How did you feel arriving back to your work desk after the holiday break? Did the sight of it fill you with excitement for a clean start for the new year? Or were you confronted by the unfinished work of last year?

Client files waiting for discharge notes, letters to stakeholders, follow up calls, reports to insurers or a half completed file waiting for the most recent client encounter to be documented with all the accuracy a ten day break can generate.

I wise mentor once described to me the presence of ‘heart sink’ patients. These are the clients who when you see their name on the day list your heart sinks. I believe you can get the same lack of joy from a desk littered with unfinished and non-prioritised tasks.

To ensure you begin every year, month and week in a better frame of mind and clarity of purpose try this one sneaky trick – complete the paperwork as you work with the client. Simple but difficult, especially if your habit is to make cursory notes and fill in the details later. If you are an employee you are probably donating your private (unpaid) time to get this done. If you own the business you most certainly will be donating time that does not generate income. Neither is acceptable nor necessary.

For the details, I refer you to a post from 2010 (yes, you could have been doing it better for years). Click here for a short read that may gain you up to an extra one hour per working day.