Do you want to work full-time? I am sometimes asked if I work full-time, and I always laugh.
It depends on what you mean by full-time…
I don’t see people all day, every day, five days a week, but if you include all the other aspects of my work outside of clinic… then yes my work is pretty much full-time.
My goal is to work four days a week, with one day per week completely free.
My first career was in teaching, and one of my reasons for training as a homeopath was to get more time, and more flexibility, while also earning a decent living.
Someone recently asked me:
How do you create such good time management? You not only work in your business but also on your business. How do you do it?”
The single thing that helped me most is to only offer appointments on two days.
Yes, just two.
I start every week with my ‘people’ days. I’m refreshed after the weekend so I can be at my best.
When I started out, I saw people on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays because I was teaching Monday to Wednesday.
I tried variations on three days a week for a few years, but eventually realised that it was hard to ever feel ‘finished’.
I discovered I get into a better ‘flow’ when I see people grouped together.
My weekly schedule
Monday – client day
12 – 2pm: Discovery calls
2pm – 3pm: Break
3.30pm – 8.30pm: Clinic
Tuesday – client day
10am – 2pm: Clinic
2pm – 2.30pm: Break
2.30pm – 5pm: Casework, prescriptions etc.
Wednesday – admin day
10am – 5pm: Casework, prescriptions, checking payments etc.
Thursday – strategy day
10am – 3pm: Writing blogs, newsletters etc. and weekly review
I work longer hours on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and shorter hours on Thursday.
Time management
The impact of having such a clear schedule is that I know what I am focusing on and I’m less likely to be distracted.
Monday and Tuesday mornings I ‘dress for work’ – I have certain clothes I only wear when I am seeing clients.
I only go to the post office once or twice per week, usually on a Wednesday and maybe a Thursday, after I have prepared packages to post.
I have set up ‘Drop and Go’ account with the Post Office which means that I top up my account online, and then just drop the parcels directly to the counter.
I don’t have to queue.
On Thursdays I have a clear space for any other work I want to do.
Rewind
My schedule didn’t always look like this.
Ten years ago I was seeing clients on Monday evening, Tuesday afternoon and evening, Thursday evening and Saturday mornings.
I would post out a couple of times a week and fit everything else in whenever I could find time.
I multi-tasked but it wasn’t great and I felt disorganised.
When my husband was made redundant from his University job (the whole department was cut during restructuring) and moved to study for his PhD full-time, I faced a big decision.
Could I make homeopathy work?
Or would I have to go back to teaching?
I hired a business coach to help me figure out how to make my homeopathy work.
The first thing she did was to challenge me to restructure my week.
She called it ‘chunking’ my time.
I didn’t see the value in ‘chunking’ initially and it took a while to find out what would work for me.
Once I was seeing more than 20 clients per month I realised I could no longer continue with my ‘ad hoc’ approach to scheduling.
I knew I had to ‘batch’ more tasks together.
For many years now I have seen around 50 clients in a typical month, so I really do have to focus on life-work balance.
Time for ‘growth activities’
I’m not keen on the term ‘marketing’ and prefer to call it ‘growth activities’.
My tried and tested approach involves four things:
- Write relevant blog posts for my website
- Write Homeopathy with Tracy newsletters
- Ask for Google reviews
- Regularly reach out to past clients
Blogging and newsletter writing are both things I have got better at over time.
The more you do it, the easier it gets.
Social media marketing is very popular but it’s not my way of marketing my practice.
I left Facebook because it was too distracting.
When I had a Facebook Homeopathy page I had over 1000 people following, but the only engagement was from friends and colleagues.
I still have Instagram, but I don’t promote my practice there.
I have an Instagram page for Your Radiant Business which keeps me connected to homeopathy colleagues.
Around 30% of my homeopathy clients are referrals and the other 70% find me through Google and they all tell me they read my reviews.
Google reviews are good for SEO and so I make sure I remember to ask happy clients to write them for me.
Flow
My schedule is not only efficient but it also enables me to focus on one thing at a time, and this means I get into ‘flow’.
There has been a lot of research into the psychology of happiness that cites ‘Flow’ as a state of mind when we are challenged but engaged, and this allows us to ‘perform’ at our optimum. It also makes us happy.
We can’t be in ‘flow’ and be distracted.
They are two opposite things.
This is the reason I try to avoid multitasking.
Over to you
How could you streamline your week to make more time for ‘flow’ or for ‘growth activities’?
Streamlining your schedule and planning your practice are the two things I recommend to help you take your practice to where you want it to be.
This can be hard initially if you currently see clients throughout the week. It can also feel ‘counter-intuitive’ and I totally get that.
Everyone I’ve worked with through mentoring and on the Radiant Business course have initially expressed disbelief or resistance to reducing their practice days.
BUT, once they try it they tell me they wish they had done it before. The phrase they often use is ‘game-changer’.
To find out more about the Radiant Business courses I offer, sign up for my monthly newsletter.
“I highly recommend your courses, especially for newly qualified but also for us with a few years under our belts.”
“Having been in practice for a long time I may be doing many of your suggestions already but it has made me think.”
“Thank you for being so inspiring. Your warmth and support are lovely.”
