There's a graveyard in my notes app...
(and at least a few drawers in my office.)
Maybe yours too?
📓 Bullet journals that lasted exactly 13 days.
⏰ Time-blocking calendars abandoned after the first sick day.
☀️ Morning routines that died the moment daylight saving hit.
📱 Productivity apps downloaded with hope—and then deleted in frustration.
One of the executives I worked with in corporate did this too—every couple weeks a new daily system for the basics.
Every quarter, a new "efficiency initiative."
Project management platforms that would "hopefully solve everything."
Until three months later when we'd quietly migrate to the next silver bullet.
For years, I thought this meant I was bad at productivity.
Turns out, I was just trying to force my brain into systems designed for someone else's wiring.
Here's what actually happens when a productivity system "fails":
💪 You find a system that promises to solve your chaos. It works beautifully for two weeks—maybe even a month if you're lucky. You feel organized, on top of things, like you've finally cracked the code.
😬 Then life happens. A busy week. A project that doesn't fit the template. Your energy shifts. And suddenly, the system that felt so natural starts requiring heaps of willpower to maintain.
🫠 You push through for a while, telling yourself you just need better discipline. But fighting your own patterns every day is exhausting. Eventually, you abandon the system entirely and add it to the graveyard.
Most advice tells you the problem is you.
That you need:
👉 More willpower
👉 Better habits
👉 Stronger discipline
That if you could just find the right system and stick to it, everything would click into place.
But what if the problem isn't you?
What if it's that you've been trying to force yourself into systems designed for someone else?
This is exactly why the Same You, Better Systems approach exists.
Instead of asking: "How do I fix myself to fit this system?"
You ask: "How do I build systems that work with how I'm actually wired?"
When you stop fighting your patterns and start designing around them, something shifts.
You stop needing willpower to maintain basic boundaries.
You stop feeling like you're failing when your brain works differently than productivity gurus expect.
The goal isn't to fix your patterns.
It's to design with them in mind.
This week, become a detective of your own patterns:
Pick one productivity system you've abandoned (Could be recent or from ages ago, doesn't matter!)
Identify the exact moment it stopped working (Was it a busy week? A schedule change? A specific type of task that didn't fit?)
Notice what you naturally did instead (When the system failed, what did your brain and body default to?)
The goal isn't judgment—it's data collection. You're gathering information about how you actually operate versus how you think you should operate.
Because once you see the patterns, you can design systems that work with them instead of constantly swimming upstream.
Currently Obsessed
My Fav Reality Competition Show. It's not a secret that I love The Circle. I love the human experiment of it all—what we think will make us popular, what we will do in order to win, what we learn in the midst of what we thought we knew. But I learned this week that the show actually originated in the UK and had 3 seasons from 2018-2021 (the last overlapping with the first Netflix season) before it ever released in the US. And each season is double the length of the US seasons! I'm about halfway through the first season and not gonna lie, it's really interesting to see my favorite parts of the show, alongside the OG differences.
Your New Favorite Focus App. I, like apparently almost everyone else, have been using Hank Green's new app, Focus Friend, this week. A cozy, gamified focus app that is both ad-free and free for base features with a handful of in-app purchases to keep it free. Becoming the #1 app in the Apple App Store in it's first week doesn't actually surprise me given how much we are all looking to be on our phones less, more focused elsewhere, and overall more present in life. My only complaint isn't the app itself, but actually remembering to start it. 😂
Lazy Reading. It only took me 3 years and 920 books to finally get a pair of lazy readers aka prism glasses. Thank you to my partner for getting them for me as a birthday present ❤️
P.S.
Speaking of pattern recognition... I'm putting together a 28-day challenge that starts in September called Same You, Better Systems. You'll get community access and daily prompts you can complete in 30 minutes or less to help walk you through energy pattern basics alongside me and fellow entrepreneurs. By the end, you'll have foundational systems for who you already are, so you can tackle fall goals sustainably. If you're curious, you can join the waitlist here to be the first to know!
If you're ready to get your personalized daily energy map and start building the path that works best for you, snag an Energy Alignment Intensives session. In this 90-minute session, we'll map your natural daily energy cycle, review your calendar together to make alignments, and dig into wherever you're feeling most stuck. It's like getting a mini personalized energy blueprint plus clarity on your next right step. Book your intensive here.
