Show Notes

Welcome back to The Designer Practice Podcast, and I’m your host, Kayla Das.

Today we’re going to be talking about scheduling. And I’m really going to bring you behind the scenes of my own practice and how I organize my schedule.

Now, when I first started private practice, my schedule, like most people’s was all over the place. But once I started honing in on what I really needed and what worked best for me. I really found what it is that I needed in my schedule to not feel drained, to feel energized, and to feel like I was successful that day.

So today I’m going to go over five things that I do to organize my schedule and what’s helped me along the way. Now it’s important to know before I dive in, that even though that these things worked for me, it doesn’t mean they’re always going to work for you because it’s really about testing and trying and seeing what is best for you in your practice. And of course, just who you are as a person.

Create a Morning Routine

So, the first thing that I do is I create a morning routine. I usually get up around 5:30 or 6:00 every morning. I am a morning girl. I’ve always gotten up early. Even when I worked in agencies, I used to get comments from my staff members saying, “Hey, why are you sending emails at 5:30 in the morning?” And although, of course I may have had some boundary issues at that point trying to get things working, hence why I ended up eventually burning out in my day job before private practice. But in saying that, I am a morning person, so, I am up 5:30, 6:00 every day.

So, my morning routine typically looks like I get up 5:30, 6:00, I get my coffee or my tea. I sit on my phone for a little bit thinking, cuddling with my puppies, really doing decompression work is what I call it. Really just getting some things out of the way that I want to do, surf on social media. Then I get ready for the day. Usually around 7:30, 8 o’clock I’m at my desk. I create a list of the top things that I want to complete that day.

I write my case notes from the day before, and this is something that I think is really important, is, again, depending on who you are, really finding the best time in your day is to do various activities, whether it’s underwhelming activities, for me, case notes are very underwhelming. Overwhelming activities, right? That might be a different time of the day. So, I usually do my case notes from the day before, the morning after. And the reason I do that is my brain is fresh, it’s clear, and it’s easy to complete.

Also, usually, I write a blog article or now since I’ve been doing podcasts write my podcast script. Sometimes record, although usually I record later in the day. But basically, I just do some things before I get into my sessions.

Typically, I get into sessions, whether it’s therapy or business coaching. I usually start sessions around 9, 10. Of course, it depends on the day, but the earliest that I see clients is eight in the morning, but even then, I’ve kind of moved more towards nine and 10. So really creating a morning routine really helps me stay consistent and to get things done.

Use Your Peak-Time

The second thing that I do is I use what I call my peak times. Like I said before, I’m a morning person. Always have been. So, I have most of my energy in the morning, so that’s when I feel the most productive. That’s when I get the most done. I’ve noticed around two, three o’clock in the day, my concentration level has substantially decreased. So as a result, I usually don’t keep things that need a lot of brain power after two or three, and again, that’s because my brain just doesn’t function that way. So usually, things that’s either underwhelming or overwhelming, I try to do in the morning so that I can have a very clear frame of mind when I’m working on those things.

Now again, your peak time might not be morning, so it’s really identifying what times during the day are you the most productive? Because if you are more of an evening person, maybe some of the underwhelming or overwhelming things you might focus on during those times. But again, it’s really knowing who you. And working with yourself instead of against yourself. And I think that’s the key here.

Over the last year or so, I’ve actually removed all evening activities from my schedule. Even though originally, I did keep a couple evenings in there, but going back to knowing who I am after two or three, my brain is just not functioning and the later it gets in the afternoon or evening, my brain power is just decreasing.

So, what I’ve done is I removed all evening activities from my calendar and this helps me spend quality time with my family, and it really helps me spend less time pushing through what I call lull times. And our lull times are when we’re just not feeling it. Our brain power is diminished. We just feel drained or burnt out.

And really, I’ve just stopped pushing myself through times that don’t work for me and I work times that do work. And of course, I know that we can’t always do that. Of course, there’s times that an evening thing might come up that I might do. But it’s really far and few between, versus trying to push yourself through times that really doesn’t work for you.

Find Your Client Sweet Spot

The third thing is finding your client sweet spot. So, this took me a while to figure out how many clients a day is too much or too little. And of course, that depends on how much money I need to make, and that also depends on my brain power, and of course, even when I start seeing clients. So, I’ve found that my sweet spot is no more than five a day and maximum 15 clients per week, or 15 sessions per week, I should say.

And if you’re anything like me, you’ve tested out seeing how many clients each day works. For me, I do say four is my ideal, and especially now that my business has alternate income streams and passive income streams where I do make money outside of my one-to-ones. I do tend to stick more with the four a day right now. But of course, when I was first starting out, I did not have passive income streams, and with that I sometimes had to, had to see five or six. I noticed six for me was just way too much. Five seemed to be okay. But for me, four is my ideal. Otherwise, I felt quite drained by the end of the day.

So again, just finding what works for you and testing it out, but really honouring your time and honouring what you have the capacity to do.

Strategically Schedule Sessions to Avoid Unproductive Gaps

So, the fourth one is I strategically schedule my sessions to avoid unproductive gaps in my day.

