A Month in the Life of a Therapist Entrepreneur: Week 1

I am in need of a serious revamp of my schedule and work-life balance structure. This is not a bad thing. This is a thing that happens in cyclical patterns. 

My practice has been a season of growth over the past 2 years. This is exciting and has brought with it additional roles and responsibilities. I have taken them on, plus a few others, without pulling back on any of the existing responsibilities. My roles and responsibilities have become unruly beasts and are in need of some serious revision. Just like plants in an untended garden beg to be weeded, trimmed, or replanted to have the best opportunity of achieving a state of thriving balance, so do my roles and responsibilities. 

I have already begun to do some restructuring. I am not taking on any new clients or supervisees. Once folks terminate, I will not be adding any new clients either. In the meantime, I had to figure out a way to open up more time to work on my business. I have set up a bi-monthly schedule whereby weeks 1 & 3 are heavy on therapy, groups, or supervision, and weeks 2 & 4 are heavily focused on project management, administrative tasks, and strategy. So much of my time has been dedicated to client-facing work that I have ended up compromising my time to complete administrative tasks on weekends, early mornings, or late evenings. Cue that movie quote about all work and no play.

In the short term, this isn't a big deal. I knew I would have to make some sacrifices as I relocated my office into a larger suite. We will celebrate our 1st anniversary in the new suite at the end of this month. It is fair to say that it has morphed into a long-term issue. And it is one that I can't allow to continue without it causing serious negative consequences for my well-being. 

The task this week - creating a Time Tracker Log to document everything I am doing each day. How many minutes are spent on all the things I am doing. I am committed to completing this task for a month. Each week will bring with it a new installment of the blog on the progress of that week. What did I learn that you can apply if your business has grown into the weeds?