One of the tricky parts of business planning is determining how many hours of services you have to offer.  If you were selling a product, the limit of how much you can sell would be determined by the availability of the product from the manufacturer.  When your product is time, it is challenging to determine how much you have that is marketable.  If you work a part time job outside of your practice, those hours are not available.  If you have family, you need time for them and for yourself.  For every hour you spend with a student, you need preparation, follow up, and reflection time.  You also need time to manage your business, do billing and receiving, marketing, training, etc.

When Are Clients Available?

The number of hours that you have available to serve clients then must be matched up with the days and times that clients are available. 

• Students in grades K-12 usually are not available between 8:00 AM and 3:30 PM or a similar schedule with a slightly different start and end time. Many students are tired and need a break before seeing an ET or get progressively more tired as the evening wears on, so they need to see the ET on the early side. Many students are so tired by the end of the week that they need Friday afternoons off.  Weekends are often considered family time.  Students who participate in travel sports may not have a consistent day or time that they are available on weekends. 

• Adults need to build their ET needs around work, child care, and other commitments. Some adults prefer early sessions before work, and others prefer evening sessions so they can go home afterwards. Adults often are in charge of bringing the child to sessions (for in person sessions), so commute time and traffic patterns can be helpful to consider.

• Summer schedules are likely to be impacted by travel plans, camps, summer school, and changing schedules for both you and the client. The schedule you worked out for September through June may be completely different than the one you have for the summer.

The number of weeks per year you plan on working with students is another time question to consider.  For students, most schools are open approximately 30 weeks per year.  Some schools (called year round schools) are open longer.  Consider time away that you need for family plans including vacation, holidays, family events that require travel as well as work travel for training, meetings, and conferences. 

Hours Available Analysis Tool

The Hours Available spreadsheet can help you develop your understanding of how many hours you really have available to see students.  Use this spreadsheet to capture how many hours per week you are able to work, which hours you and your target clients are available for ET, how much time you need to set aside for non-client work, and calculate the number of hours available that implies. 

This tool is based on weekly hours.  You may choose to have more than one sheet on your personal document, one for your primary schedule (e.g, school year), and one for the summer schedule.