CLS eBook 13 - Getting Your Day Off To a Smooth Start Plus How To Keep Your Appointment Book Filled
Ask Yourself. Am I Present? Awaken the Observer and Come Present to Now.
With great gratitude, appreciation and praise we welcome you to the creation space of self love, courage, inspiration and the peace of mind that comes from gently balancing and lowering your brainwaves.
Listening to this ALPHA wave will assist you in creating a transformative meditative state, that will quiet your mind, relieve tension in your body, soothe your spirit, and help you remember how good it feels to be fully present in this beautiful moment of now.
Listen to this ALPHA brainwave as you study the following lesson.
The way that you start your day will have a large impact on how that day goes for you and how full your appointment book will be. Getting off to a smooth start will provide for a smoother day. Getting off to a rough start will increase chaos. Pilots (and their passengers) have little margin for error. In order that they have a flawless takeoff, they use a checklist before every flight.
1. Turn on lights, machines, make the space hospitable, make coffee or tea, maybe light candles and incense if that's appropriate, and mentally welcome the new day.
2. Store any items you brought in with you.
3. Pick up phone messages.
4. Pick up faxes, email and place in the in box.
5. Choose your background music for today.
6. Look at today's schedule and ask yourself "what is the best use of my time right now"?
7. Return calls, answer email and faxes.
8. Perform the bulk of your day's work activities.
9. Take frequent deep cleansing breaths and allow 10-20 minutes for quiet relaxation or meditation in the morning, afternoon and any other time you may feel stress.
10. Close your day by clearing your desk. Replace files and papers.
11. Leave the issues and cares of work at work. Create something pleasant and entertaining to look forward to each evening.
How To Keep Your Appointment Book Filled
So you are in private practice, and your appointment book is not as full as you would like it to be. As you might know, where-ever your intention and attention goes, so goes your energy and focus and you begin to magnetically draw aligned energies to you. Here's a simple solution that's proven helpful for all kinds of self-employed professionals.
Follow these steps and enjoy a full practice:
1. First let's look at how much gross revenue you want to generate from your work each month. Write down "I want to deposit $_________ before taxes each month".
2. Now, let's see how much that works out to each week. Take your gross monthly revenue and divide it by 4.3 to determine your weekly Revenue goal. $________________/4.3 = $_______________.
3. Next we will determine how many hours you will need to work per week in order to produce your goal. To find this number, divide your weekly revenue goal by your hourly rate. $_________/$_______= ____ Weekly appointments to schedule/hours to work.
4. Now, you get to choose which days of the week you will accept clients. Remember that some clients may have jobs and other responsibilities Monday - Friday and therefore would only be able to see you on a weekend. And also remember that some therapists, counselors and consultants only work weekdays and do just fine.
Sun___ Mon___ Tues___ Wed___ Thurs___ Fri___ Sat___
5. Last of all choose the hours you will work. Will you start late some days and have late evening appointments? Will you be available early in the morning for clients who need to see you before they start work?
Remember to allow time between appointments to return calls and to schedule lunches and any standing meetings or appointments outside the office.
Sun___ Mon___ Tues___ Wed___ Thurs___ Fri___ Sat___
7:00
8:00
9:00
10.00
11:00
12:00
1.00
2:00
3:00
4:00
5:00
6:00
7:00
6. Now for the "secret sauce". Take a green highlighter (the color of US money) and color in the square in the above table for each hour that you are willing to schedule a paying client. Be sure to color in the exact number of boxes in the table that corresponds to the number of client appointments necessary to produce your weekly goal as Determined in step 3.
7. Finally, grab your appointment book. Take the highlighter and place a small green dot next to the corresponding hours in your appointment book. This will match the table shown in step 5. Do this for the entire month. This will tell you when to schedule clients.
8. When the phone rings, and a client wants to set an appointment grab your book and ask them the following questions:
a. Which day of the week do you prefer?
b. Which time of day works best for you?
Go to the first green dot which matches the day and time the client has requested. And ask if that time would work for them. Inquire to determine if the client would like to schedule for the entire month. (Book a standing appointment whenever possible.) "Would you like me to reserve that time for you for the whole month before my appointment book fills up?"
9. Do your best to book your earliest appointments first, earliest day, earliest hour. Install this simple practice and see your appointment book fill up. You have told your subconscious mind exactly how many clients and when you want them to appear. You will be astounded at the extraordinary results produced by this habit. We refer to it as the "Green Dot Theory" and it has worked miracles for hundreds of practitioners over the past 25 years.