When I first started out, what I noticed I was doing is I would add clients in at nine o’clock, 11 o’clock, two o’clock, four o’clock and I might even have another client at six. And what really happened is I had all of these one- or two-hour gaps in my day. During that time, I felt I couldn’t get anything done. And not only that, I was working from nine in the morning until sometimes really seven at night if I had a client at six.

So really what I learned is that if I have one-to-two-hour breaks, unless it’s a lunchtime. That doesn’t work for me, right? I won’t get anything done. I won’t do my case notes. I won’t start working on marketing. I won’t start working on my passive income streams. It just didn’t seem like I was doing anything productive. So, what I started to do is really say to myself, “Okay, what do I need to do here so that I can have more productive time in my day?”

And what I did is I created a schedule for myself. So, I started scheduling clients in for nine o’clock and 10 o’clock, maybe I might take an hour break, maybe two, depending for lunch. Then I would have another client at say 12, one or one or two. And then of course if I had a fifth, I might do one at three. But the point is that what I did is I tried to condense my time so that I had minimal unproductive times in my day.

The other thing that I’ve noticed as well, I actually prefer: two sessions a break, two sessions a break. And when, of course I can do four a day, two sessions, a break, two sessions, it’s perfect. And then sometimes I would add another session on later. But I’ve noticed if I had three sessions in a row, my brain capacity depleted a lot quicker than if I gave myself a little break.

Even if it was a half an hour break, it might not even be an hour break. But again, I learned that about myself and it’s a part of it is really exploring what works for you. But also, being honest and reflecting on that. And allowing yourself to create the schedule that fits you because you’re going to show up for your clients with a lot more energy and a lot more compassion and empathy when we aren’t feeling drained.

I’ve realized that when I see clients at the end of the day, even though I try my hardest to show up the best I can. If it’s after three, they’re not getting the best of me. So really trying to be honest to yourself so that you can really show up for your clients to the best that you can.

Incorporate Wild Cards Days into Your Week

Now, my fifth one is actually my favourite one, and I do recognize that not everyone has the ability or capacity or even financial means to do this.

But I have what I call wild card days. So, my Thursdays and my Fridays are wild card days. And you might be thinking, “Okay, what is Wild card day?”

So what I do is I book my sessions Monday to Wednesday, I fill my days as much as possible. Cause like I said, my ideal is about 15 a week, and if it’s five a day, that’s Monday to Wednesday. But I try as much as I can to put most of my clients in those days.

Thursdays, usually I focus on, I either add a few extra clients, maybe if I had a few client shortages that week, or cancellation or something like that. Now that I’ve been doing podcasting, usually I schedule my podcast interviews with my guests on Thursdays or Fridays. Really, I have my meetings or just one-off things on Thursdays.

Fridays. I try as much as possible to keep them clear. But since transitioning into business coaching, I do tend to do my business coaching consults on Fridays. So, if you’ve ever booked or checked out my consultation booking site, you would notice that most of my consultations are on Fridays. And the reason I do that is because it helps me separate the business coaching from the business consult.

So even though I call them wildcard days, it doesn’t mean that I don’t work on those days. And it also doesn’t mean that I don’t take clients on those days. But what I do is they’re kind of a little bit up in the air. So usually, I try as much as possible to schedule all of my one-to-ones Monday to Wednesday. And then Thursday and Friday are more of my growing business days.

And then of course if I don’t have any consults on Fridays or Thursdays, I’ll have a longer weekend. Or maybe I want to take a long weekend and I remove my Friday openings for consults. So really, it’s meant to help me manage the additional parts of my business. And I’ve also found that this has helped me be more productive in my day.

So really those are the five things that I do in my schedule. Like I said before, these may not all work for you, but I thought it was important for me to share what has worked for me and that if you can take any nuggets of information to kind of apply to your own practice, that’s my goal.

Recap

So, I just want to recap on what those five things are.

So basically, setting up a morning routine for me, and of course might even be an evening routine for you.

Using your peak times. So really focusing on the activities that take brain power, whether it’s the underwhelming activities, for me is case notes. Or overwhelming activities. Really using the times that you feel the most energized to focus on those things.

Finding your client sweet spot. So how many clients a day feels right for you? Based on, of course, the money you need to make. But also based on your energy level and capacity.

Strategic scheduling to avoid unproductive gaps in your day. This might not be the case for everyone, but for me, those gaps, I got nothing done. I would watch a YouTube video, have a snack, scroll Facebook, but I was not doing what I needed to do because I felt that I needed more time. So, the only way I could get more time is to reschedule my schedule so that I had smaller gaps so that I could spend more time doing things after or before my sessions.

And then finally incorporating wildcard days. And again, I know that this isn’t possible for everyone. But for me, it really helped me grow my business. It gave me more time to really focus on the things that I needed. And if I needed self-care, it gave me that opening to take a long weekend, even an extra-long weekend where I do Thursdays and Fridays. Obviously, I don’t do that every week. But the possibility is there. So, it’s really helped me and my business. It helped me be more productive and it really provided more self-care in my practice.

So, I hope this was helpful today. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you dropping in and listening. And if you like the content that you hear on the podcast, please follow us on your favourite podcasting platform. And leave a review so that other therapists know that this podcast can help them as well.

Thank you for listening, everyone, and I’ll see you next time.

Bye for now.

Credits & Disclaimers

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