“Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.” -James Clear

Imagine that you want to be a project finisher, and these are your default thoughts about yourself:

• I get distracted super easily.
• I’m a card-carrying, life-long procrastinator.
• I never follow through on my calendar.
• Everything’s been done already; I don’t have anything new to contribute.
• I start then stall out.
• It’s so hard not to focus on all of my failures.
• I have no idea why I don’t follow through; I can’t figure it out.
• I hate when things don’t go according to plan.
• I always underestimate how long things take.
• I tend to get derailed and things just snowball out of my control.
• I need to work on the next thing ASAP, or I’ll lose momentum.
• It’s selfish to spend time on my own goals.
• I’m not sure if my projects are worth it.

These beliefs make up your self-concept, and they produce results that you don’t want. (Like an unmanageable weekly schedule and half-finished projects.)

But your self-concept is changeable, with intention and practice.

I am a proud reformed half-finisher, and the way I see myself and talk about myself is completely different than it used to be.

So let’s compare and contrast the beliefs above with my current beliefs as a project finisher:

• I get distracted super easily. –> I know how to focus on demand.
• I’m a card-carrying, life-long procrastinator. –> I don’t self-identify with labels that perpetuate a cycle that I don’t want to stay in.
• I never follow through on my calendar. –> I want to and will do everything that’s on my calendar; I sell myself on it or I remove it. Period.
• Everything’s been done already; I don’t have anything new to contribute. –> I am amazed at the brilliance that my brain can come up with when I spend time cultivating new ideas.
• I start then stall out. –> I sprint then rest.
• It’s so hard not to focus on all of my failures. –> I intentionally direct my brain to what’s working.
• I have no idea why I don’t follow through; I can’t figure it out. –> When I don’t get the result that I wanted, I know how to troubleshoot and find out why.
• I hate when things don’t go according to plan. –> I can adjust and pivot as needed.
• I always underestimate how long things take. –> I plan based on reality, not hope.
• The process is boring and tedious. –> I am committed to making the process fun, engaging, and rewarding for myself.
• It’s selfish to spend time on my own goals. –> When I am living as a confident, self-assured project finisher, it has a positive ripple effect on everyone around me.
• I’m not sure if my projects are worth it. –> Every project I finish gives me Compounding Project Interest; it’s my job to notice it.
• I need to work on the next thing ASAP, or I’ll lose momentum. –> I always have time to stop and feel proud.

You might think “That’s nice for you,” or “Those are just words,” but remember: This wasn’t always my self concept; I slowly and incrementally changed my beliefs, which changed my actions and thus, my results.

It’s available to you, too.

Our work together is to help you bridge the gap between the way you currently see yourself and how you’d like to see yourself—and then watch that shifting self-concept compel you into productive action.

Finished projects, here you come.

It’s all inside Half-Finished to Done, LIVE, the program for those who want to master a sustainable, fun, repeatable project process and start enjoying life as a project finisher.

Click here to learn more about Half-Finished to Done, LIVE.

What do you love to do in your free time?

If that’s challenging for you to answer, we likely just found one of the reasons that you procrastinate.

When we don’t know what to do with our free time, we create less free time for ourselves.

And when we create less scheduled free time, we allow things to take way longer than they actually need to.

It’s Parkinson’s Law: Things expand to fill the space that you give them.

So, not only are you not enjoying your life as much as you could be, you’re actually reinforcing bad work habits every time you let something take longer than it needs to.

I want you to think of a time when you worked a half-week because you were going on vacation. You likely condensed five days of work down into three or four days.

You had a compelling reason to drop the non-essential pieces, be more efficient with your time, and stay focused. 

But you don’t need an upcoming vacation to compel you to be more efficient with your working hours. You can train yourself to focus on demand.

You can create more fun in your daily life (yes, even during COVID). I’ve had clients who took up hiking, finally learned how to cook, dabbled with another language, danced more, started playing tennis again —all because they weren’t procrastinating anymore.

