#14. Three Innovative Ways to Schedule Your Time as a Busy SLP
Episode Shownotes:
Ever felt like you're losing control of your time juggling between your role as an SLP and a mom? You're not alone. In today's episode, I'm sharing three innovative ways to schedule your day to help you make the most of your time. Whether it's using my Time Buckets System, conceptualizing four "mini days," or creating a rinse-and-repeat type of schedule, there are lots of options for even the most overwhelmed speech pathologist. I even share my personal routine to help you visualize how you can better structure your day, including pre-morning routines, family time, and home and business activities. And at the end of today's episode, I give you a rare sneak peek into some coaching questions that can help you determine which approach would work best for you.
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Episode Transcript*:
This is Your Speech Path: Mindful Time Management for the Busy SLP. My name is Theresa Harp and, as a mom and speech pathologist turned productivity coach, I know a thing or two about how hectic life can be. If you're an SLP who's overworked, burnt out and feeling like you're constantly falling short as a therapist and a mom, then this is the podcast for you. I cover time management and mindset strategies so you can learn to love your work and your home life at the same time. Let's dive in.
Hello podcast listeners, how is it going? Welcome to Episode 14, where I'm going to be talking about some scheduling ideas, different ways that you could structure your day and your week, and maybe some approaches that you hadn't thought about before. This is a little bit of outside the box thinking and I'm excited to dive in. I think this one will probably be a short and sweet episode, but let's see how it evolves, all right. So I want to talk to you about a couple of different approaches that you can use when you are scheduling your days. This is going to be particularly helpful for those of you who are SLPs and moms or are business owners and moms in particular. So I've got that in mind, but I really think this could be beneficial for anybody who's looking to structure their days or set up their days in a way that maybe gives them a little bit more predictability and a little bit less, I guess, back and forth or task switching. I hear from clients a lot that they go around like I'll have one client she says she would just have, I think she I forget what she would call it, but she had a funny name for it and she would say she would just kind of task. I would call it task hopping. She didn't call it this, she called it something much more fun and clever. But she would basically kind of go around the house and throughout her day from one thing to the next, just sort of like be-bopping from this thing to that thing, to then over here and then thinking of something else she wanted to do and like before she knew it, the day was pretty much over and she wasn't even really sure what she had accomplished.
Okay, side note. If that resonates with you, if that sounds really familiar, then go back. If you haven't listened to it, go back and listen to episode seven, Unlocking the Magic of Proactive Time Management, because I think that one would be particularly helpful for you, all right?
So I've got three ways that you can restructure or rethink your schedule to give you a little bit more control over what's happening and a little bit more, like I said before, predictability, right? So the first suggestion that I have, the first idea that I want to share, is that I would consider scheduling or structuring your day according to what I call Time Buckets. Now I have to go back and do an updated podcast episode or series of episodes on the Time Buckets System. Since the podcast relaunched, I had to take those episodes down, so I need to rerecord them or edit the recordings and rerelease them. But if you are familiar, if you've been listening to me for a while, you're familiar with the Time Buckets training. But if you're not, if you're like, what the hell are Time Buckets? Come join the Facebook group, because I cover it there in the Facebook group. I do. I've done a couple of different trainings on it in the group and so you could get a deep dive into what this looks like. But essentially, for the purposes of this episode, what you need to know is that Time Buckets are referring to the big categories of your life that take up a big chunk of your time and everyone's buckets will probably look a little bit different. But for my buckets, if this helps you at all, my Time Buckets are my family, myself, my home and my business. Those are my four Time Buckets. Okay, so you could schedule your day according to your Time Buckets. Now I'm going to give you some examples so that this makes a little bit more sense, even if you have no idea what your own Time Buckets are. Okay, so for me, I schedule my day according to those Time Buckets, and I didn't don't really do this intentionally, although I guess maybe I did some subconsciously…I'm not really sure, but here's the breakdown of what my day looks like from a Time Bucket perspective:
