A Day in the Life of a New Art Therapy Practice

Below is the description of an assumed ‘average’ day for a therapist. There is a range of responsibilities and tasks that a therapist is required to do over a longer period of time. This involves tasks that may occur weekly, monthly, or on an annual basis. Those less regular tasks are not included in this snapshot view of an average day.

For a new private practice, the client load will be less than an established practice. As a result, most of the tasks for a new private practice will focus on marketing and finding new clients.

*Disclaimer: this snapshot view of a day in the life of a therapy practice is based on the assumption the practice is run by a sole practitioner. Larger therapy practices may involve different activities.

Client work may be limited when you are first starting a new practice. When you only have a few clients to work with, now is a perfect time to establish good work practices that support the process of managing your client work.

As you spend time working with your clients, identify the bottlenecks and potential weaknesses in your booking, scheduling, and client file systems so that you can make the changes now for when your client work increases. This will ensure that when your client work increases, you won’t be hindered by inefficient work processes so that you can keep growing your practice.

• 3 clients today
• Client work admin​

It’s important to undertake regular self-care to benefit both your personal life and your professional life. Developing good self-care practices helps to reduce burnout that is experienced by professionals within the mental health industry.

Supervision may also be considered a part of your self-care, however, it is an important part of your work as a therapist. It can be included as self-care for the purposes of identifying it separately from client work and business tasks.

• Meditation and breathing practice
• 30 min walk
• Art session

Private practice administration work refers to the tasks that are considered a part of your private practice operations. It is work that keeps the office running. As a new private practice, this category of work is essential as it forms the foundation on which your private practice will operate.

• Review email and phone messages
• Explore EHR system
• Complete CEU
• Make changes to client intake paperwork to update for new social media policy (refer Ethical Social Media)

If you need help to establish the systems for your private practice, you may like to purchase our Admin Package that is available in the store here.

This package provides the foundations of the most common administrative tasks to run your practice.

The package includes 4 major sections:

• BUSINESS ADMIN – these documents focus on the daily grind of your business including centralising important business information, establishing your financial and legal policies, and utilising calendars to help keep you on track on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis.
• BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT – these documents will help you establish the foundation of why you started your own practice. You can use these documents to discover your business goals and then create a strategy to help you achieve your goals. A project template is included to help you get started on your next successful project.
• CLIENT ADMIN – these documents will help you manage information and obligations to your clients, including consent, privacy, information requests, and establishing a social media policy in an ever-growing digital world.
• EMAIL AND LETTER TEMPLATES – these templates will help you communicate professionally with clients and other 3rd parties about the most common and difficult requests.

These items listed under private practice tasks is the work you need to undertake to build your private practice over the long term. It is any work that is considered outside of your operational tasks. These items are usually based on forward planning as you develop the products and services that your private practice will offer to clients. 

• Network with medical practices in the area
• Outline list of psychoeducation handouts for new clients
• Update website for new office hours

For more articles that relate to planning and organizing within your therapy practice, check out our previous blog posts listed below:

ART THERAPY BLOG POSTS

• Practice Management Software to Use as an Art Therapist
• Professional Networking for An Art Therapist
• Self-care for the Art Therapist
• Using Art Therapy For Your Own Self-Care
• Where to find Clients for your Art Therapy Practice

MARKETING BLOG POSTS

• 5 Essential Marketing Templates for your Therapy Practice
• Create A Sales Funnel for an Art Therapist
• How to Build an Email List for your Therapy Practice
• How to Create a Free Offer to Build Your Email List
• Link List: Online Marketing Courses to Improve Your Marketing Skills
• The Best Marketing Methods for Art Therapists
• Understand the Marketing Cycle of Your Art Therapy Practice
• What to do when you have no clients booked
• How to Establish Your Business Network

PLANNING BLOG POSTS

• 10 Steps to Set Up Your Art Therapy Practice
• How to Plan Your Marketing Strategies

INCOME BLOG POSTS

• 10 Ways to Increase Your Therapist Income
• A One Page Business Plan for Your Therapy Practice
• Create a Revenue Strategy for a Therapy Practice
• Excel vs Accounting Software To Record Financial Information
• How to Record Income and Expenses for your Art Therapy Practice
• Marketing to Your Clients Using Email
• Strategies to Increase Profit For Your Therapy Practice

SIGN UP below to download the FREE Planner Template to help plan your Private Practice activities.