Your Schedule Isn’t Full (Yet)—And That’s Okay (Episode 29)
If you’ve ever stared at an empty hour on your calendar and felt a wave of anxiety or self-doubt, you’re not alone. In this episode, I’m reframing those open spots—not as evidence that something’s wrong, but as valuable opportunities to support your business, reflect on your work, or even rest (guilt-free!).
I’ll share how to stop spinning in indecision when you hit a lull in your schedule and start seeing those gaps for what they really are: a chance to move your practice forward with clarity and intention. Whether you’re in a growth phase or just hit a slow week, you’ll walk away with 10 tangible ways to use that time—no hustle required.
Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:
1️⃣ How to reframe calendar gaps so they fuel growth instead of shame
2️⃣ Why rest only counts when it’s chosen—and how to know when it’s truly needed
3️⃣ A 10-item “gap menu” with concrete tasks (and yes, rest is on the list!) you can draw from anytime your schedule opens up
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Hey, hey, welcome back to Marketing Therapy. Today we're gonna talk about something that every single therapist faces at some point, those pesky, empty spots on your calendar. You know the ones where a client could be sitting, but they're not, at least not yet. And if you're in the growth phase of your practice, those gaps, they can feel pretty bossy, pretty loud, right?
Maybe they feel like evidence that you're not where you want to be yet. Perhaps it even feels like you're failing when you see those gaps. But like I said, a client isn't sitting there yet that spot. It's not full yet. That's all it is. It's not failure. That gap is an opportunity. And in this episode, I want to help you see those gaps for what they really are.
Time you can use. To build your business, reflect on what you wanna be known for, or even rest, because if that spot was filled with a client, you know exactly what to do with that hour, right? You'd show up and serve that client, hold space, guide the session. But when that same hour is open, it's so easy to get stuck and to spin an indecision.
Twiddle your thumbs, kind of looking this way in, that you wanna be productive, you want to use that time, but you aren't sure where to start. I know that feeling on a deep, deep level. Back, when I began Walker Strategy Co, I was still working in a nine to five.
So most of the building of this business happened in nights and weekends. But sometimes I'd suddenly have a free hour, and the list of things I could do was so long that I ended up wasting the whole time, or at least a lot of it trying to decide what to do. And that's really the trap that I think it's easy to get caught in.
Not the gap itself, but the indecision about what to do with it.
So today I want to help you approach those open spots differently, shift the way you think about them, and also give you some practical ideas of what you can do with those 50 minutes. So the next time a spot does open up, because it will, you'll know exactly how to spend it. Okay, let's dive in. Here's the first thing I want you to know.
You are not alone in this. Like I said, every single therapist experiences this. Every single therapist goes through a growth phase. No one starts out with a full caseload. Even if you left a group practice and we're able to bring clients with you, they're still empty spots. But I know the feeling when you're sitting with that empty spot.
It's quiet, it's a little lonely, and your brain can immediately start filling that silence with questions. Am I cut out for this? Is this gonna work? Why does everyone else already have a full caseload? And I don't, should I even be doing this? That spot on your calendar can feel like it's shouting. Those questions at you, if you go down the path of gaps mean I'm failing or not going quickly enough.
That's scarcity talking. But if you reframe these as I have gaps, therefore I have space to build, that's opportunity, that's abundance, that's self-trust and belief in yourself. We've talked about this recently, that trust is what's required to build a practice that actually last.
But sometimes you can still look at a gap in your calendar and maybe you even feel grateful for the space, but it can at the same time, still feel paralyzing because the list of things you could do is so long that you end up spinning in that indecision.
That's the thing about these gaps in your schedule. They only feel heavy when you don't have a plan, because the mental labor of deciding what to do in the moment, that's what drains you. It's not the empty hour itself. Once I finally put a project management system in place, I had left my nine to five, was doing this full time, but still didn't have any sort of system.
For how I was managing all of the tasks in my business. After we put a project management system in place, everything shifted. Now, if a meeting cancels or I have a lighter day, more capacity, I don't have to think about what to do. There's a list right in front of me and I can just get started. That has freed up so much mental bandwidth for me.
