Being Fully Booked Doesn’t Mean Your Day Belongs to You
If you run a salon or med spa, you can be fully booked and still feel like your day never belongs to you.
The small decisions that pull you in at the worst possible moment… The team member who needs an exception approved. Someone wants to adjust their schedule. A late client still expects the same service and is ready to be loud if they don’t get it.
And the hundred little check-ins from team members who are scared to “get it wrong.”
It’s easy to brush these off as business as usual.
Minor annoyances that come with the territory. But together, cascading one on top of the other, overlapping—these moments turn your focus and attention into confetti on the wind. Brief, colorful sparks scattered everywhere, not powerful enough to do anything but let the environment direct them where it will.
You never get the chance to pour your energy into something that would actually move the business forward.
And the same issues show up again and again, sometimes wearing slightly different clothes—yet so often your team treats them like The First Time.
Years ago, I realized I was never going to build what I wanted if I stayed inside the daily chaos.
The business would run.
It would grow, slowly.
But I’d always be reacting instead of deciding.
So I started blocking out every Thursday on my calendar. On Thursdays I’m not available for anything. Those days are sacred, set aside for me to focus on leading and growing the business.
I call them Productive Thursdays now, though at first I just called them “oh please just let me think.”
Those eight hours are still all spent on work—but it’s building-something-better work instead of running-the-business work.
The kind of thinking that doesn’t fit between other things, that needs time and focus and consistent attention. It’s a little humbling how much is possible with 8 uninterrupted hours focused on the future of your business.
And because of those Productive Thursdays I’ve got some new projects that I’ll be sharing with you this year which I’m very excited about. I think you will be too. (More on those soon, I promise!)
They never would have happened if I didn’t sit down and think: “How can I make the business a little more self-sufficient?”
Productive Thursdays worked so well that Valerie, my Director of Design, and I added something new. We call it recess.
It’s simple and so powerful.
We leave the facility, go somewhere for lunch, and talk about creative things—no agendas, no urgent decisions, just space to think out loud together.
The name of our podcast actually came from one of those conversations.
Recess sounds silly, sure, but naming it that way gives us permission to be playful and creative. To not take it so seriously. It also stands out on our calendars—it’s not another meeting, it’s not optional, it’s recess.
If a full day or even a regular lunch feels out of reach right now, start smaller.
Then decide a repeatable plan of action now. Write it down and make sure it’s easy for someone else to understand, so that when it happens again your team is armed with the knowledge of exactly what to do. Without coming to ask you.
As business owners so many of our decisions live in our heads.
It’s only once you start sharing both the decisions and the thinking behind them that your team is able to show initiative and handle things themselves, in a way that you’re proud of.
Usually organizing one of two things gives your team what they need—your information and your space.
Give them the wording you prefer to say “no” to an unreasonable client request. Include bespoke storage where things are actually used. Have a document they can reference for answers without asking you. Move your desk away from routes that get lots of use during the day so you’re less likely to get a string of spontaneous questions.
Small changes mean your team can confidently take care of things themselves, the way you want them to.
Michele
