3 Ways to Get a Handle on Your Calendar
You have to be a master juggler of time to be a successful bodywork practitioner. Between managing clients, charting sessions, and trying to find the time to get a bite to eat during the day, there's not much time left to work on your business.
But to have a successful and sustainable business, you MUST make the time to develop the business side of your practice.
If carving out chunks of time to do that work seems impossible, you might not need more time -- you might just need to get a handle on your calendar.
1. The first step to having a calendar that works for you is to get a calendar, period.
I'm astonished at how many bodyworkers try to remember everything in their heads -- inevitably something gets lost along the way, and chaos ensues.
Of course it does! Our modern world is lightning-paced, and there is simply too much for you to remember and plan for without a system for managing your time.
You need a system, but it doesn't have to be anything fancy.
My system is a planner called Passion Planner, and I use Old School pencil and paper to keep track of everything: no fancy apps or digitalized anything!
The key is to keep it simple and easy to use -- don't make the mistake of having a digital calendar AND a paper calendar. That just gives you twice the work, and the goal is to streamline and simplify.
Grab a system that works for you and USE IT.
2. Another great way to get a handle on your time is to use Post-It notes. I do this all the time, and I call it Sticky-Note Scheduling.
It's really a piece of cake - simply put one small task on each sticky note, and then put them into your calendar. If things change, you won't need to cross out or erase -- you can just move your stickies around.
Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy.
I use this for Big-Picture Planning, too. Here's a shot of my planning wall for January:
I can easily move things around as I need to, and there's something so darned satisfying about taking down one of those stickies when I complete the task!
Try this for scheduling different parts of your life -- one color sticky note for your biz, another color for family time, and another for me-time.
You'll be able to quickly see where things are out of balance, and then take steps to get your life into a better state of flow.
3. Finally, experiment with blocking or chunking your time.
This is a technique you can use to save oodles of time.
Rather than going from task to task to task in a Tasmanian Devil whirlwind, chunk together tasks and get them done all at once.
You can write your email newsletters for the month in one sitting, instead of trying to find the time to do them each week.
Or, you can return client calls during one 30-minute chunk of time each day, rather than having your phone constantly within reach.
Time chunking also helps you because you can plan for it -- put these chunks of time into your calendar, and your schedule will be filled with ease, rather than panic.
These 3 easy tips -- having a simple calendar system that you actually use, Sticky Note Scheduling, and Time Chunking -- will help you free up the time you need to develop the business side of your practice.
And that will allow your practice to soar.