Negotiation #9: Negotiate Your Schedule

You Are the CEO of Your Schedule

Every physician has a schedule, whether explicit or not. Clinic days, meetings, deadlines—they all fill your calendar. But here’s the truth: you are the CEO of your schedule.

Your schedule doesn’t run you. You run your schedule. When clinicians say, “I had no choice—my schedule just filled up and got out of control,” it’s a sign of lost ownership. Negotiating your schedule means reclaiming control and designing your time with intention.

Five Steps to Negotiating Your Schedule

1. Take Ownership of Your Time

First and foremost, recognize that your schedule belongs to you—not your mentor, not your assistant, not your institution. Taking responsibility is the first step to taking control.

2. Block Out Writing and Productivity Time

As a clinician scientist, your greatest impact comes from communicating your science—through grants, publications, and talks. If it isn’t written, it doesn’t exist. Identify your most productive time of day (morning, afternoon, evening) and block it off for writing and creative work. Treat this block as sacred. It is not “free time” for others to schedule over—it’s your most important meeting of the week.

3. Schedule Your Highest Priorities First

After writing, schedule your other top priorities—like regular team meetings. Setting expectations and supporting your team is high-value work. Fill your calendar with the essentials first, then let everything else flow around them.

4. Designate Spaces for Others

Once your high-value work is protected, create designated windows for everything else—meetings, administrative requests, or committee work. If a proposed meeting conflicts with your protected time, suggest an alternative block or request meeting minutes instead.

You can’t eliminate the 80% of lower-value tasks, but you can control how they fit into your schedule.

5. Reconsider One-on-One Meetings

Not every conversation needs to be one-on-one. Could a group meeting serve multiple people at once? Could mentees benefit from hearing each other’s questions? Could a collaborator bring their trainee so action items don’t fall solely on you?

By consolidating one-on-one meetings into group settings when possible, you reduce repetition and create shared learning environments.

Make Your Schedule Work for You

When you negotiate your schedule, you reclaim your most precious asset: time. Protecting your writing, prioritizing essentials, and streamlining meetings ensures your calendar reflects your values—not just others’ demands.

What’s Next: Negotiating Your Boundaries

Your schedule is only as strong as the boundaries that protect it. In the next post, we’ll talk about negotiating boundaries—how to say no, hold limits, and safeguard the time and energy that matter most.

Reflection Questions

• Do you currently feel like the CEO of your schedule—or does it feel like your schedule runs you?

• When is your most productive writing or creative time, and is it blocked off consistently?

• What meetings on your calendar are true priorities, and which ones could be delegated or declined?

• How might shifting from one-on-one to group meetings free up time and amplify your impact?