I've got my bucket which is first thing in the morning and that's my pre—I call it the pre-morning routine. It's like my morning routine, but it's my pre-kid, pre-family activity type of part of my morning. So this is when I wake up before the kids are awake, in the best case scenario. And I've got that time for myself, I can spend it doing whatever it is that I decide I want to do. It's usually for me a workout, maybe a quick throw in, a quick load of laundry, or I might have to catch up on some emails or some work. Sometimes it's just mindless scrolling because I just kind of want to check out for a little while. I mean, it really depends on what I've got going on and how I'm feeling and all of that. But I know with a fair amount of reliability that my bucket, my me bucket, is happening every day from usually five to six am. That's what it is for me. Okay. Then I have my family bucket that kicks off when the kids wake up, and so they get up at 6.18, very specific, I know, but they get up at 6:18. That's when their sound machines turn off and their lights come on and all of that. So 6:18 starts the family time bucket, where I'm in mom mode and I'm basically getting them out the door, getting them all the things breakfast, dressed, ready for the day, and so that takes us. It takes us about an hour. So usually from like 6:15 to 7:15 roughly is what I'm in that Family Bucket of my day. Okay. Then I come home and I work from home and so I have a little tiny bucket, usually for my Home Bucket. I usually have that pop on the calendar from like eight to nine and that's when I'm doing the cleanup. I might be wiping down the table or unloading and loading the dishwasher, you know whatever tasks household tasks have to get done. I'll throw in a load of laundry. I will maybe start prepping dinner in a perfect world, but that's not really been happening all that much lately. But it is my House Bucket time and that's usually. I do it like a power hour or it might be a half hour, or sometimes I just eliminate it all together or move it to later in the day and that's an option as well. But I like I tend to feel better when I've gotten a little bit of the house stuff done before I go and begin my Work Bucket. And then my Work Bucket starts and for me it's usually like a 9:00 to 2:00 kind of a timeframe, roughly. I mean that changes a little bit every now and again. But I know from around 9am till around 2pm is when I'm in work mode and that's so…that's my Work Bucket timeframe where I'm focusing on whatever tasks I've got to do during that, during that time. So it's all my work related stuff, okay. And then at 2pm I'm kind of punching out, so to speak, and I'm shifting back to the Family Bucket and that will take me pretty much till around 8pm, roughly where we're doing after school pick up snacks, dinner, you know, practice, or piano lessons or whatever is scheduled for that day. Homework, dinner, if I didn't say that already. Bath, showers you know all that kind of thing. So that's where we're in..that's my Family Bucket again. Right, I have already had the Family Bucket in the morning and now I've got that Family Bucket popping on my schedule again, and then at the end of the day it is my turn again, where it's back to my bucket. Sometimes this doesn't happen at all. Sometimes this is, you know, the only thing that happens. Sometimes it's really short, but I usually have some amount of time at the end of the day, where it's my Me Bucket, I might listen to a podcast, I might do a meditation, I might watch a show on Netflix or read a book, depending upon what I need, or you know what I'm into, what I'm, what kind of mood I'm in, right? So that's my Me Bucket.
Okay, so this is going to look different for you depending upon what your buckets are, what your you know what kind of circumstances you've got going on in your schedule and in your life, and I want to be really clear that this is not about the amount of time, it's more so about the time itself just having that time, that category of time blocked off for that category of tasks, for that mindset, for that bucket, right. It's a way to think about. Your day is having those blocks there, having those buckets there, and I think that it's helpful because it really helps your brain get into that mindset, get into that mode, because, honestly, you have to show up differently, right, when you're showing up for your kids, you're showing up very differently than when you are in your work mode and it's tapping into different, a different mindset, different frame of mind, right. So I think it can help you compartmentalize a bit and I think it can help you be more successful in touching on all of the areas of your life, kind of all those parts of yourself, all those parts of your schedule, your family, you yourself, your home, your career, whereas it…if you were to just focus on one area per day, it could, you could run the risk of sort of falling…feeling out of sync or feeling out of whack, where one area is doing really, really well and you're getting a lot done and you're productive, but another area is kind of taking some steps back. You know you might be falling behind something like that, so this could be a way to solve for those challenges. So that's the first way. The first innovative way that you could schedule your days is by thinking about things according to time buckets or categories.