If you think that a fascinating, fun, engaging life outside of work will damage your business, here’s your reminder that it’s actually the opposite. A thriving life outside of business actually strengthens your productivity and creativity.

So, as your resident Life Coach, I hereby prescribe you one giant dose of free time, to use as you please.

And—if you truly don’t want to pursue non-work interests—allow yourself to work long hours, but only if you’re efficient during the time you work. This is how you increase your capacity, because it requires you to fix your bad habits and double down on focus. 

P.S. Here’s the great news: When you join my program, Half-Finished to Done, LIVE, you’ll learn how to be more efficient with your working hours AND bring more fun and downtime into your life. Click here to learn more about Half-Finished to Done, LIVE.

If you’re not actively doing Monday Hour One these days, this one is for you.

Monday Hour One is a one-hour weekly investment. 

(To be generous, let’s say that it takes two hours, including a bit of tweaking and re-arranging throughout the week.)

Let me be bold: If you truly understood the return on investment of those two hours, you’d be doing Monday Hour One without question. You wouldn’t tolerate any more second-guessing from yourself about whether to do it or not.

In order to sell yourself, do these two things:

First, spend 10 minutes thinking of your average week. Add up the time that you spend feeling confused about what to work on; doing non-essential busy work; spinning in shame or self-doubt about your productivity; procrastinating; tweaking things endlessly to try and find elusive perfection; second guessing your goals, tasks, and projects; or dealing with internal conflict about what you should be working on. Put a dollar amount to all of that low-value time, based on your hourly rate.

This is your opportunity cost—what you leave on the table by not doing Monday Hour One.

Then, spend 10 minutes thinking of what you’d like an average week to be like. Now, double your idea of what’s possible. (Most people sell themselves short when creating a vision.) 

This is your best case scenario—which you leave on the table every time you don’t do Monday Hour One.

Let the magnitude of what you’re leaving on the table really settle in, then get ready to make your best case scenario a reality.

To get started, join the Pique email list below. You’ll receive invitations to future Monday Hour One 5-Day Challenges and free Monday Hour One workshops.

You’ll also get the free guide: 5 Reasons Your Projects are Half-Finished Yet.

When I talk to procrastinating business owners, this is how they describe their days:

“Kind of feel like a marionette- being pulled in different directions without any control…”

“I’m having challenges with making daily progress in my personal projects and experiencing frequent stress and anxiety.”

“Lack of focus or clear direction. Easily distracted, Waiting til the last minute to get serious about getting stuff done.”

“Indecision and analysis paralysis impacts my daily life.”

“I am easily distracted by the drama of daily news and other ways to procrastinate.”

“I never respect what I wrote in my calendar.”

“Priorities change quickly, easy to be overwhelmed. Then feel hopeless & defeated before beginning.”

“As a solopreneur, I have too many things to accomplish…As a recovering perfectionist I still struggle with when it’s time to quit refining and hit go.”

“I can’t seem to figure out what to do first.”

When I read things like this, I want to pull everyone into a big group huddle and lovingly yell:

You don’t need to suffer like this anymore. It’s all solvable. I can help you.

And I’m not just going to help you by giving you all of the answers; I’m going to help you access all of your own brilliant problem-solving—which I guarantee is much more strategic and wise than you even know.

It all starts with learning Monday Hour One, an all-in-one time blocking system.

Here’s the secret sauce behind Monday Hour One: It requires you to look at your thought processes, your feelings, and your actions—not just your actions, like most time management systems.

So all of that confusion, overwhelm, hopelessness, anxiety, defeat, and disempowerment?

We’ll study it, understand it, and change it.

Let’s join together to put an end to unnecessary suffering around productivity!

To get started, join the Pique email list below. You’ll receive invitations to future Monday Hour One 5-Day Challenges and free Monday Hour One workshops.

You’ll also get the free guide: 5 Reasons Your Projects are Half-Finished Yet.

