May 3, 2021
In this episode, Uriah of Productive Therapist joins the show. Uriah thinks that life is too short to burn out early. So, Uriah gives us tips on conquering the overwhelm and growing your practice seamlessly with the least amount of stress possible. First, we chat about how you can conquer the email overwhelm by using the inbox zero method and only checking your inbox three times a day. Later, Uriah reveals the three keys to productivity, and we talk about personal knowledge management.
Meet Uriah Guilford
I am a licensed therapist & group practice owner. I want to help you be more productive, profitable & happy with your business and your life. Basically, work less and get more done!
If you have achieved any level of success in your private practice then you can relate to the following. You have more tasks to complete than hours in the day. You work super hard because you are passionate and want to grow. Sometimes you neglect your self-care and other important things in your life. Not so great right!?
That is why I have built a team of amazing virtual assistants for practice owners just like you! Hiring a virtual assistant in 2012 was one of the best decisions I ever made. It allowed me to double my business income without feeling like I was losing my mind. Actually, go on vacation and not be tied to my iPhone the whole time.
And serve my clients better! It made such a massive difference for me and it can for you as well! If this sounds interesting, check out our services page and the most frequently asked questions we get all the time.
Helping Therapists Conquer Email Overwhelm
Do you feel frustrated and overwhelmed with your email inbox? In Uriah's 7-Day Email Transformation Challenge, there are basically seven days of tips that have pretty quick action steps. On day two, he talks about batching; it's the simple idea of taking similar tasks, putting them together, and doing them simultaneously. So when you apply that to email, it means checking and processing email at certain times, but not throughout your day, not constantly.
Uriah has made a massive change just this week - whenever his workday is done, he will close his email so that when he gets back to the computer the next day, he won't see his emails right away. Uriah created a schedule to process emails three times a day: nine, twelve, and three. Uriah hasn't been perfect. However, this week has made a huge difference so far because he is getting a lot more things done when he is spending hours away from his inbox. Typically, when someone has an email – they feel the urge to respond to it right away. Take away the urge!
Reaching Inbox Zero
Inbox zero means processing all your emails to the point where there are zero emails left. Uriah personally likes to be at inbox zero. Whether you have ten emails or one hundred emails, responding to the essential people and taking care of the things that are top priorities will be crucial. When you pay less attention to your inbox, you may not process every email you have. However, you can snooze the emails that are not urgent for you to respond to that day. Gmail has the most powerful tools for organizing – it lets you create filters and sort messages to prevent inbox overload.
The Three Keys of Productivity
Uriah highly recommends checking out Michael Hyatt's book, Free to Focus A Total Productivity System to Achieve More by Doing Less. In the book, Michael speaks about the three keys of productivity: elimination, automation, and delegation. So, Uriah likes to strategize with therapists to remove things from their calendar and their to-do list. We automatically add things that we think we need to be doing to our calendar. So whatever you can eliminate from your schedule and your to-do list is going to help you free up your time and let you focus on the important stuff. Also, automate anything that you can! For instance, Gmail has filters that you can help automate your email process. Lastly, delegation is Uriah's favorite productivity hack. Anything that you can get off your plate and have somebody else take care of for you will immediately free up your time and help you be more productive.
The Problem Of Success
When you start a private practice, you have a revenue goal. However, you don't know what it will feel like you when you get there. Handling all the calls while seeing clients while updating QuickBooks is going to be overwhelming. Also, we may not be the best person to be taking on all of these different tasks. You can find a competent person, whether it's a virtual assistant or somebody you hire, that comes into your office to take over that role. If you are busy seeing clients, then your phone is going to be sent to voicemail. In the meantime, those people are calling other counselors and shopping around. So, it's critical to have someone answer your phones while you're in session – you simply cannot do both! Most people wait too long to hire someone to help with their phones.
Personal Knowledge Management
Personal knowledge management encompasses how we take in, collect, and access all kinds of information. If you just think about it as a therapist, all of the CPUs, training, and information that we collect over time becomes hard to organize and find when you need it. Uriah has been actually using Evernote, it's been around for a long time. He uses that for basically everything. Whenever Uriah has an idea, he writes it down! The nice thing is that a lot of them are tagged, and they're easily searchable. He uses Evernote to track his goals, it's basically his second brain. Another app that Uriah loves is Todoist – it's a task manager you can trust for life.
Being transparent… Some of the resources below use affiliate links which simply means we receive a commission if you purchase using the links, at no extra cost to you. Thanks for using the links!
Uriah’s Resources
Productive Therapist
Guilford Family Counseling
Resources
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Meet Gordon Brewer, MEd, LMFT
Gordon is the person behind The Practice of Therapy Podcast & Blog. He is also President and Founder of Kingsport Counseling Associates, PLLC. He is a therapist, consultant, business mentor, trainer, and writer. PLEASE Subscribe to The Practice of Therapy Podcast wherever you listen to it. Follow us on Twitter @therapistlearn, and Pinterest, “Like” us on Facebook.