A Day in the Life of a Life‑First Business Owner — How I Structure Freedom Without Losing Momentum

Behind the scenes of a seemingly put-together life-first business owner

I've been creating my own jobs for 20 years. At 25, I left a really great job in the outdoor industry to pursue photography full-time and jumped straight into the freelance world—which inevitably means completely unstructured days. I had to learn to navigate that, and honestly, it was really challenging for many years because even unstructured rule-breakers (quietly raises hand) need at least a little bit of structure to thread their days together, get shit done, and move the needle in the life or business they really want.

One thing that was really great for me: because I'd worked in the outdoor industry and lived in a ski town, I already had a natural rough structure to my days—wake up, get outside and move my body (running, hiking, swimming, snowboarding, biking), then come back and work until 5 and take weekends off. So I just started there.

The challenging part when you're your own boss is that, in the beginning, you don't actually know what work you need to be doing. Client or product work feels obvious—go provide the service and deliver the thing. Or go make the product and sell the product. But there are lots of other things that go into working for yourself and running a business that aren't necessarily spelled out. You don't get an instruction manual for entrepreneurship, especially if you're a creative without a blueprint. "I just want to make cool films." "I just want to make cool candles." Great. What do your days look like?

Why "no structure" backfires (and it's not your fault)

When you're completely unstructured, a few things happen:

• Unclear priorities → the inbox wins the day, every day.

• Meeting sprawl → scattered calls chop up your prime focus windows and drain bandwidth.

• One-size-fits-all systems → friction and guilt instead of momentum because the method doesn't fit your brain or life.

• Identity drift → working in pajamas every day subtly lowers your "I'm on-duty" signal.

• No celebration loop → progress doesn't register, motivation fades on the long, winding path.

Cost: lost focus, inconsistent momentum, and a business that doesn't feel life-first.

Over the years, I've tried lots of different productivity methods and ways to structure my day to see what actually works for me. And that's the trick, my friends. There's no magic formula or magic method that's going to work for all the people. It's literally like trying on clothes. You take a bunch of clothes into the dressing room and see what fits before you decide what to keep. Same goes for how you structure your day.

The reason you have to try a bunch of things is because every person is different and unique. Your brain is different and unique. Your life is different and unique. The requirements of your life are different and unique. So you really do need a method that can be tailored to all of those things.

That's one of the reasons I love coaching on this topic so much and developed frameworks like the Hour Zero Method, and why I overlay concepts like Human Design and astrology in the Work That Works For You Method—because that tells us really quickly what productivity methods are likely going to work for you and which ones definitely are not. You can skip the whole back and forth, waste of time and energy, taking a bunch of clothes into the dressing room, trying them all on, and then having to go back out, find different sizes, find different colors. Instead, I'm like the stylist, just handing you things that I think, based on my experience and expertise, are already going to work for you. It could save you actual years.

Here's what my own structure looks like now—and how you can "try it on."

Slow mornings: clear the noise, make room for genius

I don't start work before 10 a.m. I usually wake around 6 or 7, depending on the season. Winter and summer are my "hibernation" seasons—I sleep in more. And quite frankly, as a business owner, you require more sleep than "normal" people because your brain is utilizing so much more energy. You don't just show up and get told what to do—you design what to do and go implement it. That takes more brain power. Therefore: prioritize sleep asap.

Once I get up, my biggest rule for myself is mornings are for output, afternoons or evenings are for input. Mornings are my time to think, journal, get ideas out on paper, create something, outline something—because my brain is a clean slate (after coffee, of course) and has the most bandwidth. I want to capitalize on that and give my genius, my unique genius, room to come through.

Evenings (or 3pm onward for me...) are for input; taking in information. Think reading emails, news, blogs, meetings where you're mostly listening, learning... Taking in information takes brainpower and energy. If you start the day with that, you automatically have less to think, create, and produce with.

And TBH, that's where your needle mover magic is.

What most people do when they wake up is roll over and look at their phone (input). My phone lives on the other side of the house, in my office, so I'm not tempted. Remember when we used to have landlines and alarm clocks? Yup, we're going to be alright with this method ya'll.

With slow mornings, it takes me a minute for my brain to get going, so I ease in—coffee, pet the dog, cozy clothes, stretches. Then I make my way to my little ritual nook: sage, candles, mementos of loved ones, one of those light-up crystal towers, meditation chair. Sometimes I do a five-minute meditation, but really I just journal. I love the Morning Pages concept, and I have a theory: if you wake up anxious, get it on paper--your worries become your to-do list. So I clean out my brain—what I think I need to do, what I'm worried about, what I'm wanting to create, what I'm thinking about, dreaming of. It needs a place to live. There's magic when you put pen to actual paper and give yourself space to own what's in your head and what you want out of your life.

Micro-checklist:

• Phone out of the bedroom

• 5–10 minutes of Morning Pages

• List the 1–3 outputs for today

Move your body, move your mind

Then I put on workout clothes and get outside. I have a spectrum of activities depending on the season of my life:

• If I'm pressed for time and the sky is falling: 15-minute power walk outside + 50 squats + as many push-ups as I can do.

• 30 minute strength training routines (ChatGPT helped me create some I like).

• I live by a trail network, so sometimes it's an hour-long hike with a weighted vest and my dog.

I like variety. Sometimes I stick with routine and sometimes I don't (hey we’re all human), but I always have a range to choose from so I move daily. My goal is to stay active—loose or formulaic—depending on goals for my physical well-being.