Once people get started with a Monday Hour One practice—the time management system that I teach and recommend—they tend to hit a very predictable series of obstacles.

Left un-investigated and unsolved, these obstacles can become the reason they stop doing Monday Hour One.

After all, who wants to feel like they’re constantly hitting roadblocks and not getting the full benefits of the time management system they’re using?

Here are the 5 most common issues that people struggle with when it comes to sustaining a Monday Hour One practice:

👉 Avoiding it altogether: You intellectually understand the value of Monday Hour One, but you talk yourself out of doing it weekly.

👉 Not solving for chronic underestimation: You keep genuinely believing that you’ll get more done in a week, and by Friday, you’re disappointed with the reality of what actually gets done.

👉 Not showing up to what’s on your calendar: On Monday morning, you plan a perfect-on-paper week…then you scrap the whole plan by Monday afternoon because it feels overwhelming or impossible.

👉 Not feeling connected or energized: You’re planning, you’re getting things done, but you’re not feeling lit up about what you’re working on, and you’re not seeing how each task contributes to the results that you want.

👉 Constantly fiddling with the plan: You spend more time questioning and rearranging your schedule than actually getting things done.

If you are experiencing any of these 5 challenges, you’re not alone.

And the good news is, there’s just one solution for all 5: Tell yourself the truth.

Tell yourself the truth about how your week goes when you don’t plan it out proactively.

Tell yourself the truth about what you can realistically get done in a week, given your current mental, emotional, and scheduling capacity.

Tell yourself the truth about what you need to say no to in order to make space for more “hell yeses.”

Tell yourself the truth about why you’re trying to talk yourself out of doing what you’ve already decided is important.

Once you tell yourself the truth of what’s happening for you right now, you can get to work selling yourself on what to do differently.

Ready to unearth your truth and learn to sell yourself on what to do instead? You’re in exactly the perfect place.

This is a judgment-free zone. To get started, join the Pique email list below. You’ll receive invitations to future Monday Hour One 5-Day Challenges and free Monday Hour One workshops.

You’ll also get the free guide: 5 Reasons Your Projects are Half-Finished Yet.

Most procrastinating business owners fundamentally want the same things.

You want to feel like you’re either on or off; not like you’re half-working or half-relaxing.

To agree with yourself about what you should be doing in any given moment; not feel a sense of constant internal conflict.

To end the week feeling damn proud of yourself and all that you created; not feel disappointed by not meeting your own expectations—again.

To be fully present and engaged with your friends and family; not have your mind constantly drift back to your to-do list all evening and weekend.

To genuinely enjoy the process of creation; not just the final product.

To both appreciate what you already have and create more—from gratitude and joy; not from a perceived deficit or brokenness.

It’s possible, with a Monday Hour One practice.

A Monday Hour One practice consists of just 5 simple steps, done on repeat week-over-week:

1. Write the results that you want to create by the end of the week
2. Write down every task that you’ll do to create those results
3. Choose how much time to give each task
4. Put each task on your calendar
5. Follow through on your calendar, watching your thoughts

Done repeatedly, these 5 simple steps are the entry way to creating more connection, joy, and purpose with your work, every day.

When you read these 5 steps, you’ll want to ask a ton of questions. You might even feel a sense of panic or urgency. You’ll wonder things like:

But how do I choose what to prioritize?

How do I strike the balance between over-planning and under-planning?

How the heck am I supposed to know how long things take?

What do I do about totally unexpected interruptions?

But what should I do when inspiration strikes but it’s not in my calendar?⁣

Can I even do this if I have a history of not following through on my calendar?

How do I get back on track when I fall off my plan? ⁣

Every question you have is both totally normal and totally solvable. I’ve helped hundreds of business owners through the exact same hesitations.

To get started, join the Pique email list below. You’ll receive invitations to future Monday Hour One 5-Day Challenges and free Monday Hour One workshops.

You’ll also get the free guide: 5 Reasons Your Projects are Half-Finished Yet.

