Spending Time ON Your Practice


A reader of one of my newsletters wrote to tell me of her struggle to find time to work on her accounts. It reminded me of how often we can forget that running a practice is more than just seeing the clients.

There are lots of little tasks that need to be done to keep the practice up and running. Tasks such as keeping the records in order, making sure there’s enough work coming in, and paying the bills on time. Much of this is done reactively. And some of it will only get done if we make the time for it.

Organic.Tasks that we need to make time for are those that don’t get prompted by outside deadlines or timescales. We are unlikely to forget to pay our bills, because our creditors will remind us! We also receive reminders about updating our memberships of professional bodies and renewing our insurance. However, important as these tasks are, they are largely housekeeping. Other tasks, which might help us to grow our practice, or move it into a new direction will only happen if we decide to do them. These latter ones may be the difference between the practice we’d like to have, and the one we actually have!!

Here are seven tasks you need to make time for in your practice:

  1. Make a plan for your business. It can be very simple and informal, but the exercise of actively thinking about your business as an entity that needs attention will work wonders for you
  2. Speak to people who might refer work to you; phone them, go where they are, but do speak to them.
  3. Keep an eye to where new clients are coming from, this will tell you what promotion is  working for you and what isn’t
  4. Ask yourself are you enjoying your work? If not, do something about it. The impact of doing work we don’t enjoy is highly stressful and leads to burn out and compassion fatigue.
  5. Write up your books of account, or get someone else to write them up for you, and measure your income against your budget
  6. You don’t have a budget? Then write one, and review it regularly to see how you’re doing!
  7. Take a risk, do something differently, say or do something you wouldn’t normally say or do. The power of stretching yourself is huge, as you begin to realise you have skills and abilities you never thought you had.

Time spent working ON your practice is just as important as time spent working IN it (working with clients).

If you struggle to make time for the important tasks of working ON your practice, I’d love to help. Please contact me here to make an appointment, or to avail of a free 20 minute consultation.

Or if you need a few CPD hours, you might like to attend our practice development course, see here for details.

Save