In this talk, Kelly Alhooie shares her personal experience of extreme provider burnout during the COVID pandemic, when she was forced to perform home visits in patients' backyards and endure long, unsanitary trips. The relentless demand from patients caused her calendar to be owned by them, leading to resentment, exhaustion, and strain on her personal relationships. To combat this, Kelly emphasizes the need for robust systems: replaceable administrative staff, clear delegation, and a disciplined planner that blocks personal time before booking client appointments. She demonstrates her own planner, showing color‑coded sticky notes and a weekly block of personal time, and recommends taking at least one full day off every 6–8 weeks (or as often as possible) solely for self‑care. The core message is that clinicians and entrepreneurs must fill their own calendar first, set boundaries, and schedule regular personal time to avoid burnout.
Chapters
So I started to become resentful. Is anyone following me with this? Is anyone resentful on this call right now that maybe your clients are taking up your time if you have them? Okay, yeah, Brittany said tired. It's rough. It's freaking rough sitting in your car for 3 hours. Oh, by the way, this was COVID, so you couldn't have a bathroom, couldn't even go to the grocery store, um, because they wouldn't let you in. I'm not kidding, they would not let me in. So you had to like hold your pee and then like beg the patient when you got to their house, like, can I please use your bathroom? I promise I'll wash my hands and everything will be very clean that I touch. Like, I even treated— this is so crazy— I even did internal exams inside or outside people's— in their backyard, literally. I'm not kidding. My pregnant moms were so, like, germophobic, which I get, okay? But I'm in a full-on winter coat jacket treating, doing internal exams in the backyard because that's how crazy COVID got, okay? But we had to do it because these patients couldn't walk. Their pubic symphysis was off. And I was like, okay, we got to solve it. I'll come to your backyard and treat you. Like, that's the, that's the level of craziness. I don't need you guys to be there because I can tell you what it led to. I became resentful of the patients because the patients started taking away my time, okay? They started taking away all my time. My calendar was not mine anymore. My calendar was owned by my patients. And that is hard because I'm a helper. I want to help you as much as I possibly can and give you my arm, my leg, my finger, whatever you need. And I didn't realize it was also killing my freaking relationship because I didn't have one, because all I was doing was freaking working. And I need you guys to be mindful of this. And so when I developed this thing I was like, how else can we make you not feel overwhelmed and make you like business and not feel resentful? Who on here has kids? Put it in the chat if you have kids. Just put kids if you have kids. Who on here has a dog? I got a dog, so I love dogs. Okay, not that I don't love kids. Okay, but I, I love my dog. I want to see my dog. Okay, kids and dogs. Great. Okay. I never got to see my dog. My husband took care of my dog. Okay. Oh, 12-week-old. That's awesome. Congrats, by the way. Okay. Y'all got to make time for your family. Otherwise you're going to be like, why the heck am I doing this? Okay, I'm serious about this. You got to make time for your family. So when I created this, I wanted to make it to where you fill up your schedule first. People were even texting me, guys, when I'm on vacation saying, hey, I need you, I need you. We would have admins quitting on me while I was on vacation. Has anyone ever had that happen to them? Anyone there yet? Y'all may not be there yet, but it will happen one day. And if it does, I need y'all to have systems in place that these people, you can just replace them with another person in 2 seconds and not have to miss a beat, okay? You cannot miss a beat. You need freaking systems. And this is one of the systems. So again, it led to resentful. I was, I was tired. I had no energy and nothing freaking grew. So I had to have integrative systems. And that's what led me to my planner. So this is another thing I need you guys to take notes on this. I need you guys right now to pull out your planner. Okay, I have my planner for April. This is what it looks like. Okay, these are my little sticky notes. How cute are they? Okay, it's so fun, by the way. Okay, all the different colors mean something different. But the yellow is my personal, meaning I'm typically somewhere. So you guys can see here, I block out a week. This is very important. You're probably thinking, why is Kelly talking about this? If I could teach you one thing tonight, you must do this. You must fill your calendar before anyone else fills it. Is everyone picking this up? You must fill your calendar before anyone else freaking fills it, because you will become resentful and stop what you're doing. So you guys can see, I take a whole week off every 6 to 8 weeks. Some of y'all may not be able to afford that right now. Some of y'all may just be able to take one day off. Every 6 weeks, every, every 2 months, 1 day off for yourself. Not for your kids, not for your dog, not for your spouse, for you. Now, if it fills your cup to hang out with your spouse, then sure, you can do that. Okay? If it fills your cup to hang out with your kids, then you can do that. But I need you to take time for you. Don't be like me. Just killing yourself in freaking parking decks and, and doing whatever. That's the hustle. It will just wear you out. It will wear you out.
