Badass Therapists Building Practices That Thrive
Welcome to Badass Therapists Building Practices That Thrive, the ultimate resource for mental health professionals ready to step into their power, grow their practices, and create a career they love. I'm Dr. Kate Walker, a Texas LPC/LMFT Supervisor, author, and business strategist who's here to show you the path to success.
Formerly Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses, we’ve rebranded because, well, we’re way too big for Texas now! This community of badass therapists is growing nationwide, and we’re here to help you create a career and practice you love, no matter where you are.
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Badass Therapists Building Practices That Thrive
127 Boosting Therapist Productivity: Effective Strategies with Jennifer Marie Fairchild
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
Hey, I'm Dr Kate Walker. Welcome to your Tuesday coaching. I'm here with Jennifer Marie Fairchild and I said that weird. It's Jennifer Marie Fairchild, and I'm trying to say your full name the right way. Who's my assistant doc, student, lpc associate and just all around chief executive officer of everything at Kay Walker Training? If I can do it, she can do it. So I depend on you a lot. So I'm so glad you agreed and you're able to be on this call. You're actually at a doctor's appointment with your kiddo. So thank you, thank you for doing this, and we're going to talk about time wasters today, personal ones, and then we'll open it up to questions. But I'm going to go ahead and let people in All right, we got everybody in and I'm going to let AI Meeting, who is, of course, just our friendly neighborhood AI, summarize and give me a little bit of detail when we in the in the meeting today. So, again, this is your weekly group coaching. If you're a Step it Up member, we give a little spiel at the end. You're totally able to ask me questions about anything. It doesn't have to be the topic at hand. It can be about a course you're going through, if you're in Badass Basics if you're in the 40-hour supervisor training or you just have a question about practicing. That's the beauty of being a member of Step it Up that you actually get this weekly interaction, and I'm so glad you're here.
Speaker 1:This presentation today is sort of dovetailing on last week's when I talked about tough love and really looking at are you doing things that are moving the needle in your practice or do you just think you're doing things that are moving the needle in your practice? So you know, when I hit on time wasters at the end and then then I thought, no, I need to dive more into that. So Jennifer was kind enough to agree to be put on the spot. So literally like 30 seconds before we got on, we're invited everybody in. It was like okay, what are time wasters you do? Okay, here's some that I do, ready set, go, here we go. So it's going to be kind of like show and tell or truth or dare, whichever way you want to look at it, and I will go first. So time wasters and you must stop doing these.
Speaker 1:And so I'm going to do an obvious one. My obvious one is social media. So social media, specifically Facebook, like I, like Instagram, but I don't get on Instagram during the day. Facebook, on the other hand, I have to literally take the app off my phone. Or if I'm at a long stoplight, I'd probably pick up my phone and scroll Facebook. I mean, it's bad, I don't know why. It literally like I've unfollowed a ton of people, especially during the political season. So it's really just like looking at ads. That's really all that pops up in my feed.
Speaker 1:But that's one of the ways that I've had to address it is just to take it off of my phone. But I will still self-sabotage and tell myself yeah, but I'm traveling to Conroe to go see my daughter, so I better put it on my phone again in case I don't have access to my computer. You know, because I have to keep track of the threads in my Facebook groups. You know Texas counselors creating badass businesses and the Texas supervisor coalition, so I really need to have my finger on the pulse. Blah, blah, blah. Talk myself back into it. Back. The app goes on my phone. It's there right now. I need to take it off because I know any second that I have downtime. It'll be like do I work or should I check? Oh, my gosh, I just looked at this monitor. Guess what's up Facebook. So that's mine. So social media, it's, it's a crutch, it's a necessary evil if you own a business sometimes. But uh all right, that's fine. All right, jennifer, your turn go.
