When you first start a coaching business it’s natural to want to get as many clients as possible. This can sometimes mean you see clients at all hours of the day (and sometimes evenings and weekends!) which can quickly become challenging and energetically draining. It can also make it really hard to actually get any of the ‘on your business’ work done when you’re so busy working ‘in your business’ which means that your growth slows and you find yourself in the feast and famine cycle.

Implementing non client days can help alleviate this, but how do we put this in place? Read on to find out…

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Why would you want to have non client days

I’m sure most of you folks reading this are already on board with the idea on non client days but in case you need any more convincing, here’s a list of reasons why non client days are awesome:
You get time to work on, and not just in your business
This is so essential for being able to grow your business. You need ample time for all the other tasks that go into running a coaching business such as marketing, creating new offers and products, networking, collaborating etc.
Task switching drains energy
If you have client sessions dotted throughout your week, that means you’re probably having to switch out of ‘coach’ mode and into admin mode, or marketing mode etc. When we frequently have to switch tasks, that wastes energy as your brain has to move from focus to focus.
Time to recharge
Having non client days built into your week gives you more flexibility to simply take time off to recharge if you need it. If you’re more introverted this can also help you manage your energy better.
Days when you want to work from the sofa in your PJs
I’m sure I’m not the only one who enjoys work days like this?! Sometimes it just feels good to work from the sofa and not have to get dressed or put make up on. Having non client days gives you the time to do that.
If you’re the kind of person who needs large expanses of time to get stuff done
I’m the kind of person who finds it very hard to get focused on a bigger task if I only have a small amount of time – even if that bigger task is broken down into smaller chunks. Having large expanses of time just works well for my brain and allows me to be so much more productive than if I was only working between client sessions.

Setting up your non client days

Look at what you have going on personally, how your week tends to flow and what other tasks you’d like to be working on and then choose your days.

I work 4 days a week 9am – 3pm (ish, often it is way less than this) and I have two non client days a week which works really well for me. I see clients on Tuesdays and Wednesdays which gives me Mondays and Thursdays to really get shit done.

Once you’ve chosen your days you have a couple of options.

If you book your clients in manually then it’s simply about telling them that you’re only available on your client days. However, I find when I’m booking people in manually I’m much more likely to cave and just book people in whenever they are free instead of working around my desired schedule.

This is why using an online booking system works so much better than manual booking. You can send people a link and have that set up in a way that only offers them a slot on a client day. What you’ll find is that most clients will make it work and find a slot in your available time.

Online booking systems you can check out include Calendly and Acuity – you will also find that some CRMs like Dusado (what I use) also include online schedulers.

Common concerns with implementing non client days

When I work on this with my clients the resistance that tends to come up is that clients won’t book with them if they aren’t offered every single available time slot. However that isn’t the reality, what most people will do is move their own stuff around and find a time that works.

I always include some text alongside my scheduler that asks people to contact me if they really do struggle to find a slot – sometimes if I’m working with a client in another time zone I’ll see people outside of the set client days so I do have some flexibility in there, but the default days are always those assigned client days.

I’d love to know if this has been helpful, will you be implementing non client days? Let me know in the comments!

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