And, in the meantime, here’s your only job: Believe that this simple 5-step process is available to you, and will work.

My client told me something the other day that made us both crack up.

He said that he constantly felt blindsided by his kid’s school pick up, and that it always disrupts his day.

When he told me this, I said, “Let me get this straight. You pick her up five days a week, right? And does the school randomly change the pick up time or is it the same every day?”

We both had a good laugh, because we saw the truth:

He’s feeling blindsided by something that happens like clockwork, 5 days a week.

You might be doing this in more subtle ways:

Relying on your clients to stick to timelines, even though they never do.

Banking on your friend to be on time, even thought she never is. (Oh, hey, it’s me.)

Expecting that your staff members won’t have any follow up questions for you, even though they always do.

Being surprised by your toddler’s tantrums, even though they happen multiple times per day.

Thinking your clients won’t make last-minute requests of you, even though they always do.

Take a minute, and be with the reality of your life.

Your job is to adequately anticipate these seemingly unexpected things, and plan for the inevitable.

Don’t plan for the picture-picture, best case scenario schedule, and then spend your time feeling annoyed, frustrated, and resentful.

Because when we’re feeling blindsided all the time, we never stop to actually face the truth, and actively decide what we’re willing to tolerate.

Only when you plan for the reality of your life can you start to make changes.

You might realize that you’re not willing to indulge last minute client requests anymore, so it’s time to put a new policy in place. You might want to hire a babysitter. You might create a manual for your staff, and make them check in before coming to you.

And here’s one last pro tip: Part of the reason that we get into trouble is because we focus on the anomalies, not the most common pattern.

The rare times that your client actually hits the planned timeline; your staff members solves their problem brilliantly on their own; or your toddler behaves perfectly all day? Your brain will want to notice these, and catalogue them as the norm. Don’t be fooled.

The Pique Coaching community is the perfect place to work on this.

It’s a judgment-free zone to get my hands-on help, so that you’re no longer blindsided by the expected.

When you join the Pique email list below, you’ll receive invitations to future Monday Hour One 5-Day Challenges and free Monday Hour One workshops.

You’ll also get the free guide: 5 Reasons Your Projects are Half-Finished Yet.

This one’s for anyone who’s looking for a little Monday Hour One kick in the tushy.

This will be particularly effective if you’re already planning out your week using Monday Hour One and following through at least 90% of the time, but it’s powerful for anyone.

Instead of a 5-day workweek, plan for a 4-day workweek.

Even if you don’t desire to work 4 days a week or think you can’t, this is a valuable intellectual exercise to do.

When I suggest doing a 4-day workweek, notice all of your objections and write them down.

Then, ask yourself how you could make it happen. What would it require of you? What skill sets would you need to strengthen? What would you need to let go of? What negative emotions would you need to process?

Entertaining the idea of a 4-day workweek will ask you to stretch yourself in a few ways:

✅ Ruthlessly find things to dump, delegate, and delay

✅ Truly strip down to only the essentials

✅ Cut out low-value activities, and replace them with high-value activities

✅ Plan more deep work sessions, for your most high-impact work

✅ Increase the value of every single deep work session

✅ Deal with ingrained stories about needing to feel productive at all times

I work 3.5-4 days per week.

I take almost every Wednesday off, and I use the day to tinker, putter, and frolick. I sleep in, take a bath, read one of the 20 half-finished books on my Kindle, visit my niece and nephew, do long “walk and talks” with friends, nap, brainstorm, attend my weekly mastermind calls, cook, and scroll TikTok.

I return to work on Thursday with a second wind, ready to kick ass and take names the rest of the week.

What would you do on your newly-created free day?

Once you’ve let the idea and value of a 4-day workweek sink in, join the Pique email list below.You’ll receive invitations to future Monday Hour One 5-Day Challenges and free Monday Hour One workshops.

We’ll get to work making your 4-day workweek a reality.

You’ll also get the free guide: 5 Reasons Your Projects are Half-Finished Yet.

