As a recovering overachiever trying to find balance between my own ambition and natural limitations, I've gotten real obsessed with my own productivity. And as a result, yours.
And let me be real clear: I (and the women I work with) would not be living an aligned, purpose-driven, joyful life if we weren't working towards goals. That's who I am. I'm a striver.
And the dozens of brilliant ideas I have every week would eat me alive if I believed I could never execute any of them.
But if you are in survival mode right now, stop reading. Truly. The last thing you need in early burnout recovery is shame over your lowered capacity.
But for everyone else: I've found a proven method to get significant projects over the finish line (including over that dreaded hump at 80% completion). Ready to take the leap?
The Winning Formula
A Momentum Map is a 90-day plan for one big thing. It has five parts:
It's the format I build with clients, and it's the one I use on myself. It's been responsible for completing things like:
- Filling a membership
- Launching a group program
- Organizing a basement
- Batching content before maternity leave
And lots more to come!
Why this method works
A to-do list tells you everything you could do.
A map tells you where you're going, what gets you there, and what you're allowed to put down along the way.
If you've ever read about where I always quit, that difference is why I make one.
Below, I'll walk through each part with my own map from my first full quarter working for myself, so you can see what it looks like with real life in it. By the end, you should be able to sketch your own tonight.
1Start with the finish line
Every map starts at the end. What has to be true on day 90 for you to call this done?
One sentence is enough. It can be a finished project, a launched offer, a cleaned-out garage. But we're great at moving the goalposts, so writing it down early is important.
In the middle of September, I quit my job to go all in on my business. That set me up for something new: a quarter where I was completely in the driver's seat. (Scary, huh?)
Be able to slow down and rest in December, with my offers and content flowing more naturally, so the business keeps moving without me performing every single day.
Not a launch. Not a revenue number. Rest.
I'd been go, go, go for months at that point. Seeing real results but always feeling two steps behind. And the reason I built a business instead of staying in a job was to get the kind of flexibility where I can have a slow season on purpose. This was the first time I planned for it instead of hoping it would show up.
2Split it into three phases
Ninety days is too big to hold in your head. A map breaks it into three phases, and each one has its own job:
- Days 1–30: build momentum. Low-pressure moves that get things rolling. Nothing heroic.
- Days 31–60: keep what's working, clear roadblocks. Lean into what's moving and deal with what's in the way.
- Days 61–90: cross the finish line.
Each phase gets a few checkpoints. From my own map, here's how my quarter broke down:
Build momentum
- Run my group program's beta while building the routine to repeat it
- Restart the blog
- Reintroduce myself to my whole list
- Rework my membership so it's sustainable
Keep what's working, clear roadblocks
- Content and sales emails prepped through the end of January, maybe February
- Carve out 3 nights a week to craft
Cross the finish line
- Every holiday gift made and done
- Legitimately not working more than 10 hours a week (taking time off completely as an entrepreneur is tough!)
Look at my first 30 days. Every move trades the hamster wheel for something that keeps running on its own:
- I'm beta testing my group program, The Experiment, and building automations and a routine the whole way through. I designed it to run every quarter, or at least three times a year, so this round is me finding out what that's like to sustain.
- I stopped trying to grow by making endless content. Instead I'm speaking at summits and joining bundles, borrowing other people's audiences. After a year of building resources, I'm not starting from scratch every time, so it's easier and it's free.
- I brought the blog back. I started my business with it, I loved it, and I fell off. The old way worked: one long piece a week, and every other piece of content splinters off of it. I just didn't have the support to sustain it. Now I have a team.
- I reintroduced myself to my entire list. People had been sitting on my list for months without a proper welcome, because I kept trying to make the welcome sequence a whole project. Finally I said, fuck it. Everyone gets a reintroduction in my weekly newsletter for the next few weeks.
- I reworked my membership into something that's sustainable for me to run and still gives people real value.
None of those are flashy. All of them make the next 60 days lighter. That's what the first phase is for.
