Spring Cleaning Your Practice

Spring is a time of year when we naturally feel the urge to organize. Maybe you clean out your closet or purge your pantry, but what about your business? There is a lot to be said for creating some external order in your practice that allows you to feel calm and grounded on the inside. This is not only beneficial for your mindset and mental health but supports your clients because you can show up as the best version of yourself.

Here are 6 ways you can get organized and spring clean your practice:

1. Freshen up Your Workspace

What does your desk or office space look like these days? Maybe you have a dedicated office or maybe it’s a make-shift kitchen table situation. Regardless, spending some time to organize the space where you work is beneficial because it helps with your productivity and workflow. Especially if you are limited on space, then organization and creative storage become essential.

Even small improvements like organizing all of your phone and computer cords with a gear tie or setting up a simple cable station can help you feel more organized. If you have a lot of small items cluttering your desk, consider borrowing a cup or mason jar from your kitchen. Re-purpose a utensil organizer as a drawer divider, or use silicone cupcake liners to store small things like headphones or paperclips.

2. Clean up Your Computer/ Hard Drive

Just as it’s important to have an organized desk space, it’s also important to have an organized computer. Is your desktop full of unorganized files? Do you have old documents hanging around on your hard drive that you no longer need? Consider doing a computer overhaul to clean it all up! You may be surprised by how much time and frustration you’ll save when you know exactly where your computer files are and don’t have to wade through a bunch of messy documents.

Start by purging old files that you don’t need, then create folders to move all of your current documents into. As part of this process, you may also want to update any documents that need a refresh.

Next, take a look at your web browser. If you have existing bookmarks, review those and delete any you don’t need anymore. If you don’t use bookmarks yet, ask yourself which websites you are navigating to on a daily basis. Perhaps your email, calendar, Practice Better account, and your favorite search engine. Add these as bookmarks to save you time each day.

3. Review Your Workflow

Consider certain tasks in your practice that you are doing repetitively, manually, or that really drain your time and energy. Is there a way you can automate them and take them off your plate altogether? Maybe you have a team member or assistant who you can hand off certain administrative tasks to, or perhaps there is a new system you can put in place to streamline your workflow.

Making an effort to take inventory of your practice in this way will not only save you time in the long run but will give you more energy to put towards what you love – working with your clients!

4. Touch Base With Clients You Haven’t Seen in a While

Touching base with previous clients is not only a great way to maintain your relationship, but the process of identifying who you haven’t spoken to in a while will help keep you organized. Review your client list to see who hasn’t been in for a session with you in a few months, or hasn’t been active in their Client Portal lately. Consider sending out an email or a Broadcast message to re-connect. You never know who may be in need of some extra support again, or who may have fallen off the bandwagon completely and will be happy to hear from you.

Another great way to keep things streamlined and organized is by deactivating clients who you aren’t working with at the moment and assigning them a Tag to follow up with at a later date. Deactivating will remove their access to the Client Portal, but keep their client record intact. If there are certain clients who you won’t be working with again in the future, you can export their client record for record-keeping purposes and then delete their Practice Better client profile altogether.

5. Refresh Your Website and Social Media

Many health professional’s businesses evolve over time, so it’s important to check-in and ask yourself if your website and social media are still an accurate representation of you and what you offer. Are your website and social media bios still aligned? Are the offerings listed on your website and Public Bookings Pages updated? Does your website copy accurately reflect your target audience?

When practitioners are busy working with clients, these types of things often get left behind because, well, there are only so many hours in the day! But ensuring your website and social media correctly represent your business is a key component to growing your brand and bringing on new clients.

With your bio, keep it simple by writing up one longer version for your website and then take small pieces of that to re-purpose on your social media, or for anywhere that you need a lower word count.

6. Update Your Goals

Just as your services and offerings may have evolved, your goals are likely different than they once were. Take spring cleaning as an opportunity to write down new goals for your business, but also for your own personal and professional development.

If you don’t know where to start, begin with free writing in a journal. Reflect on where things are at in your business currently, and where you would like them to be in the future. You can then review your notes, and turn this free writing into tangible, specific goals with timelines. The act of writing is great for clearing your mind and making sense of your thoughts and ideas (we love a good old-fashioned pen and paper for this!).

Working IN your business with clients doesn’t always leave you the time to take a look at what’s being neglected in your business. By taking some time each year to clean up and reset your business with a little spring cleaning you will be better able to serve your clients and grow your practice.

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