So I'm gonna encourage you here not to leave your free hours up to ch. Give them structure just like you would a client session, because like I was saying earlier, when a client shows up, you don't spend the whole 50 minutes deciding what to do, right? You just do the work, and I believe your business deserves that same level of clarity and intention.
Now, one thing we're gonna talk about here is that clarity doesn't always mean action or hustling. Sometimes it can mean intentional rest. But resting doesn't count. If you're sitting still and feeling guilty, rest only counts when it's chosen, when you can really step away with intention. As I prepared for this episode, I actually sat at my favorite salad spot in downtown Nashville Greenery Co.
If any of you are local, it's my favorite spot, and I had taken the entire day off of meetings on a random Tuesday. I could see that I needed it, and I felt it. So I carved it out. I told my team I wasn't gonna be available, and it was the most life giving day. I wasn't planning to plan out a podcast episode on that day off.
It's just kind of happened naturally. But that rest that I took and the way that I showed up the following Wednesday, it was productive. I showed up more focused and more motivated and more energized than if I hadn't taken that time. Now if you are like me, resting probably doesn't come naturally to you.
You might default to action, but if you learn to tune in, you'll notice when your body or your business is begging for rest. But you'll also know when it's begging for action too, and I want to encourage you to listen to both. The real danger is doing neither of those things, neither resting nor taking action.
Just spinning in that indecision. That's really the only unproductive choice you can make with this time in your calendar. So whether you act or you rest, just choose it with intention, know what you're gonna do and that'll keep you moving forward.
Now, what do you do with those hours? Like I said, I wanna give you some practical ideas. So next time you are faced with a cancellation or perhaps just an empty spot that hasn't been filled yet by an ongoing client. Some things you can actually plan to do. The way I encourage you to think about it is this, every free hour on your calendar is a session with your business rather than a session with a client.
It's a session with your business.
I want you to bring the same energy that you do to sessions to your business because your business needs you to show up too. Not just when clients are on your calendar, but in the spaces in between. So let's respect those free hours. Let's view them as opportunities, and let's give them some structure.
So I'm gonna give you 10 different things you could do with a 50 minute block. Of course, the list goes on and on, but maybe think of it as a little menu you can draw upon not having to do all of them, certainly, but when a gap shows up, choosing one and diving in rather than spinning the first one, reach out to colleagues.
You've heard me say recently, time and time again. Networking is the only non-negotiable besides an effective website in this market. And networking, just like any relationship, requires ongoing effort and engagement. So this first one, reach out to colleagues. Start with someone you already know. It doesn't have to be some cold email to someone you've never met.
Maybe a, Hey, just checking in. How are things going in your practice? Email, it doesn't need to be fancy. Because you know better than anyone that relationships are built through consistency and curiosity. Maybe if you do decide to reach out to someone new, keep it simple. I read your website, I follow you on Instagram.
I think the work you do is really interesting and I'd love to hear more. Remember that networking is a volume game. That means that you are gonna reach out to people and you're never gonna hear back, and that is very normal. Not everyone is gonna reply and want to be best friends, but all you need are a couple really fruitful and engaged relationships to truly change the game for your practice .
The second thing you can do, update Your Psych Today Profile. Psych today varies and it's an effectiveness right now. There's no doubt about it, and yet it is still some of the lowest hanging fruit marketing wise. If you haven't touched it in a while, use 50 minutes to do that. If you don't have a video, please go film one.
If there's one thing I can suggest for psych today, right now is take the 20 seconds to film a video and in a 50 minute block, you have enough time to do quite a few takes until you're happy with one, pick the best one, upload it. It doesn't need to be perfect, but get it up there. If you are paying for psych today, please make the most of it.
So jump in there, make some updates, maybe focus in on a particular niche of yours. Our site today Success Pack is a wonderful resource for this, but do something to improve that. The next thing you could do, take a look at your own website. It is so easy to spend a lot of time building your website and then kind of forget about it.
I do the same thing. I don't know the last time I visited the homepage of my own website, so go do that. And tweak things that maybe need to be updated or could resonate a little bit more deeply with your clients. Load up that website and focus on just that top space. We call that the hero space. It's the first thing people see, and it is the most valuable real estate on your entire website.
