This is the perfect time of year to talk your PERSONAL TIME.
It’s the one asset you can never get back. It’s the fuel that powers everything else in your life. And it’s far more valuable than any moment you spend inside your profession.
Every doctor I work with wants more personal time—more freedom to live life on their terms without sacrificing the practice they’ve worked so hard to build.
This is especially true during the holidays when everyone is attempting to squeeze more and more in the finite time we have.
The truth is, if you want a lifestyle practice—one that supports your life—personal time must be a priority, not an afterthought. It’s time to stop compromising on what matters most. Your personal time is what makes you a better doctor, a stronger leader, and the best version of yourself for the people you care about.
I’m going to lay out the three key strategies to reclaim your personal time, refocus your practice, and design a life that gives you the freedom you deserve.
Strategy 1: Shift Your Mindset—You Deserve This
It all starts with mindset. The biggest barrier to more personal time isn’t your schedule or patient load—it’s the belief that you need to be available to everyone, all the time.
Too many doctors act like a commodity, offering up their time on demand, letting the practice dictate their lives. But here’s the truth: you deserve better.
To build a lifestyle practice, you must change your paradigm. You’re not a “convenience store” open to anyone at all hours. You’re an exclusive provider, offering high-value, relationship-based care. This shift in mindset is where everything begins.
Most doctors make low-level choices that put them at the mercy of patients, schedules, or circumstances.
But guess what? You don’t need everyone as a patient.
By setting boundaries, you actually increase your value. Patients value what they can’t always get. Start seeing yourself as a high-value provider and prioritize your time accordingly.
This mindset shift doesn’t just affect your practice—it affects your entire life. You deserve to have time for yourself. Whether it’s family time, hobbies, personal health, or just time to breathe and recharge, these are not “extra” or “luxury” items. They are necessities.
The more you respect your own time, the more others will respect it, too.
Strategy 2: Create Your Daily Success System
If you’re going to protect your personal time, you need a system that prioritizes it. This is what I call the Daily Success System—an impeccably organized approach to structuring your day. Too many doctors have a morning huddle, but few use it strategically. They review what went wrong yesterday or focus only on today’s appointments, missing the bigger picture.
The Daily Success System is about creating opportunities, focusing on outcomes, and keeping your practice aligned with the life you want. This starts with a lifestyle schedule—one that’s designed not just around patients, but around your priorities. Each day, you should be setting up your schedule, appointments, and routines with an eye on the lifestyle you’re building.
Your morning isn’t just for preparing for patients—it’s about preparing yourself. Your wake-up routine, your commute, even the way you step into your practice should be intentional. And the same goes for the end of the day. Your second day begins when you get home. If you’re coming home drained, mentally checked out, or still thinking about work, something has to change.
And let’s go deeper into how this system can reshape your day: end your day with a win.
Schedule an intentional wrap-up to review what went well, and consider what can improve tomorrow. This isn’t just about organizing; it’s about mentally letting go of the practice before you walk out. This is where you reinforce your boundaries, where you set yourself up to leave work at work and focus on life outside.
The Daily Success System isn’t just about your work hours; it’s about structuring every part of your day so that when you leave the practice, you’re free to focus on your life. Because when you return to work refreshed and recharged, you bring the best version of yourself back to your patients and your team.
Strategy 3: Reverse Engineer Your Life and Practice
Building a lifestyle practice isn’t about luck. It’s about reverse engineering—taking your biggest goals and working backward to figure out what needs to happen today, this week, and this month to achieve them. If you’re always reacting to what happened yesterday, you’re already behind.
Think about this: what do you want your life to look like in 90 days? Start there. Define your ideal day, week, and month. Then reverse engineer your practice so it supports that vision. Every decision, every system, every boundary you set should be based on that future goal.
Let’s say you want three days off each week. This isn’t a pipe dream; it’s a strategy. You can achieve it by deciding which patients and procedures align with that goal. Maybe it means raising fees, focusing on high-value procedures, or adjusting how you schedule your clinical time.
By working backward, you create a structure that doesn’t just chase more patients or more treatments, but instead aligns with a vision of time freedom and financial independence.
This isn’t about short-term fixes. It’s about creating long-term harmony between your life and practice. And I’ll tell you, harmony is a much better goal than balance. Balance is fleeting, but harmony—when everything in your life works together—is sustainable.
Your Time Is Your Most Precious Asset
Here’s the bottom line: your personal time is what makes you valuable, not just to your patients but to your family, your friends, and most importantly, to yourself. The time you invest in yourself pays off everywhere else. It gives you the energy, clarity, and focus you need to serve others at the highest level.
Don’t settle for the industry standard that says you should be at the mercy of patient demands, long hours, or burnout. Redefine what success looks like for you. When you’re thriving personally, your practice thrives.
The choice is yours. Will you continue to let your practice dictate your life, or will you take control and make personal time a priority?
