FilltheHardHoursBeforeYouGetChoosy

Dom Hills is not a morning person. He says so openly. He is also very clear about what got him through his first few years of building a PT business: he is a money person. Those two facts produced a simple rule - if a client wanted 6am, they got 6am. The discomfort of the early start was the cost of a session in the diary, and a session in the diary was worth more than an extra hour in bed.

Why new PTs get this wrong

The instinct to protect your preferred working hours is completely understandable. Nobody wants to be up at half past five every morning. But the logic of refusing antisocial slots before your diary is full has it backwards. The clients who want early mornings and late evenings are often the most reliable ones - they have built a commitment into the only window their day allows. Turning them away because the hours are inconvenient, when you have nothing filling the gaps, is a choice to stay quiet out of comfort.

Dom puts it simply: if you have got those slots free and you are not filling them, you cannot complain that the diary is not full. The choice to sleep in is a legitimate one - but it has a cost, and that cost is paid in empty appointments.

Earning the right to be selective

This is not a permanent state of affairs. The PT who fills their antisocial slots, builds a full diary, and develops a reputation over the first two or three years earns the right to be selective about their hours. At that point, you can raise your rates for early mornings and evenings, restructure your week, and replace difficult hours with clients who can do midday. But you earn that flexibility by demonstrating that you can deliver consistently under conditions that are not always ideal. The blank calendar stage is not the time to be choosing hours around what is comfortable.

A practical framework for early-career scheduling

When a new client enquires, ask about their availability before you name your own preferences. Fill the hardest slots first. Keep your preferred hours available for the point in your career when you can afford to be choosy. The PTs who build full diaries fastest in their first few years are almost always the ones who approached their time as a resource to be filled rather than a lifestyle to be protected. The comfort came later, because they earned it.