Regain Control of Your Daily Schedule

The healthcare industry has a never-ending supply of people who want your time. You can literally work 24/7 if you don’t set some boundaries. Most jobs have a fixed start and stop time, but not yours. You must set the start and stop time. Every day, several people will call the office and ask to be seen right away. Never did my scheduler ask if we could work in the extra patients at 6:00 a.m. The office staff had drawn a line in the sand; they didn’t come in until eight thirty.

How did the 8:30am line get drawn? Someone drew it. You be that someone. If you want to always be home for dinner, tell your staff you won’t see patients after 5:00 p.m. You can even leave empty slots in the schedule, so you can work in those urgent patients without added fuss.

(There is still time to join me at the Physician Freedom Summit 2025, October 6-8, in Los Angeles. I’d love to talk with you in person.)

When I started coaching my son’s U8 soccer team, I drew some hard scheduling lines at the office. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from four to six were reserved for soccer practice. The kids and parents would be depending on me to be there on time. No patients were to be scheduled after 3:00 p.m. on those days. Guess what? It happened exactly that way. If you plan it, it will happen. Once or twice each season, some emergency would pop up and prevent me from being at practice. I accounted for that possibility and had a backup parent who agreed to cover for me when needed, and it all worked out.

I hosted a visiting doctor who came to our town for a conference. At one point during the day, I told him I had to get to soccer practice. He was astonished. How could I possibly work coaching soccer into my schedule? I had the same specialty as he, and he thought he couldn’t do something like that. I told him a little secret: “I’m the boss. I tell the staff when I will work, not the other way around.” He worked in an academic position and felt like he couldn’t control his schedule. Within a year, he left academics and joined a private practice where he could be in charge of his schedule. He likely could have worked out something in his academic job, but I don’t think he tried.

If you don’t make time for your family, no one will. Do you want to see the kids off to school in the morning? Schedule it. Do you want date night every Tuesday night? Schedule it. Do you want to be home for dinner every night? Make sure your staff knows your scheduling priorities. If you want to make it to the kids’ after-school events, put it into your schedule. Take control of your time and put the things in your schedule that matter most to you.

I had one anesthesiologist hear the previous statement and tell me the following: “All’s well and good If you are a surgeon. Many a day I’ve sat and waited on the surgeon who wanted to take his kids to school. Not so with anesthesia. You say you want to be late? Good luck with the new job. I suspect your surgical self would not have tolerated a late start because the anesthesiologist wanted to take HIS kid to school. Or wanted to be off early for soccer practice. Works in the office… But not so good in the OR.”

My response to him was something like this: You seem to have misinterpreted what I was saying. I would never be late to a scheduled surgery in the morning so that I could take my kids to school instead. The concept is not to skip out on responsibilities when you want to do something else, but to schedule the something else you want to do so you can do it without interrupting others. If you want to take your kids to school in the morning, change your daily schedule so you can. My staff knew I didn’t like to get up early so they gave other surgeons the 7:30am slot on my operative day. You can do the same kinds of things.

Don’t compare yourself to other specialties or other physicians, just look at your own situation and what you want to do and what you can do to change things you want changed. Even hospital employed anesthesiologists can make changes if they want to. You can be the late start guy who comes in at 9am and ends later. Don’t have a late start person? Then set up a meeting to change how your department schedules things so there is a late start person. Then you can all rotate who gets that slot every day, so you all get chances to take you kids to school. Give away call the those who borrowed too much money and need to work more. If you want off early you can ask to work in the room that ends early today. If you don’t ask, you won’t get it. Don’t want to work nights and weekends then move to a surgery center. The point is we all have a lot more ability to make changes than we think. Get creative and see how you can take more control of your schedule.

Using this method, I have been able to be a soccer coach, perform the lead in a musical, perform in several plays and musicals, perform in several variety shows, do magic shows for the school district, be on the church worship team, and many other fun activities. I seldom missed my kids’ school or sporting events. When the kids’ sports schedules came out, their entire season immediately went onto my work schedule. It is possible to take charge of your schedule and control time on your terms.

It is very easy for young doctors to fall into this trap: “I’ll work really hard for a few years when my kids are young, and scale back when they are old enough to know I’m around.” Those few years become a few more years and before you know it, valuable family time has slipped away and can never be recovered.

You run your practice.
Don’t let your practice run you.

Someone will be taking control of your schedule. Make sure that someone is you. If you want more ideas of how to make changes at work, pick up a copy of my latest book, The Doctors Guide to Finding Joy in Your Work: A Path to Personal and Professional Fulfillment and Creating a Life You Love.

Let me know if you have any tricks you use to manage your time and take control of your schedule.