3Give every checkpoint a payoff
Look at the bottom of each phase above. Every checkpoint on a map states its payoff: the reason you'd bother.
A checkpoint without a payoff is one more chore on the pile. A checkpoint with one is something you chose, and you can see why.
If you can't name a payoff you care about, it probably doesn't belong on the map.
4Write down what you're not doing
This is the part most plans skip, and it's the part I care about most.
A map is as much about what you're setting down as what you're picking up. You name your goals for the next 90 days, and then you say, on purpose: during this time, these other things are not going to happen.
This has looked like:
- Easy meals & takeout only
- Consciously choosing to let household chores wait until the weekend
- Temporarily giving up social media scrolling (or gaming and/or TV)
- Turning down social plans on weeknights
The point is: to accomplish a big goal, you have to make space in your life to work on it. Choosing that in advance makes following through possible.
Around the time I left my corporate job, I also started an operations consulting business. I signed my first contract, and I'm loving it. It's a completely different stream with completely different marketing, and every part of me wants to go grow it right now.
I'm not.
I decided I won't grow it until after Q4. I want to experience the work first, find out what I like about it, and then give it real space in January instead of the scraps left over from everything else.
It's making it hard to wait. That's how I know it belongs on the not-doing list.
When the guilt or the shame or the you should be doing more shows up, and it will, here's what I tell myself, again and again:
This is an intentional choice. Nobody is forcing me to put this on pause. I chose this, because this is what I want.
Say it as many times as you need to
Without that list, everything you're not doing quietly turns into everything you're failing at. With it, it's just the plan.
5Plan for the roadblock you can already see
Some roadblocks surprise you. A lot of them don't.
- A busy season at work
- Vacation
- A pattern you've fallen into every year you can remember (hello seasonal depression)
If you can see it coming, it goes on the map before you hit it.
I live outside Chicago, and the view outside my windows is one of my favorite things about my house. Fall is gorgeous. Then the cold snaps come, and before the snow shows up, I'm staring out at bare trees and brown for weeks.
My mood and my capacity drop when I can't spend time outside. It happens every year, and it always takes my nervous system a while to reset.
So the slow winter is partly the plan for that. Being ahead on content means a rough week doesn't break anything. I don't have to perform every day.
But when I sat down to map it, I found the gap: I hadn't planned for movement.
One of my dogs tore her ACL, so our long walks are on hold. I've already noticed how much harder everything is without them. I didn't realize how much of my motivation came from watching her be that happy outside.
I know better. So this is going on the map now, before I need it:
- Workout classes with friends (I need that accountability!)
- Getting my treadmill desk setup back out of the corner, where it's been folded up all summer
That's what a map is for. Not predicting everything. Seeing the spot where you're going to struggle, and deciding what helps before you're in it.
Sketch your own tonight
You don't need a business for this. Any big thing works: a move, a project at work, a house you're trying to get under control, a book you keep saying you'll write. Grab a piece of paper.
- Write your finish line.One sentence: what has to be true on day 90 for you to call this done? It can be a finished thing or making it possible to slow down.
- Split it into three phases.Days 1–30 are low-pressure moves that build momentum. Days 31–60 are for keeping what works and clearing what's in the way. Days 61–90 get you over the line.
- Give every checkpoint a payoff.Next to each one, write why you'd bother. If you can't name a payoff you care about, cross it off.
- Write your not-doing list.Pick one to three things you're setting down for these 90 days. Then write the sentence you'll say to yourself when the guilt shows up.
- Name the roadblock you can already see.A season, a busy month, a pattern you know you fall into. Decide one thing that helps, now, while you're not in it.
Then put check-ins on your calendar, one at each of those 30/60/90 checkpoints. A map you never look at again is just a nicer to-do list.
What a map gives you
Not a perfect 90 days. A finish line you want, a list of things you've chosen to set down, and a plan for the part you know will be hard.
Mine ends with yarn. I learned to crochet this year, and somehow I've become the person whose gifts all have to be handmade now. So my last checkpoint is every gift made and done, and then a cozy, slow December instead of hustling.
