A goal-focused scheduling system to fund your life, serve your patients, and protect your sanity.
The Dream We All Have: “If Every Day Could Be Like This…”
Every dentist has lived that day.
You’re on time. Cases are back from the lab. The team is in sync. Patients say yes to treatment. You finish on time, feel proud of the dentistry you did, and don’t crawl to your car at the end.
You catch yourself thinking: “If every day could be like this, I’d do dentistry for free.”
Of course, every day won’t be perfect. But you can design your practice so that ideal days are the norm, not a rare pleasant surprise.
That’s what “building a better schedule” is really about, not squeezing more into your day, but designing a schedule that
…honors patient care.
…funds your financial goals and future
…protects your energy, your team, and your love for dentistry!
With the right approach to scheduling, you move beyond the grind of being busy and step into a rhythm that feels productive, purposeful, and sustainable.
Why Your Schedule Is the Engine of Your Practice
When dentists talk about an “ideal day,” we’re referring to the schedule.
On one level, that means clinical flow:
- You start on time and finish on time
- Cases are back from the lab
- The team is prepared
- Appointments run smoothly
- That’s the patient-care ideal.
But as a practice owner, you have a second responsibility, your business objectives.
You don’t just run a clinic. You run a business that must be profitable if you want a great team that stays with you.
Dentistry has high overhead—often in the 70% range—so when someone thinks a $1,000 crown means $950 in your pocket, that’s far from reality.. And while dentists can earn a good income, it’s often less than the value they provide to patients, teams, and communities.
That’s why talking about money isn’t greedy. It’s responsible.
Your schedule is the vehicle that generates the production and collections to:
- Cover overhead
- Pay your team
- Pay you fairly
- Fund your future
And that starts with a simple but powerful framework: the five pockets.
The Five Pockets: What Your Schedule Really Has to Pay For
Early in his career, Dr. Tony Feck was taught to think in five financial “pockets.” If you regularly fund all five, you reduce stress and build real security.
Those pockets are:
Retirement –
Max this out. Whatever your advisor says you need, assume you want more. Markets change, inflation happens, and life throws curveballs.
Taxes –
Don’t let quarterly taxes sneak up and create panic. Fund them monthly.
Long-Term Goals –
Prepare for big things like kids’ education, a new home, a major remodel, or other big-ticket items that matter to you.
Contingency (Rainy Day) –
Roofs leak. HVAC dies. Pandemics happen. You need cash for the unexpected, so crises don’t become financial emergencies.
Vacation & Discretionary –
Fund time off, trips, fun, and the “extras” that make life enjoyable and sustainable.
Your daily schedule is the engine that funds:
Overhead + Five Pockets + Living Expenses
Once you accept that, the way you build your day stops being random or purely “patient-driven” and becomes purposeful and goal-focused.
Start with the Numbers: Designing a Day That Funds Your Life
Most dentists don’t work from a real budget. Many do “okay” without one—but it’s stressful, reactive, and vague.
A simple budget transforms your schedule from a guessing game into a plan.
Step 1: Project Your Overhead
Look at last year’s numbers. Adjust for dental inflation (often higher than general inflation).
Decide strategically where you’ll invest more (team, CE, equipment) and where you’ll trim.
It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be thoughtful and honest.
Step 2: Add the Five Pockets + Living Expenses
Now add:
- Your personal living expenses
- Monthly funding for each of the five pockets
- This gives you a clear sense of what you need to collect each year.
Step 3: Convert Collections to Production
You don’t collect 100% of what you produce.
Take your collection rate and work backwards:
- Total annual collections needed
- Divide by collection rate = annual production goal
- Divide by 12 = monthly production goal
- Divide by planned doctor days = daily production goal
- Allocate daily goals by provider (doctor(s), hygienists)
Now, when your team asks, “Where did this goal come from?” you can say, “This isn’t a random number. This is the number we need to reach so everyone gets paid and the practice is healthy.”
You don’t guess. You keep score in a game you intend to win.
The Three Pillars of an Ideal Day
Every ideal day is built on three pillars, Great Team, Great Systems, Great Leadership!
Take away any one, and your “ideal day” becomes a once-in-a-while accident instead of a repeatable result.
1. Great Team: The Right People in the Right Seats
You can’t hit ambitious goals if you’re understaffed, or staffed with the wrong people in key roles
You need people who bring:
Attitude – positive, coachable, team-oriented
Aptitude – able to learn and grow
Ability – capable of performing at a high level
That means, being slow to hire, quick to fire.
Compensating fairly and competitively. Providing appreciation, growth, and a career path, not just a paycheck.
The best practices have a stable core team who share the vision and want to build something meaningful together.
2. Great Systems: Clear, Consistent Processes That Support Your Goals
Great systems don’t appear by accident; they’re designed, tested, and continually improved. Systems allow the team to work confidently and consistently. When everyone knows the process, understands their role, and trusts the flow of the day, the schedule becomes smoother and more predictable. Systems create stability and space for productivity.
