program 

Already running your private practice, but hitting some inevitable road blocks? I’d love to help! Consider our Grow Your Private Practice Program to get even more organized!