And ask yourself in the first five seconds, can a potential client answer these three things, what you do, where you do it, and who you do it for. Again, load up your homepage in five seconds. Do I immediately know without even scrolling what you do, where you do it, and who you do it for? If not, spend a session rewriting that section and let that section of your website do some more heavy lifting for you.
The next thing you could do is record a quick video for placement on your website and in other parts of your marketing. So this is a little bit different than your Psych Today video, although you could certainly use your Psych Today video on your website as well. But I suggest turning your phone sideways, going horizontal on that one, and just record a one to two minute clip about who you help and what your approach is like.
Again, don't overthink it. We're not talking about a professionally produced video in these 50 minutes. Right? Think about it as an opportunity to connect, to give people a taste of how it is that you work to see your face and hear your voice. Because in this market video and that type of engagement is gonna build trust faster than text alone.
So if you're comfortable with it, make sure you got some good lighting in your office. Flip your phone sideways and click record. Then pop it onto the homepage of your website, the about page, something like that. The next thing you could do, outline a blog post.
Blogging is interesting right now because in the age of ai, anyone can put out tons and tons of content on a regular basis, and so there are posts being thrown out into the ether at a volume we have never seen before. But you have a unique approach. You have a unique way of seeing things and of speaking about the work that you do with your client.
And blogging can still be incredibly beneficial for your marketing, for your SEO, for your a EO. As we talked about recently, your ability to rank on AI tools. So I want you to think back to a conversation you had this week with a client. What's something you said to a client or a client said to you that sticks out?
Maybe you suggested something to a client that really led to a breakthrough moment, or perhaps you got feedback from a client about something that was particularly helpful or. Paradigm shifting. Start there as a blog post.
Absolutely. Use chat GBT for outlining this. If you can, I do not suggest using it to just go ahead and draft that copy for you as is, but use chat GBT to create an outline and then start populating that with your own point of view, your own voice answering a really specific topic or question that you know is relevant because, hello, you had that conversation last week.
Okay. Another thing you can do. Number six, organize your next steps. I don't want this to be about building a giant to-do list, but it is helpful to plan ahead so that all of your marketing isn't just reactive. Okay? So think about creating a plan. Ask yourself, what are the next three things I can do to move my marketing forward?
What am I prepared to commit to? So write 'em down and then prioritize them and commit to them. Sometimes the most productive hour you can have is one that provides clarity for the hours and hours and hours to follow. So if you have been marketing from just a reactive place, doing it in these 50 minute chunks as opposed to a more comprehensive and intentional plan, then use a session with your business to create that plan.
It'll give you so much more stability and sustainability where it doesn't feel like every single time you sit down to market yourself, you're starting from. Square one.
Number seven. Maybe consider using this time to brainstorm some content ideas. So however you are sharing content, whether that is blogging, social media, Instagram, LinkedIn, podcasting, YouTube, whatever it might be, if you are sharing content on a regular basis, plan out that content, get some new ideas, chat, GBT and ai, or another great resource for this kind of thing.
But start by setting a timer for 10 minutes and writing down every client question you can remember. About what it is that they were struggling with, what they needed to know more about the psychoed that you provided, the questions they had for you about your approach. Don't worry about filtering them, just list them out.
And then at the end, pick five to 10 that feel the most relevant. And there you have it a week or weeks of content ideas to focus on. Number eight, review your intake forms. This is one of my very favorite exercise to encourage any clinician to engage in. I want you to call to mind your most favorite recent clients.
Three to five of them. Pull up their intake forms and remind yourself of what it is that they were struggling with when they came to you. Because if you've been working with someone for 6, 9, 12 plus months, it can be hard to remember what brought them in in the first place. And maybe now they've realized, oh my goodness, it is the relationship with my mom that is showing up in these day-to-day patterns I'm experiencing now.
They didn't know that back then. What did they know? Because your marketing must meet people at their current point of need, right? We talk about that a lot. So pull up those last five of your favorite clients and look for the words they used to describe their struggles and what they were hoping for out of therapy.
And look for patterns and themes. Jot those down, jot down direct quotes that you could use in your copy and in your marketing, because we know that when you borrow your client's language, we call that language mirroring, your marketing instantly connects, and that's what leads to people saying, I read your website and it felt like you were talking to me because you're using their own language.