Micro-checklist:

• Define your "even if the sky is falling" workout

• Save a 15, 30, and 60 minute option

• Tie a simple training focus to the current season

Dress like you mean it

By the time I get back inside, shower, and get dressed for the day—I always get dressed to go to work even if I'm working from home. This impacts your concept of yourself and your identity out in the world, and it comes through even if you're just doing business development at home on a Monday and no one will see you. Dress like you mean it.

Dress like you care about your business—even if it's just to write emails or marketing copy. It doesn't have to be a full face of makeup, but dress like the entrepreneur you're capable of. For me that's washing my face, brushing my hair, and putting on, at minimum, a cool top—even if I'm in yoga pants or those stupidly comfy Vuori joggers.

Micro-checklist:

• Pick a simple work uniform

• Keep 2–3 "instant-on" outfits

• Sticky note on your mirror: "Dress like you mean it"

Themed days keep my brain's bandwidth intact

Then I start my workday. I work really well in themed days.

When I was coaching leaders at Google, Facebook, AT&T, T‑Mobile, Chipotle—I've worked with people from mid-level managers to VPs—one thing pulled everybody off track: endless meetings sprinkled all over the week. Such a waste of time. Most are poorly run and don't accomplish anything.

Entrepreneurs and freelancers—you don't have to live like that!

Meetings are interruptions. They pull you off track if they're smack dab in your prime focus time because your brain only has so much bandwidth during the week. For me, my brain has the most bandwidth after the weekend—Monday, Tuesday. Then it dwindles as the week wears on. This goes back to my output versus input philosophy:

• Mornings = output. Evenings = input.

• Earlier in the week = output. Later in the week = input.

So here's my week:

• Monday: business development day—get my game plan together and dive in.

• Tuesday: marketing—create my podcast, blog posts, social media, create for potential collaborations.

• Wednesday and Thursday: all meetings—coaching, consultations, collaborators.

• Friday: I typically take off, although my Friday morning journaling is a business recap—looking back and taking a moment to celebrate myself.

Systematic celebration matters because no one's going to do it for you. You're not getting a raise unless you give yourself one. You're not getting a pat on the back—unless you do it for yourself. And that shit matters. On the winding, unknown path of the freelancer or entrepreneur, where there's no blueprint, you need as many pats on the back as you can get. So make time to give them to yourself.

Micro-checklist:

• Move recurring meetings to later in the day or week

• Only offer ad-hoc requests those windows

• 10-minute Friday "wins" list, every week

What this looks like in real life

I recently coached a creative duo who run an arts education space and gallery. They felt spread thin and constantly running around. When I opened their Google calendars, the problem was obvious: meetings scattered all over the place, no protected creation time, constant context-switching. One of the first things I told them: compress meetings into one or two days a week. Let's see what happens!

Immediately they protested! They wanted to be accommodating. They felt uncomfortable pushing back if someone requested a time outside their meeting days. But here's the thing—if you don't protect your highest productivity time, no one else will. And if you're trying to accomplish a lot, that time is a non-negotiable.

Within the first two weeks of consolidating meetings to two days and blocking AM output on Mondays and Tuesdays, they had steady marketing output, fewer fire-drill days, and reported way higher energy and clarity. Plus, they both freed an entire day each week to focus on creating a new body of work for a joint exhibition their gallery was hosting.

They had spent years building a successful space for others to create but had been grossly neglecting their own creativity, which feels like crap on so many levels!

Make this your own

So my question for you is: where can you start consolidating the themes of your work into days that best suit your bandwidth and energy?

• Is it pushing client meetings to later in the day or later in the week and keeping mornings or earlier in the week open for big-picture thinking and execution?

• Maybe you're a filmmaker and your work is non-stop for days and weeks on end—can this concept be applied monthly, quarterly, or seasonally instead of daily or weekly? (Check out my post on business seasons for more on that.)

Here's where to start experimenting:

• Put your phone in another room tonight.

• Block a 90–120-minute output session each morning on Mon–Tue.

• Move meetings to afternoons or mid-week (Wed–Thu).

• Choose your Minimum Viable Rituals: Morning Pages, movement, one 25-minute creation sprint.

• Dress like you mean it.

• Celebrate Fridays with 5 wins.

Want a tailored approach?

This is exactly what I coach on: designing a day that actually works with your brain, your life, and your business model.

• Hour Zero Method: a simple weekly planning ritual that prioritizes life, output and meaning before the world interrupts.

• Work That Works For You Method: overlays Human Design and astrology to quickly identify which productivity approaches will likely fit you—and which to skip.

If you're tired of the dressing-room try-on phase, I'll be your stylist and hand you what fits.

Ready to build your life-first operating rhythm? Book an Astro + Human Design reading and in 90-minutes we'll zero in on how you're meant to work and structure your days with key insights on what you're right work even is!

Prefer to DIY? Start with the Hour Zero Method. A masterclass on creating the kind of flexible enough structure that you really wanted with entrepreneurship to have freedom and still get stuff done!

Common concerns (and honest answers)

• “I don’t have time.” → Blocking output time takes 10 minutes and saves hours of context-switching each week.

• “People won’t book within my meeting windows.” → The right people will make it work. Your boundary is a filter.

• “I lose momentum without strict routines.” → Use “Minimum Viable Rituals” so bad days still advance the ball.