Okay, second idea that I have for you is a little bit similar, but it is a little bit different. So stay with me. This idea is where you can structure your day in just general quarters, and I this is not my idea this is something that I've heard shared before on a podcast or in a book, and I honestly don't remember where it came from. Otherwise I would give them credit and I know this is something that you know probably many people do. But you can schedule your day in quarters and so you're not necessarily worrying about what things you're doing in those quarters, but it's purely time hacks. So, for example, if you wake up at 6 am, you would have, from 6 am to say, 10 am would be your first quarter, right, and then 10 am to 2 pm, and then 2 pm to 6 pm and maybe 6 pm to 10 pm, roughly right. So you've got four chunks of your day and they're blocked off and they're basically these like time hacks in your mind and you fill it with whatever it is that you decide you want or need to spend your time on Now. I think that this strategy, this approach to scheduling, is helpful for people who, if you're someone who feels like your whole day is shot because something crappy happened, like something didn't go according to plan, you've got a sick kid, or something got added to your schedule that you weren't anticipating, or life happens. I was talking to one of my friends and clients the other day and she was talking about she had a pipe that burst in her house. So, gosh, we've all been there, unfortunately, in some regard right, and you know that can totally throw your day off. And if you're one of those people where it's like, oh, this whole day is just gone down the toilet because of this thing that happened, like I cannot recover from this, this day is just a wash, I might as well start again tomorrow. If that's sort of the way that your brain operates, then this scheduling strategy could be a good one for you to try right. Because here's the thing: it can help you by having these quarters in your day, these schedule-- in your schedule. It can help you recover when you've got some sort of setback, like a pipe bursting. It can help you mentally recover because you're like, okay, I'm gonna handle this through this quarter, right, I know from in these four hours I'm dealing with my sick kid, I'm dealing with a pipe that burst, I'm dealing with this issue, right, and maybe I even I'm gonna have to deal with it in the second quarter or the third quarter, right? God forbid, but maybe that's what happens sometimes. But it's like, okay, I've got still this quarter of the day that I can use to accomplish XYZ. So it helps you think of your day instead of in one long day, it's almost like four mini days, and if you think about it that way, it can help give you that sort of fresh start when you need it right, instead of just throwing up your hands and thinking, well, today's a done deal, like it's just a waste and we'll have to try again another time, right? Or worse. Maybe you're even thinking see, this is why I can never make a schedule, because this happens every time. I try to have a schedule or a plan in place, and so this just confirms that scheduling is not for me. I'm just done with this whole attempt, right. So I think that it helps you with your mindset and with setbacks or unexpected changes to your schedule, and especially for those of us, myself included who are these all or nothing type thinkers, right, that can be really helpful as well.
Okay, the third and final strategy that I have to scheduling your day, or really scheduling your week, because this one is kind of I'm gonna cover both day and week here when we talk about this. So stay with me because it will make sense as you start listening to it. So with this approach, you're gonna schedule your day, or even your week, where you are doing the same thing at the same day and time. Okay, so maybe if you're someone who is struggling with-- air quotes here-- work-life balance this could be a good approach for you. So maybe you have, say, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, where you're focusing on growing your private practice. You're building your private practice, you're reaching out to referral partners and you're networking, you're treating right, you're seeing your clients, you're writing your reports, you're catching up on your documentation, you're contacting families, and then on Tuesdays and Thursdays, you're in mom mode and you're home with your kids. Or maybe, if your kids are in school, you're home, but you're working on your household stuff, your House Bucket, your Home Bucket or your Me Bucket or whatever right. So maybe you're working on a house project or maybe you're taking care of an older family member, an aging family member, a parent or someone who needs your support. Maybe you are at your kid's school doing school events and class mom stuff. Whatever it is that you fill it with is up to you, but you're in mom mode or you're in I don't know, you're in caretaker mode or you're in me mode, whatever that looks like. But by having this predictability in terms of what you're doing on what days, you can kind of say to yourself mentally okay, I know, these days are dedicated for this and those days are dedicated for that. So that is an option for you. I remember when I had my twins, I stayed home for a while. Well, I stayed home for, I don't know, maybe a year, the first year, I don't remember but like nine months a year, I'm not really sure. Then I went back to work part-time and I remember this schedule is kind of loosely what worked for me on those days. So they I worked maybe two days a week and then they were with the sitter on those two days and then I was home with them the other days, or vice versa, something like that. But it helped me to compartmentalize-- again,v there's that word-- but it helped me to sort of structure or compartmentalize when am I showing up as a mom, when am I showing up as an SLP? And that was really helpful for me because I didn't have to kind of go back and forth mentally and switch back and forth between what I was working on and all of that. It just helped me get and it really helped me be more present too with what I was doing, because I knew I was. I knew exactly what days I was doing what. Okay, and then a variation of this kind of like yeah, a variation of this is you can basically take this same principle and apply it to your work schedule. So if you're kind of struggling with in your work days let's say you are a nine to fiver in your private practice Monday through Friday but you're struggling with how to structure those days and times you can take this same principle and apply it so you can decide where you do certain tasks, certain work tasks, only on certain days. So, for example, maybe you do all of your billing on Monday morning from 9 to 10 or 9 to 11, right? And then maybe you do your networking and you're building your referral relationships on Tuesdays from 12 to 2, and maybe you do your social media content creation on I don't know Monday afternoons from 1 to 3 pm, and so you kind of have these blocks of time in your schedule and they're repetitive, they're recurring, they're predictable, and so you know exactly when you're working on what tasks. It reduces that sort of task shifting and it eliminates that question of, okay, here's my work day, what am I supposed to be actually doing today? Because you look at the calendar and you're like, oh, it's Tuesday morning at 9. I know, every Tuesday morning, from 9 to 10, I'm writing my blogs, and so you kind of just sit down and get to work. So it eliminates some of that decision fatigue, right, or if not eliminates it, at least reduces it, because you just sort of decide once and then repeat, okay. So those are three-ish approaches for ways that you can structure a schedule, your day and your week, to help you stay focused, to help you stay efficient, to help you stay present and to help you be productive.