Alright, the last two suggestions I have for you here are a little bit deeper. One would be to take some time to really reflect and journal to consider the vision you have for your practice. You know, sometimes you get into private practice and you did it 'cause you had to, and it was a little bit of a hurried decision, or maybe it was something you just always planned to do.
It was just the next logical step for you. But perhaps you've never really sat down and thought, what is my vision for this? What do I want to be known for? What do I want this practice to become? Or maybe look at. A session from this week or last week that really felt powerful. Why did it work so well?
What did you bring to the room? What did you do to really connect with that client or invite the breakthrough that you witnessed? These reflections can spark insights absolutely, into your marketing, but also really enhance the level of connection and confidence you have. In the work that you do and in your practice and in your business.
So maybe taking this time to reflect and journal will actually get you further than any tactical task would. And then finally, I mentioned it. The other thing you can do is you can rest. You can take that hour, but again, rest is only productive. If it's intentional. Get outside, take a walk without your phone.
Meet a friend for lunch and don't talk about work. Give yourself some real space to recharge because just like my salad day that I was engaging in when I planned this episode, coming back to your business with energy and clarity, that is productive and it is worthwhile. So sometimes that gap in your schedule, that hour is an invitation to step away.
And that also can serve your business.
So those are some ideas for you. Number one, reach out to colleagues. Number two, update your site today, profile or other directory profile. Number three, tweak your homepage of your website. Number four, record a quick intro video. Number five, outline a blog post. Number six, organize your next steps. Make a plan for your marketing.
Number seven, brainstorm some content ideas. Number eight, review your intake forms. Number nine, reflect and journal, or number 10, rest, whatever it is that you choose to do, whether it's from this little menu or something else. The takeaway here is don't wait until the gap shows up to decide what to do with it.
Make a plan now. Create a little menu for yourself. A little gap plan so that when a spot opens up on your calendar, you already know where to put your energy. Sometimes that plan will be action, and sometimes it will be rest. Because remember, every free hour is a session with your business, and you get to choose how that session goes, and when that spot isn't filled with a client yet, you get to decide what it is filled with.
So next time you see a gap on your calendar, don't let it spiral into shame or indecision. Okay? See it for what it really is an opportunity, a chance to build, to reflect, to recharge that spot. It may not be full yet, but it will.
I've mentioned a couple of resources here in the episode. Our Psych Today Success Pack is really wonderful. Our magnetic niche method is another course you could tackle in a gap or two and really refine your niche if you're really looking for deeper support in making sure your website in particular does its job.
So when those inquiries do come in, they're turning into RightFit clients absolutely come check out Confident copy. And if you wanna just keep these mindset shifts coming, jump into our free private podcast. Today's full caseload, where I dive deep into what's actually working right now.
I created that series based on the meetings and interviews and relationships I have with thriving private pay clinicians who are still thriving in this market. So it's really based on what I've actually seen work and I go step by step through all the pieces, both strategy and mindset that are necessary in order to be successful right now.
So if you haven't subscribed to today's full caseload, I encourage you to do that. We'll put the link in the show notes. You can jump over there, walker strategy code.com/ FC. One way or another, keep showing up. Okay? Use these gaps as the opportunities that they are. Use these hours with intention.
Because they are the bridge between where you are now and the full practice that you're building. I hope this one was helpful for you. I'm wishing you well in the gaps in your calendar, and I'll see you in the next episode.
Resources & Links Mentioned:
PsychToday Success Pack: walkerstrategyco.com/ptsp
Magnetic Niche Method: walkerstrategyco.com/mnm
Confident Copy: walkerstrategyco.com/cc
Today’s Full Caseload (free private podcast): walkerstrategyco.com/tfc
The Walker Strategy Co website: walkerstrategyco.com
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About Marketing Therapy
Marketing Therapy is the podcast where therapists learn how to market their private practices without burnout, self-doubt, or sleazy tactics. Hosted by Anna Walker—marketing coach, strategist, and founder of Walker Strategy Co—each episode brings you clear, grounded advice to help you attract the right-fit, full-fee clients and grow a practice you feel proud of.
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