Speaker 2:You're talking about Facebook. I do the, I do the same thing. But we have like a local group that, um, like the wealthier side of town started for like their buy sell trade, and so that's like my nemesis. Like I get on there and I'm like, oh, but Susie's posted a closet clean out of all her six-year-old's clothes and I'm like, oh, I'm going to and I will just scroll these stupid closet purges and like I think I'm being productive, because I'm like, oh, I'm going to and I will just scroll these stupid closet purges and like I think I'm being productive because I'm saving money, because I'm buying, you know, secondhand for my kids, but I, yeah, it's bad. So I don't even want to admit this. I've never admitted this out loud Like I feel like that we're transitioning into like an AA meeting, Kate, we're in a safe space, but it's bigger.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to lie. But when you asked me the question, the thing that instantly popped in my head is I will plan phantom vacations. I will be in the middle of something and I'll be like man, I wonder how much it would be to like. And I did it this morning, I did it this week. I've I've planned a vacation to the Maltese and I was like, oh my God, that's so expensive for five people, Nevermind, and I like closed the entire. I was supposed to be looking for a hotel for a dance competition in Oklahoma city and I literally found myself like looking at a five-star resort in the Maldives, Like I don't even know where that is. I think it's in the Pacific.
Speaker 1:It's near Oklahoma City, to be fair. Yeah, and I was like guess what?
Speaker 2:Didn't actually book the hotel I needed to. I do that a lot. I like I've planned cruises that I didn't book. I'm just yeah, I love that. That's my, that's my big didn't book. I'm just yeah, I love that, that's my big time waster. I love that for you.
Speaker 1:Thank you. So how do you combat? And I'm going to say, when I had three kids at home, there were many, many trips to Disney World and Universal Studios. That didn't happen. But you know, I had a budget made and I had the timeline. What do you do to combat?
Speaker 2:Once I like realize what I'm doing, I just close the window, like I don't leave the tab open. I don't think, oh, I can go back later. I just go, oh, wow, what are you doing? And I close, just close the tab and I just don't think about it again.
Speaker 1:Because we've talked about that, you and I. Our tabs look like. You know the most ADD brain on the planet, right 20, 30.
Speaker 2:Chaotic, yeah, because I and I'm always afraid like if I close this tab, my entire memory and recollection of its existence will fade off into the oblivion. So I must keep it open. I must keep it open or I'm going to forget about it until my computer starts running slow and crashes. I'm like oh, that's why I did that.
Speaker 1:This website is using too much energy. We had to, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, all right, I'm mad at that. Well, and so that kind of segues or transitions us into things that feel productive, which, for entrepreneurs and professionals, is. And, let's face it, if you are a parent, this might or even a caregiver for you know your own parents or another family member this can feel like a good thing, like you're really being productive. So I wrote down finding easier other things to do, right, so easier other things to do. Let's imagine, like you look at my Trello board and if you're wondering what Trello is, I've done some trainings on Trello. It's an online program that keeps your to-do list organized and prioritized. So I've got my Trello board and so, if you can imagine, right, I've got the big things that are hard to do, and then I've got, like, the little things that must be done, but they're super easy to do, right. So think about, even if you don't have a Trello board, if you live in a house, if you live within four walls of anything, it can feel so productive to have to go clean the floors. Instead of plan your marketing campaign for the month of March which is on my to-do list, by the way right? I literally that's what I have to do is plan my marketing for March, but Jennifer and I were talking neither one of us are housekeepers, so we're like not cleaning floors, but for me it might be. Oh you know what. I really should go into my Google Drive and organize everything. You know, I haven't organized my Google Drive in a long, long time. Back when I owned a practice, it might have been something like I need to get those files in order, and you know what? I haven't balanced my checkbook this month and even though it's only the 4th of February, right, those things that really do matter, but they don't move your business forward. So here's my strategy.
Speaker 1:I don't use paper often and I make fun of Jennifer when she does, but I have gotten paper and at the top, every day I write down big project. So at night, when I'm shutting my business down, I write down big project for the next day. I go to my Trello board and I think Mark Twain called it eat that frog. Right? If you eat the frog first thing in the morning, that's going to be the hardest thing you do all day. I basically write down my big frog and when I get ready to go down the rabbit trails and feel productive doing things that aren't productive, I stop, and I've been good about this. I don't want to call it a New Year's resolution because it'll get jinxed, but it has made a difference when I keep this open. I've got my music stand over here and that piece of paper is the first thing I look at when I step into my home office.
Speaker 1:Every day I look at the big project and so far every day I have been starting with my big project and the fun thing is it usually doesn't take as long as I thought it would. It was just something that you know. It seemed arduous, but once I got into it I'm like oh yeah, I forgot, I really like to do this, like I really enjoy it. So the little stuff is still there and I will probably plan a day, probably Wednesday, when I go through and do just little things, but for now, putting big project keeps me focused. Make sure that the frog gets eaten before I go down the rabbit trails. So that's, that's mine, jennifer. How about you? You got another one.