Now I wanna just acknowledge those of my friends, my listeners, those of you who are listening to this and you're thinking, mm, that can never work for me. Nope, that's not gonna work. Nope, that's not gonna work because of this, that's not gonna work because of that. Oh no, that's a great idea, but can't do it because here's why, right? So here's what I have to offer, if that is where your mind is going, right. Number one I would ask you: is that true? Is it true that this approach, this strategy, definitely could not, would not work for you? I feel like Dr Seuss. Is that true? Right, question, it Is that true? And how do you know it's true, okay? Number two I'll acknowledge yeah, okay, maybe it won't work. These are three different approaches that are not going to work for everyone. 100% agree with you there. Right, it's not going to work for everyone, and maybe one is better than another for you. Maybe one is definitely not a good fit for you, right, and that's okay. That's why we have options. This is definitely not a one size fits all approach. This is figuring out what's going to work best for you, okay. And then number three I would also say this is where coaching comes in, right, this is where the coaching comes in to support you. Because, as a coach and in the coaching client relationship, this is where we meet weekly and we're like, okay, let's try this, let's see how it goes. Here's what we're going to try. Here are some potential barriers you might hit as you go out this week and you try this approach. Here's what you're going to do if those barriers come up right, and then we meet a week later and we talk about how did it go? How did it work? What worked well, what didn't work? What do we need to do differently? When we're looking at the pieces that didn't work, we're asking what specifically prevented it from being successful? What were the micro thoughts, the tiny little thoughts that you had that held you back, right? So, for example, maybe you sat down on that Tuesday morning, which was your blog post time, and you sit down to do it, and then you think I can't do this. I've got 5, 10, 15 emails sitting in my email inbox that I have not responded to. I can't write a blog post. I need to go respond to those emails. That's more urgent, right? Well, okay, identifying that thought, that micro thought, is so key because then we unpack it together as the coach and the client. Okay, well, what would happen if you had responded to those emails? What would happen if you hadn't responded to those emails? Could you put systems in place where you have some sort of an auto reply? Right, there's just kind of different things that we go through together as a team. We put our heads together and coach and client we're troubleshooting, we're tweaking, we're modifying, we're finding a system that works for you. But in order to do that, you need to know yourself. You need this self-awareness. You need to understand how you process information. You need to understand what your values are, what your needs are. You have to understand what thoughts are going through your brain that are keeping you stuck, that are keeping you from trying something new. Right, because everybody's different. Every brain is different, every personality is different, everyone's life circumstances are different and those circumstances don't always stay the same. Right, your situation today is going to be very different than your situation, say, in six months or so. So that is where the coaching comes in. We are analyzing and digging right and trying and experimenting, and we're doing that together. We're figuring out what is working, what isn't working and what are we going to try differently. Okay, if that is something that you want support with. Reach out, schedule, a consult the link is always in the show notes, okay, but I'm really curious which of these three approaches to your schedule really resonates the most with you. What do you want to try? What do you want to explore on your own this week? What do you want to test out and see how it goes? Come join us in the SLP Support Group. Let us know which one you're going to try and how it goes, so we can support you there together as a community. All right, that's all I've got for today's episode. I will talk to you all next week.
*Please note that this transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors.