What’s the minimum you need to earn to keep your practice going? To cover your basic overhead and take home enough to keep the home fires burning?

What’s the minimum you need to cover your “nut”?

Once you have a number, figure out what you have to do to earn that. The activities you need to do to be reasonably assured that you will continue to stay afloat.

Doing this will allow you to identify the activities that are important to your practice right now. What’s essential and what isn’t.

You might realize that if you continue to work with your current crop of cases or clients, you will generate enough work now and, via repeat business and referrals, enough work to keep you going for the foreseeable future.

Cool.

On the other hand, you might realize that while you’re okay right now, you’re not replacing cases or clients fast enough to sustain revenue and continue growing, and you need to do something about that.

Or you might realize that some of your practice areas, services or marketing strategies aren’t bringing in enough revue, at least compared to other things you do. You might see value in jettisoning them or changing them and freeing up resources that are better used doing something else.

Once you have a clear picture of your current reality, take stock of other options. Everything else you could do to create growth and build your future.

Doing this exercise will help you get clear about where you are, where you want to be in the next few years, and what you need to do to get there.

This will help you plan your future