Last year I was exhausted in my business. For all my talk of ideal schedules and operating a life first business, I had reached a point where I felt seriously stretched.

My days consisted of bouncing from zoom call to zoom call, with very little time to actually work on my business, plan or rest. And even when there was space in my calendar, rather than use it to do strategic work or create content, I simply collapsed on the sofa with an episode of my favourite Netflix show.

Client delivery had spilled across my entire week and my previously protected call free Fridays had become a distant memory. As awful as it is to admit, I had started to feel a sense of dread before opening up my calendar each day.

It’s funny looking back because I didn’t really realise that I’d reached that point until I took on an additional assistant to help me with scheduling and inbox management. We both saw pretty quickly how difficult it was for her to find space in my calendar to schedule anything and how, despite a really great system for managing my inbox, it failed because I still didn’t have the time to deal with emails that had been flagged as a priority.

Before that point, I had assumed it was just me, that I was somehow not working hard enough, but hearing from someone else that yes, your schedule and inbox are packed, was deeply validating and made me realise that it was time for a serious change.

That change was super simple.

I switched from yearlong group programs with weekly live calls to yearlong group programs with twice monthly calls.

That simple shift has changed everything for me.

I’ve been able to recommit to my call-free Content Mondays and my call-free CEO Fridays.

I was able to get back to scheduling all of my client delivery work on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and, with live program calls only twice a month, I now have large chunks of focused work space in my calendar on my group program free weeks.

With my new business model well underway I have to tell you, I can’t believe I didn’t make this change sooner. Now when I look at my calendar, I typically have a slightly heavier program and delivery week followed by a lighter delivery week. On those lighter weeks, I have large chunks of uninterrupted focused work time.

This is allowing me to work on Thinkific courses. It’s also allowed me to maintain my weekly newsletter rhythm and enjoy it in the process. And it’s created space to do things like arrange a catch up with a good friend or go for a longer walk in nature on work days, because there is plenty of space in my calendar to do what needs to be done in my business.

And interestingly, with all of this space came a new challenge.

For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t constrained by a packed calendar or back to back calls.

I actually had time to work on the business instead of in it. And what I noticed quite quickly is that having time and using it wisely are two very different things.

There have been days where I’ve sat down to work and felt overwhelmed by the options of what to focus on, and other days where I’ve had the space to go really deep into a piece of work and get more done than I would have previously thought possible.

What having more space has forced me to do is get really intentional about how I work and what I focus on.

Without the structure of a full calendar telling me what to do next, I’ve had to make those decisions much more consciously. And that’s when I started to see something more clearly.

It’s not just about creating space. It’s about knowing how to use that space in a way that actually grows the business.

What’s one small tweak you could make to your weekly schedule that might have a big impact?