Run the Shop · October 22, 2026
December fills your calendar in the order clients ask. Unless your own hours go in first, that order puts you last.
December fills your calendar in the order clients ask. Unless your own hours go in first, that order puts you last.
Count the hours before anyone else does
Take last December. Count the days you worked and the hours in each. Ten-hour days, six days a week, is 60 hours. Four weeks of that is 240 hours behind the chair, before the books, the orders and the clean-down.
Now pick the number you want instead, and the days that matter: the school play, the Sunday after the staff party, the afternoon of the 24th. Write them down today. Every one of them is still empty.
Your calendar opens further ahead than your plans
Booked shows clients dates up to your How far ahead setting, counting today. The default is two weeks. If you have raised it to 60 days, a client reading this on Thursday 22 October can already book Sunday 20 December.
Your regulars do not wait for the window either. They ask in the chair, and a booking you make yourself ignores how far ahead the calendar opens.
Three kinds of time, three settings
All three live on Dashboard → Hours.
| Time you want back | Setting | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| The same every week: Mondays off, a short Saturday | Your own staff schedule | Leave a day empty, or add two ranges for a split day. The gap is never bookable |
| One date or a run of days: the 24th, a long weekend | A time-off block for yourself | Anything from an hour to two weeks, with a reason so you remember why |
| The whole shop shut: a holiday | A closure | Your booking page says you are closed, with a note of up to 80 characters |
Even a shop of one has a staff row, and it is usually you. That row is where your weekly hours live. Shop hours are the outer limit and staff hours sit inside them, so if you lengthen the shop's hours for December, nobody's shift widens to match. You extend each person yourself, which is the moment to decide who works them.
Block first, while the dates are empty
A block stops new bookings the moment you save it. It does not cancel anything already in the window, and it does not tell anyone. That is why the order matters. Block the 24th today and it costs you nothing. Block it on 1 December and you are phoning three clients to move them.
There is no repeat option on a block. Every other Saturday is a block for each one, added separately. Ten minutes in October covers the season.
For the day-to-day squeeze, the fifteen-minute buffer keeps one long appointment from eating the rest of the day. In a shop of two or three, the four-person calendar is the place to see who covers whom.
Related reading
The essay on craft covers the work and the business as one person's job.
When your list is written, block the time.
This week
| Minutes | Move |
|---|---|
| 0 to 5 | Count last December's hours from your calendar |
| 5 to 10 | Write the weekly hours you want and the dates you will not work |
| 10 to 15 | Set your own staff schedule for the weekly pattern |
| 15 to 25 | Add a time-off block for each date, and a closure for each day the shop shuts |
| 25 to 30 | Check those dates for bookings already made, and move them now |
Then open your own booking page and try to book the 24th.