💡 The Price of Clarity
Making space for what matters (even when everything feels important)
The problem isn’t knowing what to do — it’s making space to actually see it.
Earlier this week, I was on a call with my business coach, doing that thing where I list seventeen semi-connected thoughts and expect her to extract meaning.
I was describing my week — beta reader feedback coming in, media training kicking off next week, texting with Renee about my book launch, planning new initiatives, keeping ✍️ Make Writing Your Job growing steadily — and somewhere in the middle of that word salad, I paused and said:
“I just feel like I need clarity. What do I need to do to get there?”
She tilted her head, smiled, and said, “Amy, you already know what you need to do.”
Damn. But correct.
Because the thing is, I did know. I’ve known. And yet I was sitting there — inbox bloated, projects halfway mapped, timelines living in five different apps — pretending like maybe there was a secret, a shortcut, a missing link.
There wasn’t. Just the part I didn’t want to do:
Sit down. Get organized. Time-block the chaos.
Which is how I ended up spending the rest of my Thursday going full clarity gremlin — sorting my inbox, rebuilding my Notion dashboard, and answering questions like “When, exactly, will I finish this rewrite?” and “Do I need to be running this initiative right now, or am I just addicted to progress as a personality trait?”
Turns out clarity isn’t expensive in money. It’s expensive in time. And energy. And presence. And the willingness to stop reacting and start deciding.
You can’t trip and fall into clarity. You can’t just download a magical AI tool (yet!) and have it synthesize all of the priorities and ideas in your brain and sync them perfectly with your digital world.
I kept trying to find the secret unlock — only to realize I had to return to the fundamentals.
❓ Everything’s working — so why can’t I see straight?
My week started like this: a tab explosion. Dozens of competing priorities, none of which were optional. There’s the book rewrite, now in its fourth draft, which I’m working on after getting amazing feedback from my beta readers (thank you again!).
There’s the book marketing plan, currently forming in a Google Doc and Notion dash. There are emails from my PR specialist about the book’s upcoming press tour, plus a call where I’m being media trained not to say that I can sometimes be a “feral chaos goblin” into a podcast mic, even if it is technically accurate on weeks like this.
Also: ✍️ Make Writing Your Job is growing. And I’m thrilled. But I’m also the one making it grow alongside our amazing team of curators. And there are a few more secret things in motion — future projects, partnerships, ideas that are almost ready to be real.
It’s the season of a lot.
And “a lot” is the enemy of clarity.
Especially the good kind of a lot. The kind that makes you feel like everything’s working — until suddenly, it’s not. Not because you did anything wrong, but because you can’t see straight anymore.
⚡️ Clarity isn’t found — it’s built
When I hit that point — when my to-do list starts to look like a Jackson Pollock painting — I know I need what I’ve started calling my twice per week clarity sessions.
Not a meeting. Not a brainstorm. Just… a meeting with myself.
A chance to sit down with everything — calendar, inbox, journal, Notion dashboard — and ask:
What the hell is actually happening right now?
What am I avoiding?
What’s truly important?
I don’t think clarity is something we find. I think it’s something we build. Carefully. Quietly. Repetitively.
And the thing with clarity is that no one builds it for you.
No AI dashboard. No productivity coach. No fancy app. Just you, your work, your time, and your own brain at the center of it all.
Because the thing with clarity? It’s about aligning your ideal life with what you’re doing right now. And if there’s a mismatch, it’s your responsibility to shift. To adapt so that you’re on track to giving yourself the life of your dreams.
Because that’s the real work here.
📆 From chaos to calendar: the actual steps
Here’s what I’ve started doing, and what I’ll keep doing as I move into launch mode, press mode, scaling mode, writer mode:
Two clarity sessions a week. Monday and Friday. Non-negotiable.
They don’t have to be long. But they have to exist.
I start by journaling — not just for insight, just to clear the mental dust. Then I update my Notion dashboard (which I’m going to share soon — still tinkering), where I keep a board of all active projects, task lists, and timelines. After that, I go through my inbox and turn stray emails into action items. And finally, I open my calendar and actually assign time to the tasks that matter.
Because if you don’t know when you’re going to do something, chances are you’re not going to do it.
That’s clarity:
A calendar that reflects reality.
A to-do list that’s honest.
A workweek that aligns with your actual goals — not just your instincts to say yes to everything.
❌ The quiet ways we get it wrong
If the way you’re spending your time does not reflect the ideal life you want for yourself, you’re doing it wrong.
And I was doing it wrong.
Not in any dramatic, failure-of-the-quarter way. Just… letting too many things in the door. Responding to whatever was loudest. Forgetting to build space for what I actually care about: deep work, deep rest, and the creative breathing room that makes all the rest of this sustainable.
💻 One hour, 2x per week. That’s all it takes.
So here’s where I’m landing:
Clarity is a practice.
It’s a muscle.
It’s also kind of annoying. But it saves me every time.
It saves me from burnout. From overwhelm. From chasing 19 ideas and finishing none. From forgetting that the point of all this — the writing, the building, the business-growing — is to live a life I’m actually proud of.
If you’re feeling underwater, I get it. I’ve been there all week.
But give yourself one hour. This weekend. This Monday.
Journal. Organize. Calendar.
And ask yourself:
Am I spending my time in a way that reflects the life I actually want?
That’s the whole point of clarity.
That’s the cost.
That’s the payoff.
More soon — including my Notion dashboard once I’ve made it slightly less deranged.
Until then: deep breath. You know what you need to do.