5 Ways to Transform Your Schedule from Burnout to Balanced
When you started working as a therapist, did you see clients whenever it worked for them? Evenings, weekends, working long days, you probably made it work to either get all your clinical hours or to make enough money to support yourself.
I took the same approach because I was worried I wouldn’t fill my caseload otherwise. Before long, I realized just how much I was being held hostage to the whims of my schedule. Never knowing what my schedule might be and working non-ideal hours, I struggled to plan my own life and constantly felt dysregulated and overwhelmed. Have you been there too?
Predictability and containment are so very important to Highly Sensitive People. As deep processors who need downtime and space to think about and prepare for what’s happening next, a chaotic schedule can have a significant impact on your physical, mental, and emotional health.
When Sensitive Therapists are overwhelmed and overstimulated, you’re more at risk for stress, anxiety, illness, and eventually burnout. Plus you lose access to your unique gifts of empathy, perception, and intuition. On the other hand, when you know what to expect and have adequate time off, you can recharge and feel more vibrant in your work.
Another benefit of creating a predictable schedule based on your needs is that you take out the emotional agony of deciding whether or not to say yes to client appointment requests that are outside your availability. You know what your schedule is and it can be a clear answer as to whether or not you see clients at that time.
Creating a sustainable, predictable schedule really is the foundation of a successful practice and a happy, regulated therapist.
Is your schedule supportive or stressful?
If any of these sound familiar, your schedule needs some adjustments:
Rarely feel present for sessions and/or easily forget details.
Completing progress notes is a struggle, your backlog is growing, or you’re sacrificing weekends to get notes done.
Impossible to shut work off or wind down at night because your mind is spinning.
Not getting nearly enough sleep and constantly feeling irritable, anxious, overwhelmed, or on the verge of tears.
Always worrying about what’s NOT getting done.
Feel resentful and are beginning to dread the days you see clients.
Barely staying afloat and on the verge of burnout.
Never enough time for self-care.
What problems does your schedule have?
Here’s are a few common schedule stressors for Sensitive Therapists:
Working too many days in a row.
You have too many client sessions crammed in each day or there’s not enough time to decompress between sessions.
The days and/or time of day that you’re seeing clients goes against your natural rhythms. For instance, you’re a morning person but see clients late into the evening.
Trying to do too much at once and constantly switching between clinical, admin, or personal roles.
Wasting precious mental energy recreating your schedule or to-do list every week instead of using a template.
Not being clear on your availability and seeing clients at all hours of the day.
How can you create a more sustainable and supportive schedule?
Below are 5 ways you can make your schedule more HST-friendly:
Add a long (1-2 hour) break in the middle of your day to recharge or stretch out your day slightly to have longer breaks between some or all of your sessions (15-30 minutes).
Define your client hours, getting clear on when you start and end your day. Then communicate your availability to your clients, add it to your informed consent agreement, and stick to it!
Reflect on what days are the most difficult for you and why to identify what changes you may need to make. On those stressful days, are you:
seeing too many clients?
working with wrong fit clients?
too many difficult cases in a row?
not getting a long enough lunch break?
wearing too many hats (therapist, parent, biller, etc.)?
Reduce decision fatigue and processing time by batching similar tasks together. For instance, check your email 1-2 times per day instead of between every session or schedule your intake calls one day per week.
Satisfy your need to process and reflect by spending a few minutes at the beginning of every day looking over your schedule and planning out what you want your day to look like.
Being a Sensitive Therapist can be difficult when you don’t take your unique needs for downtime and reflection into account.
You care so deeply for your clients and want to accommodate their needs whenever possible. You look around trying to figure out how many clients you should be seeing to reach the ultimate, but elusive goal of being “full”. In the process of wanting to get it right, you lose sight of your own needs.
After a while, it can all start to feel like too much and you may worry you won’t be able to sustain this work you once loved so much.
The answer can be as simple as going back to the basics and reevaluating your schedule - when you want to see clients, how many sessions you need to book per day, weaving in enough downtime to feel present with clients.
It’s easy to forget that the work you do as a therapist is not the same as other jobs you’ve had. Doing emotional, heart-centered work requires a different approach. Modeling your schedule after the typical 9-5 with a 30-minute lunch break is NOT sustainable for therapists, especially Sensitive Therapists who are highly empathetic and perceptive!
When you create an intentional and predictable schedule based on your own unique needs, you’ll actually:
Feel more present in sessions and have energy to get notes done
Have a consistent routine with fewer decisions to agonize over
Find it easier to hold boundaries and stick to your client availability
Enjoy more self-care and downtime
Experience peace of mind knowing everything is done!
If you need support in creating a more supportive schedule for yourself, sign up for my course: Burnout to Balanced: How to Create a Sustainable Schedule.
In this self-paced course, you’ll get:
a schedule planner + step-by-step tutorials to create a custom schedule
over 100 sample schedules designed for Sensitive Therapists seeing 5-20 clients/week
suggested task lists to get everything done
a caseload + fee calculator so you know exactly how many sessions you need to cover expenses
paper planner + digital calendar recommendations
and lots of interactive resources, quizzes, flowcharts, and journaling pages!
Ready to transform your schedule, get rid of the constant overwhelm, and reclaim your downtime? Click here to sign-up.
