Letting go of the paper calendar: a tale of loss & redemption

It was late summer 2016, outside of beautiful Bend, Oregon.

I was hiking with my old black lab, Gracie, around Smith Rock State Park, where massive rock spires surround the meandering Crooked River and you can see the snowy peaks of the Three Sisters Wilderness off in the distance.

It was such a gorgeous day and I was so grateful for some time off, far away from massage work.

I’d been working as a massage therapist for about a year, both at a local spa and a yoga studio, while also trying to launch my own massage practice.

I worked a LOT— sometimes doing up to 8 sessions in a day— because I really, really wanted to leave the spa, but needed more of my own private practice clients before I could take the financial leap.

I was starting to develop a repetitive use injury in my thumb from all the work in addition to not prioritizing self-care enough and rock climbing on my off-days (that was a bad idea)!

Suddenly, I got a call on my cell phone; my first thought: this could be a potential new client!

I frantically rushed to get my phone out of my backpack and answer it before I missed the call.

Sure enough, they were calling to see if they could book a massage with me— that very day! What a conundrum: do I end my hike early so I can get a new client in the door, or do I continue hiking and tell them I can’t get them in?

I pulled out my trusty paper calendar out of my backpack and took a seat on a rock beside the trail.

Cell coverage was spotty and our call was broken up a few times.

People hiked by and looked at me inquisitively while I shouted into my phone to see when I could squeeze this client in. I tried texting them and asked if they could come in the following day. It all seemed so ridiculous.

I thought to myself, “there’s got to be a better way.” Online scheduling seemed like SUCH a good idea—it would give me the freedom to take a true day off— and not have to scramble to answer the phone at any given moment. But it also seemed impossible to imagine giving up my beloved paper calendar.

Anybody else out there love their paper calendars?

You sit down with it at the kitchen table, flip through the worn pages, look back at old notes and appointments, ponder over the coming weeks and months. It was sort of a comforting ritual.

Thing is, from a business standpoint, it keeps you stuck in the past.

And, as much as we love our clients, they certainly can’t join us at the kitchen table each day while we look at availability for the week.

Online scheduling for wellness practitioners is a must.

I decided to give it a go, but it meant slowly saying goodbye to my paper calendar. Joining the 21st century and launching a online schedule took some getting used to. There were a few times when I accidentally double booked myself because I still had things on my analog schedule that I hadn’t migrated over to my online schedule.

But you know what?

I got so much positive feedback from my clients about the ease of it all. People told me they always felt bad texting me if it was late or early because they didn’t want to “bother me.”

Ha!

Small business owners are NEVER bothered by clients wanting their work!

People said how easy it was to book with me, and they loved being able to reschedule themselves, cancel if something came up as well as the beauty of getting text reminders.

Best of all, I got the freedom from my phone and my old paper calendar that I sorely needed. I could feel free to let the phone ring (since it was likely going to be about my car’s extended warranty anyway) and allow clients to book online effortlessly.

If you’re on the fence about moving to online scheduling, have no fear.

Add scheduling to your already-existing website or get a custom website from Blue Skies Web Designs— I’ll walk you through the process step-by-step. Book a FREE discovery call today and let’s get this party started!