When I introduce people to the Monday Hour One time blocking system, I make a lofty promise:

Let’s triple both the number of projects you finish, and triple the amount of true downtime that you have.

You might be thinking: But where on earth would all that extra time come from? Mathematically, it’s impossible.

Stick with me, kid. Because when you create a bigger vision for yourself than you’re used to, something cool happens: You’ll naturally start skipping over low-value activities and get into action on higher-value activities.

This means less unfulfilling, soul-sucking procrastination.

Less internal conflict and arguing with yourself.

Less second guessing yourself.

Less fiddling with your schedule.

Less time tweaking and refining things to find elusive “perfection.”

Less time spent shame spiraling.

Less time feeling confusion, self-pity, and self-doubt.

Instead, you’ll seek out high-value activities, like:

More creative thinking and brainstorming.

More experimenting and gathering data.

More focused work blocks.

More intentional, deliberate decisions.

More re-affirming decisions that you’ve already made.

More self-evaluating from a place of curiosity and openness.

More rejuvenating rest.

More play.

You’ll divest from low-value activities and re-invest into high-value activities.

And all of those high-value activities? Using Monday Hour One, you’ll put them on your calendar, and train yourself to follow through.

Because you and your dreams are worth it.

Once you’ve let this whole idea rock your world, join the Pique email list below.You’ll receive invitations to future Monday Hour One 5-Day Challenges and free Monday Hour One workshops.

You’ll also get the free guide: 5 Reasons Your Projects are Half-Finished Yet.

My friend, I’ll say it clear

I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain

…I did it my way

You may recognize these lyrics from My Way by Frank Sinatra.

If you’re in the process of learning Monday Hour One—the time management system that I teach my clients—this is my wish for you: To feel like you’re doing Monday Hour One your way.

So, if you’ve ever felt influenced or swayed by other people’s opinions of your schedule, here are some important reminders for you:

It’s okay to work in “sprints and rests” (me!) or do things consistently every single day

💡 It’s okay to batch-create all of your content for the year over the course of a few days or produce one piece per day

💡 It’s okay to be a morning person, a night owl, or a random combo of both

💡 It’s okay to knock out tasks rapid-fire or be a slow, methodical worker

💡 It’s okay to work on the weekends sometimes or implement a “no weekend work” policy

💡 It’s okay to knock out work while you’re hanging out with your kids or be fully focused on family when you’re with them

💡 It’s okay to wear the same one-piece loungewear daily or dress up

💡 It’s okay to have a million ideas circulating in your head at once or savor the one big idea you’ve got in your mind

💡 It’s okay to commit to doing all 5 steps of Monday Hour One religiously every week or take the pieces that work for you and leave the rest

Notice how you think about your desires, preferences, and personality traits, and ask yourself this: Does my current way of thinking about them move me closer to or further away from what I want to create in my life?

Here’s how I talk to myself: I’m a person who loves to sprint hard and then lounge around for days on end. I love the solitude of early mornings, except when I want to sleep in until 10am. I love structure, and I want time to tinker and putter pointlessly. I wear the same gray loungewear romper—except when I’m wearing heels at home. I’m impressed by how quickly and effectively I knock out work when I feel energized, and I’m willing to work when I’m low-energy, too. (Except when I’m not, and then I work to own my decision.) I know that I gravitate toward high-energy emotions like enthusiasm, inspired, and motivated, but I also want to focus on cultivating low-energy emotions like acceptance and trust. No matter what, I work to believe that I’m healthy in my mind, body, and spirit—even when I’m not.

The Pique Coaching community is the space to uncover your unique preferences and desires, in a safe place.

You’ll find the truth of what you want, give yourself permission to own it in a way that works for you, and get to work making it a reality.

To get started, join the Pique email list below.You’ll receive invitations to future Monday Hour One 5-Day Challenges and free Monday Hour One workshops.

You’ll also get the free guide: 5 Reasons Your Projects are Half-Finished Yet.