Finding Our Rhythm | The First Two Weeks

That First Monday Back

That familiar new-year stress crept in on the first Monday of January - deadlines looming, meetings approaching. Except there weren't any. It was just a phantom feeling, muscle memory from fourteen years of corporate life still running in the background.

Without meetings structuring my days, I found myself staring at my Todoist list (free plan) - months of "someday" tasks finally having their moment. Decluttering the house, professional development, starting a blog and YouTube channel, those books I bought but never had time to read, deep cleaning projects, photography exploration... oh, and actually building our business. The list felt both overwhelming and invigorating. Where to start when everything feels possible?

Finding Our New Reality

Oddly enough, our daily routine hasn't changed dramatically. That "hit the ground running" instinct kicked in filling days with client work, dog walks, decluttering, and occasional metal detecting adventures. The only real difference? No recurring meetings structuring each day. I'm still working all day, everyday - just for less money and more freedom to decide what we're working on.

Two weeks into this post-layoff freedom feels surprisingly familiar - like playing "Whack-a-mole" with a very long to-do list. We're working on getting into our new rhythm and there were too many things on the list to accomplish in a weekend, or even a month. Enter Greg McKeown's book "Essentialism" (one of those books I bought last year but hadn't had the time to read fully). What grabbed my attention and prompted the purchase was his concept of first defining your North Star.

Creating Structure in Freedom

McKeown suggests taking an hour to reflect on questions like "What are my top 3 priorities during this transition?" For us, those priorities emerged early and clearly:

1. Building our virtual bookkeeping business
2. Creating content to share our journey
3. Restoring personal joy through curiosity living - living full

With these priorities as our guide and our list in hand, we turned to the Eisenhower Matrix. I was already familiar with it - and the concept of categorizing our list into four quadrants:

• Urgent and Important (hello, year-end client deadlines)
• Not Urgent but Important (decluttering, content creation)
• Urgent but Not Important (those non-critical emails)
• Not Urgent and Not Important (the "delete" pile)

Our Progress So Far

Following this method, we've started structuring our days and tasks: client work in the mornings, decluttering and content creation in the afternoons. We're learning that if we don't set our own priorities, other demands will set them for us. We haven't finished the whole house, but the kitchen and living room got decluttered before year-end client needs pulled us away - and we're discovering that some progress is still progress.

TRANSITION UPDATES:

Corporate Exit:

That phantom stress of meetings and deadlines will take some time to fade, replaced by the feeling of freedom to choose our priorities. Strange how muscle memory works - in remembering old patterns. I checked in with the team and they are working through the challenges together, one day at a time.

Virtual Business:

Year-end client work keeps us grounded in familiar territory while we build new routines. There's something comforting about numbers when everything else feels fluid. We met a potential new client through a networking event and another was referred from a CPA we've been working with.

Home/Travel Plans:

The decluttering has begun, though January's client needs mean progress comes in spurts rather than sprints. We're learning to be okay with that. The snow and ice that paid a visit to a chunk of the country may have delayed the camper build and shipping progress. That's ok with us because we'd prefer to pick it up with the Maverick rather than the Jeep.

What we're learning:

• Freedom requires its own kind of structure
• Old habits fade slowly - and that's okay
• Progress doesn't always look like we imagined
• Sometimes the best plan is staying flexible

Looking Forward

Looking ahead to February, we're starting to see more slivers of progress and also slivers of the freedom we've been dreaming about. But January? January is teaching us patience. It's showing us that transition isn't a single moment - it's a gradual unfolding, one decluttered cabinet and completed task at a time.

More updates coming next Sunday. We hope you'll subscribe and join us. We would love to hear about your layoff-life/reinvention tips and tricks.