Key areas where systems matter:
- How you schedule for production
- How the team prepares for the day
- How communication flows between clinical and administrative roles
- How you handle changes, cancellations, and opportunities
Systems take pressure off the doctor and empower the team to move in the same direction.
3. Great Leadership: Vision, Integrity, and Support
This is the part you control the most.
Leadership means:
- Having a clear vision for your practice and sharing it often
- Being visibly excited and committed to that vision
- Walking your talk so your team trusts you
Giving people what they need to win:
- Clear expectations
- Ongoing training and coaching
- Regular feedback and encouragement
- Recognition and positive reinforcement
Your team will never care more about your goals than you do. If you’re lukewarm, they’ll be cold.
Who Owns Your Schedule? (Hint: It Shouldn’t Be Your Patients)
The hard truth is that in many practices, patients control the schedule.
Does this sound familiar…
“Mrs. Jones, what works best for you?”
“Are you mornings or afternoons?”
“What day would you like next?”
It sounds kind and patient-oriented and, in one sense, it is.
But if patients dictate the schedule, you never consistently build the ideal day.
The purpose of your schedule is to satisfy the financial objectives of the practice while delivering excellent patient care. That doesn’t mean we treat patients poorly. It means we protect the framework that lets us serve them at our best.
Even with online self-scheduling tools, you must control the parameters. Patients don’t know what an ideal doctor day looks like. You do.
The Goal-Focused Scheduling System
To simplify scheduling, Dr. Feck developed a goal-focused system with only three rules. Fewer rules = more power for your scheduling coordinator to do their job.
The Three Rules
(i) Rule 1: Fill the day with highly productive appointments first. What counts as “highly productive” depends on your daily goal.
For example, if your doctor goal is $10,000, highly productive might be $3,000+ appointments. If your goal is $20,000, highly productive might be $8,000+ appointments. Those go in first before anything else.
(ii) Rule 2: Once the day is almost at goal, add less-productive appointments. After you’ve filled key blocks with big cases and you’re close to goal, you can begin adding moderate-value appointments.
(iii) Rule 3: Only when the day is at goal do you add non-productive appointments. Non-productive or low-value visits (checks, adjustments, quick follow-ups) should be booked only after the goal for that provider is met.
These rules will keep your day from becoming:
“Packed and exhausting” instead of
“Strategic, profitable, and satisfying.”
If you follow them, you won’t just be busy.
You become productive in a way that supports your life and your team.
Why “Holes” in the Schedule Are Actually a Gift
Most of us were trained to fear holes, “Oh no, I’ve got gaps in my day!”
In a goal-focused system, holes are not the enemy. In fact, “holes are good” becomes a core belief.
Think of four types of days you can walk into:
Best Day
At goal + holes in the schedule.
You’re already at goal.
Holes give you space for, same-day treatment, emergencies, relationship building, a real break and you can work at a sane pace and still win.Second-Best Day
Not at goal + holes in the schedule.
You still have time and room to fix it.
You can move patients up, offer same-day treatment to hygiene patients, say yes to emergencies. Holes = flexibility to recover.Third-Best Day
At goal + no holes
You’ll be productive but tight. If a big case cancels, you have no built-in space to respond. You’ll likely work harder than necessary.Worst Day (Unacceptable)
Not at goal + no holes
You work hard. You serve patients. And yet you don’t hit your goal, and there’s no room to change it. Everyone gets paid—but not at the level they could, especially you.
Holes are not laziness.
They are an intentional capacity to protect your goal, adapt to real life and reduce stress for the entire team.
And when everyone uses that space wisely, things change:
- Assistants recognize opportunities to complete additional quadrants while the patient is numb
- Front office sees openings later in the week and moves patients up
This isn’t “pushy” dentistry.
It’s simply respecting the patient’s time and supporting your team’s success.
As the leader, you own:
- Marketing to attract more of the right patients
- Improving your diagnosis, treatment planning, and case presentation
- Expanding your treatment mix so you can do more high-value procedures
- Building capacity (more operatories, assistants, or provider days as needed)
- Hiring, training, and retaining a high-level team
The good news?
If the main obstacle is you, you can change you.
That’s much easier than trying to change everyone else without looking in the mirror.
How Sunrise Helps You Build Your Ideal Day More Often
Sunrise Dental Solutions exists to help dentists turn vision into reality.
The model rests on three pillars:
- Coaching
Sunrise is founded and run by successful, experienced dentists who:
- Understand the clinical realities
- Respect your values
- Care deeply about your success
Coaching is personalized, not cookie-cutter, and always anchored in your vision for your practice and life.
- Team Training
You can’t change the practice by talking only to the dentist.
Sunrise works with your team through:
- Virtual training
- On-site visits
- Systems implementation support
So the people who touch the schedule, answer the phones, assist chairside, and run hygiene all row in the same direction.
- Community
Perhaps the most powerful part is the Sunrise community:
- Dentists who come for solutions and stay because they love giving back
- Colleagues who share, teach, encourage, and challenge each other
- A network that reminds you you’re not alone in the journey
People often join Sunrise for what they can get. They stay for what they get to give.