How Should I Set The Schedule For My Therapy Practice?

If you asked ten therapists about the schedules for their therapy practices, I imagine  that you’d get ten different responses.    We work in a profession where there is a lot of variety in the hours that individuals see clients and a number of factors that may influence how therapists set the schedule for their therapy practices.   On one hand seeing this variety is exciting because it suggests that there can be a lot of opportunity for figuring out and implementing a schedule that really works for us.   On the other hand, such variety can make it seem difficult and overwhelming to determine how to best set the schedule for your therapy practice.

When I first started my career in an agency setting there were expectations around working a certain number of evenings (2), but it was up to me to figure out which evenings those would be and how to schedule the rest of my time.   I needed to make sure that I set the schedule for myself in a way that allowed me to see the number of clients the agency expected me to see each week.  I figured it out, but in hindsight realized I was originally really heavy in evening hours and at some point that didn’t work for me anymore because I was getting burnt out and wanted to spend more evening time with my family.  I originally felt a pull towards a lot of afternoon and evening hours in order to see families and couples to get the relational hours needed for my master’s degree and my MFT licensure.  And then the pull remained because I enjoyed working with children and families.

Since then my schedule has evolved and changed many times.  Every time I make a tweak, I am getting closer and closer to the schedule that works best for me and my family.

 Questions To Ask Yourself As You Set The Schedule For Your Therapy Practice:

In order to reduce overwhelm as you set the schedule for your therapy practice, I suggest starting with the following questions.   Some of the questions are logistical in nature.   Other questions draw on what you know about how to schedule your time with clients in order to feel most present with them while also leaving yourself with some energy to be present in your life away from the therapy office.

• When do you have access to your office space?  Are you sharing space with someone else?   Is the building only open certain hours?
• When are you actually available to see clients?   (Considering your other responsibilities)
• How many hours do you want/need to see clients each week in order to meet expectations from your employer and/or to meet your financial goals without getting burnt out?
• Who will be your clients (in a very general sense)?   Do they have scheduling needs (again in a very general sense) that you would like to take into consideration when setting your schedule?
• How do you like to schedule your day?   Do you schedule breaks for meals, paperwork and/or other tasks?
• At what times of the day do you feel most engaged and present with your clients?   Your loved ones?
• Are there times you feel less safe seeing clients?

Other Considerations:

Be mindful about whether or not you are “shoulding” yourself or making assumptions or comparisons.

Don’t get caught up on perfection.   It is ok to experiment with different schedules until you find one that is the right fit for you.

Remember that our schedules may need to change and evolve over time as our personal needs change and as the needs of the clients we see change.  If a schedule that used to work for you is no longer working, give yourself permission to re-evaluate.

Ultimately in order work in the mental health field for a long time without getting burnt out we need to come to a schedule that works for us and that may be different than what we automatically think is the best schedule for our practice.  Yes, we do need a schedule that works for the clients we want to see, too, but honestly  if the schedule doesn’t work for us we aren’t going to be doing good work in supporting our clients.   Hopefully there is an overlap or a middle ground of sorts in meeting our own scheduling needs and the needs of our clients.

How do other therapists set the schedule for their practices?

Setting our schedules tends to be a popular topic among therapists.  As a matter of fact, in the days I’ve been working on slowly writing this piece, I’ve seen the question pop up in therapist communities online multiple more times.   I am all about learning from other therapists about what has worked for them, but often the why gets missed in some of these conversations.    In an online group setting we may not be able to have an in depth conversation to fully understand the complexity of factors contributing to making these decisions.   Without knowing other therapists’ whys, it is difficult to figure out if the schedule other therapists have set will work well for you.

At this point, I have a clear direction about where I want to go with my schedule in the next couple of years, but in order to get to this point, I was curious about how colleagues established their schedules and wondered/asked questions such as:

• Why did you choose the schedule that you have?
• Why/How does that schedule work for you and your clients?
• Did you experiment with another schedule in the past….if so, why didn’t that schedule work for you?
• If you haven’t experimented with another schedule, but have been wanting to..Why not? What is holding you back?

I hope this post helped you ponder how to best set the schedule for your therapy practice.   Please feel free to leave a comment below with your personal stories and feeback for colleagues who are working on establishing or tweaking their schedules

Take care,

Sarah

Schedule your free 20 minute Vibrant Therapist Strategy Session and get one-on-one support in creating a schedule that helps you become a more vibrant therapist.

Contact Sarah at 952-457-2322 or Sarah@SarahLeitschuhCounseling.com