Speaker 2:I love the subtle making fun of me there for my paper Is that subtle.
Speaker 2:Hold on subtle making fun of me there for my paper. But I mean I don't, I've never heard the frog analogy, but I mean it makes sense, cause I, I literally like write to do and then I like break it down and I literally every day flip through and it'll say like Kate, stuff, or you know my therapy job stuff, or whatever it is, and I list the priority projects at the top. Um, just cause I have to have that visual. If I don't have that visual and I try to like tuck it in the recesses of my undiagnosed ADHD brain, I won't, I won't, I'll forget it. I said I think I said Jamie, you text us that and I was like I need to tell you something, but I don't remember what I need to tell you. But I know if I don't text you, I'll definitely forget that I need to tell you something I'll try to remember in the morning. And she just tags the bag was like. That made me laugh out loud. But if I don't see it, it's not there.
Speaker 1:So I have to see it, and that's why I'm going to stop making fun of you for paper, because I'm apparently the same way. Right, I've got Trello, I have all my systems. I have my flag system for my email, I have my Trello system for my organization. But if I don't see it in the morning, if I have three steps that I have to use to get to that, it's going to get lost on the way. Right? How many times have I texted you on a Sunday and been like ignore me. I just have to get this out of my brain and put it into your visual line of sight. I mean, if I could put don't open this and you could read that I would, but then you'd have to open it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, but yeah, it does help.
Speaker 1:So using paper, even if it seems counterintuitive to using all the electronics that we have. So, yeah, all right, let's go back and kind of review then. So we've got my social media addiction Then, with we taking the app off the phone, making sure that some other things I've done in the past. I want to add this to the list of solutions. There is software you can buy for your computer that actually blocks those websites during the day, and they've been helpful. They really have been helpful For me. The other one is, if I'm tempted to find something easier to do, I have my paper with big project at the top and Jennifer, just review yours. I'm trying to remember what were they.
Speaker 2:Close the tab. Close the tab. Close the tab immediately. And I am a list person and I used to get on to myself if I made a list and I didn't mark everything off the list. And now I realize that that's not the end goal. A lot of the list is just so I remember it and I have that visual representation of whatever the task was, so I don't forget. I think that's wonderful.
Speaker 1:And while you're saying that, actually so, if you look off to my right, you'll see there's a whiteboard with sticky notes on it, right, and that's actually a marketing strategy. And I resisted this forever, like no, no, no, I can make it in Canva. No, no, no, I can make it in Trello. And finally my business coach said would you please just get some sticky notes, because you ask me the same question every single time. And I'm like, oh, so I did. And there it is, it's right in front of me. And it's like, once you know this about yourself, I mean I'll speak to myself. Right, I go into denial, like surely I don't need to have it just in front of me. I mean, yes, I do, right. And now you know, looking around my office, I've got my calendar for the year over here. I've got numbers over here. It's just, if that's the way your brain works, then fly the flag. Just put it out there.
Speaker 1:Do what works, do what makes your business move, but give yourself the tough love. Be real, just like you would your client, right, if you set a timer. Remember, last week I talked about literally setting a timer for tasks, and there are things like the Pomodoro technique where you hit it for 20 minutes and then you change tasks every 20 minutes. That's gonna be really hard for you ADD folks, because it's a lot of task switching, but it'll help you understand really how much time you're spending. Right, because you dissociate a little bit when you're doing these things that give you the dopamine and all the happy chemicals. And when you plug back in and you're like, oh my gosh, two hours went by, I'm not going to get this marketing strategy done for March, then you feel bad about yourself and we don't want that.
Speaker 1:So the title of this presentation is you know, here are the time wasters. Stop these things today. I mean, we're still in the first quarter. We still have plenty of time to course correct and check those KPIs, check those SMART goals to make sure you are meeting your goals. Remember when we did that with ChatGPT? If you just popped in here, go back to our trainings where I talk about chat GPT helping you understand if what you are doing is actually meeting your long-term or even your short-term goals, right? So we're still golden. We are still in an excellent spot with this Q1. So I am going to hit the pause on our meeting here so everybody can ask questions, and here I