How Sarah Saves 5 Hours Every Week With RecurriCal

Sarah Chen, LMFT runs a busy therapy practice in Portland, Oregon. She sees 28 clients per week—most of them weekly, some bi-weekly. Before RecurriCal, she spent 6+ hours every week managing her schedule.

Today, she spends about 45 minutes.

We sat down with Sarah to learn how she transformed her scheduling workflow and reclaimed over 5 hours of her week.

The Old Way: “Scheduling Was a Part-Time Job”

Sarah started her private practice in 2023 using Calendly. It worked great at first—clients could book initial consultations easily, and the interface was clean.

But as her practice grew and clients moved from intake to ongoing therapy, Calendly became a burden.

“I’d spend Sunday nights booking the next 4-6 weeks for each client. Click, click, check calendar, click again. One client wanted Tuesdays at 3pm for the next 12 weeks. That’s 12 separate bookings. Times 28 clients? It was absurd.”

— Sarah Chen, LMFT

The Pain Points

Sarah identified three major frustrations:

1. Individual Session Booking Even though 90% of her clients had the same slot every week, she had to book each session separately. A client wanting weekly therapy for 3 months meant 12 individual bookings.

2. Manual Conflict Checking “I’d book a client for Tuesday at 2pm, then realize I already had someone at 1:30pm and sessions run 50 minutes. I’d have to cancel and rebook. This happened multiple times per week.”

3. Vacation Chaos Taking a week off meant:

• Manually canceling 28 appointments
• Emailing each client individually
• Rebooking them all for the following week
• Hoping nobody double-booked in the meantime

“I almost didn’t take vacation because the scheduling headache wasn’t worth it,” Sarah says.

The Switch to RecurriCal

Sarah found RecurriCal in September 2024 while searching for “recurring appointment booking” (she was shocked no one had built this before).

“The first time I booked a client for ‘12 weeks, every Tuesday at 3pm’ and it took 30 seconds, I legitimately teared up. This should have existed years ago.”

Week One Results

Within her first week using RecurriCal, Sarah saw immediate changes:

• Booking time: 6 hours → 1.5 hours (75% reduction)
• Scheduling emails: 47 → 8 (83% reduction)
• Double-bookings: 3 → 0 (100% elimination)
• Stress level: “High” → “Manageable”

Week Four: The New Normal

By week four, Sarah had refined her workflow. She now spends about 45 minutes per week on scheduling:

• 15 minutes – Review and confirm new client requests
• 15 minutes – Handle schedule changes (cancellations, reschedules)
• 15 minutes – Book recurring sessions for new ongoing clients

That’s 5.25 hours saved every single week.

How Sarah Uses RecurriCal

Sarah walked us through her weekly workflow:

Monday Morning: Review New Bookings

Sarah checks RecurriCal Monday mornings to see who booked during the weekend:

• New intake clients (one-time initial consultations)
• Existing clients requesting schedule changes
• Recurring series that start this week

“Everything’s already on my calendar with Zoom links. I just review and prepare.”

As Needed: Book Recurring Clients

When a client transitions from intake to ongoing therapy:

1. Sarah asks: “What day and time works best for you?”
2. Client says: “Tuesdays at 3pm”
3. Sarah sends them her booking link
4. Client books “10 sessions, every Tuesday at 3pm”
5. Done

RecurriCal automatically:

• Checks all 10 Tuesdays for conflicts
• Blocks the time on Sarah’s calendar
• Sends confirmation with all 10 dates
• Includes Zoom links for each session
• Adds .ics files so it goes in the client’s calendar

“The whole process takes maybe 2 minutes. Before, I’d spend 15-20 minutes per client doing this manually.”

Vacation Planning: Actually Possible Now

Sarah recently took a week off in October. Here’s what she did:

1. Marked October 14-18 as “break period” in RecurriCal
2. RecurriCal automatically:
   • Showed which recurring appointments fell during that week
   • Offered to reschedule them all to the following week
   • Sent personalized emails to affected clients

Total time spent: 8 minutes.

“I cried again, but this time from relief,” Sarah laughs.

The Business Impact

The time savings were obvious. But Sarah also saw unexpected business benefits:

More Client Sessions

With 5 extra hours per week, Sarah added 4 more client slots. That’s $800-1,000 additional revenue per week (at her $200-250/session rate).

“I wanted to grow my practice but didn’t have capacity. Turns out I had plenty of capacity—I was just wasting it on administrative work.”

Reduced Burnout

“I’m a therapist. I help people manage stress and burnout. But I was burning out from… scheduling? It was embarrassing. Now I have energy for my actual work.”

Better Client Experience

Clients love the recurring booking:

• They pick their preferred time once
• All sessions are booked automatically
• They get one confirmation with all dates
• No need to remember to “rebook next week”

“Three clients specifically mentioned how easy booking was. That’s never happened before.”

Sarah’s Advice for Other Therapists

We asked Sarah what she’d tell other therapists still using traditional booking tools:

“Calculate how much time you actually spend on scheduling. Really track it for a week. When you see it’s 5-6 hours, ask yourself: is this how I want to spend my time? Could I see 3-4 more clients with that time? Could I take an actual afternoon off?

RecurriCal isn’t just a tool—it gave me my life back. And it made my practice more professional. Clients feel taken care of when booking is effortless.

If you do recurring appointments, just try it. The first time you book 12 sessions in 30 seconds, you’ll understand.”

By the Numbers

Here’s Sarah’s complete transformation over 8 weeks:

Want to share your RecurriCal story? We’d love to hear it! Email us at [email protected].

Sarah Chen is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based in Portland, Oregon. She specializes in anxiety, depression, and relationship counseling.