It’s 9:47pm.

The kids are finally asleep. You’ve got your laptop open, coffee or tea reheated for the third time (you’re not drinking it, you’re just moving it around), and exactly 73 minutes before you need to be in bed to survive tomorrow.

You open your to-do list.

47 items stare back at you. None of them is “the thing” that will actually move your business forward. But all of them are screaming for attention with equal urgency.

So you do what you always do: answer the emails, update the spreadsheet, post the thing you meant to post yesterday. You reorganize your Notion workspace for the fourth time this month because at least that feels like progress.

Two hours later, you’ve moved a lot of stuff… but none of the right stuff.

If this is Tuesday for you, this playbook is your Thursday intervention.

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Read this first:

This isn’t a “productivity hack” article. It won’t teach you to wake up at 5am or batch your content or use a new app with a color-coded priority system that you’ll abandon by week three.

This is about accepting that you can’t work like someone with infinite time—and building a business that works anyway.

If you’re looking for “how to do more,” close this tab.

If you’re looking for “how to do less, but make it count,” keep reading.

1. Why Your To-Do List Keeps Winning

Let’s be honest: your to-do app is probably a museum of good intentions.

A mix of:

• Half-born offers you “might” launch (once you finish the landing page, record the videos, write the emails, design the thing…)
• Content ideas from six months ago that felt brilliant at 11pm on a Sunday
• Client tasks, admin tasks, house tasks, “someday” tasks
• That one item you’ve been moving to “next week” for three months

All sitting at the same priority level.

When everything matters equally, nothing gets done well. That’s why you default to the work that screams the loudest: inbox, DMs, quick wins, small fires. It feels productive in the moment. You can cross things off. You can tell yourself you “got stuff done.”

But at the end of the week, the feeling is the same:

“I moved a lot of stuff… but none of the right stuff.”

This is where slow productivity isn’t a luxury—it’s strategy. You’re not just managing time. You’re managing leverage.

But here’s what nobody tells you: the hardest part isn’t the tactics—it’s accepting that you’re not the person who can work like a 25-year-old with no dependents anymore.

And that this constraint might actually make your work better.

You’re not building slower because you’re less capable—you’re building differently because your constraints are different. Those constraints might save you from a lot of the stupid mistakes that sink solopreneurs who have infinite time to overcomplicate everything.

(Like launching five products at once. Or building a funnel before they have an audience. Or spending three weeks designing a logo for a business that doesn’t have a single customer yet.)

But here’s what nobody tells you about leverage: most parent solopreneurs are optimizing the wrong 80%.

Let me show you what I mean.

2. The Pareto Lens: Finding Your 20% Leverage

Here’s where Pareto stops being something you heard about on a podcast and becomes the most useful question you’ll ask all month.

For one week—just one—track what you actually did in your business, not what you meant to do. Not what was on your calendar. What you actually spent time on.

Then ask three brutally simple questions about each recurring activity:

• Does this directly create revenue or strong leads?
• Does this significantly deepen trust with the right people?
• Does this build an asset that can pay off later (like a content library, system, or product)?

If the answer is no to all three? That task is part of the 80% that’s keeping you busy but not moving you forward.

This is the whole game:

Stop trying to “do it all” and start designing your week around the 20% of moves that actually compound.

“But What If I Don’t Know My 20%?”

If you’re reading this thinking “cool framework, but I genuinely have no idea what my leverage points are,” you’re not alone.

Many parent solopreneurs are so deep in survival mode they’ve lost all perspective on what moves the needle. You’re in the weeds. You’re putting out fires. You’re responding to whoever yelled loudest that day.

If that’s you, try this: track your energy and revenue for 30 days.

Not just revenue—energy. Because here’s what I’ve noticed: the work that pays best per hour of effort AND leaves you energized (not drained) is usually your answer.

That work is different for everyone, but it might mean:

• Keeping two high-fit clients and firing the third that drains you (yes, even if they pay well)
• Writing one thoughtful newsletter instead of five scattered posts across platforms you don’t even like
• Recording one solid asset-building video instead of battling every platform’s algorithm daily like you’re in some kind of content creator Hunger Games

In other words: fewer channels, deeper impact.

Here’s the meta-question most business advice skips: One hour building an asset (email list, course, system) can eventually earn more than 100 hours of trading time for money. But assets require patience most solopreneurs can’t afford—until they realize they can’t afford not to build them.

The real 80/20 isn’t just about what you do this week. It’s about whether you’re building something that pays you once, or something that keeps paying.

But here’s the uncomfortable question nobody asks: even if you identify your 20%, how do you actually PROTECT it when you’ve only got pockets of time and a dozen people expecting you to be available?

That’s where most productivity advice falls apart.

Here’s what actually works when you’re working in pockets.

3. The Weekly “Enough Plan” for 9-to-5 + Family + Build

Let’s get real about what “building a business” actually looks like when you’re 38 with a full-time job:

You wake up already behind.

By 8am, you’ve packed lunches, answered your boss’s “quick question” (it wasn’t quick), and mentally scheduled the thing you forgot to tell your partner about the school thing on Thursday.

Your business time? It’s not a blank canvas. It’s pockets—stolen from nap time, lunch breaks, and those increasingly mythical “evenings when you still have brain cells left.”

So your Weekly Enough Plan can’t look like a 25-year-old’s.

Here’s what it looks like instead:

• Pick 1–2 “needle movers” for the week.
• Block 3–5 focused sessions for those alone.
• Give everything else a container.
• Define “enough” before the week starts.

It looks almost too small on paper. Like, “wait, that’s it?” small.

But that’s precisely what makes it sustainable when life inevitably throws a curveball—like a kid’s sick day, a surprise meeting, or exhaustion that hits out of nowhere because you’re getting over a cold but you can’t actually rest because, you know, life.

But let’s talk about that word: “enough.”

This might be the hardest psychological work in this whole playbook—and it’s not what you think.

Most solopreneurs don’t struggle with tactics—they struggle with permission to stop. “Enough” isn’t lazy. It’s refusing to optimize yourself into burnout.

Defining “enough” requires knowing what you’re building toward:

• Retirement by 55?
• $5K/month passive income?
• Just keeping the lights on while the kids are young?
• Replacing your salary in three years so you can quit the job that’s slowly draining your soul?

Without a definition of “done,” you’ll optimize forever. You’ll always feel behind. You’ll always be chasing some guru’s definition of success that has nothing to do with your actual life.

So before you plan next week, ask yourself:

“If I could only work 5 hours this week, what would I do? Now—why aren’t those things getting my best 5 hours every week?”

Because I’m pretty sure you are working at least 5 hours a week on your business. The question is whether you’re spending them on the 20% or just rearranging deck chairs.

So here’s the actual question: How do you BUILD that system this week, not “someday”?

Glad you asked.

But first, we need to talk about the voices in your head that are going to try to sabotage this whole thing.

4. Negotiating with Guilt, FOMO, and Expectations

You might be thinking: “Okay, but I’ve tried ‘simple plans’ before. Why would this one stick?”

Fair question.

Because the tactical part is actually the easy part. The hard part is what happens when guilt, FOMO, and other people’s expectations start whispering in your ear at 2pm on Wednesday.

Here’s what those voices sound like:

Guilt says:

“You should be available all the time—for clients, for your boss, for your kids. What kind of parent schedules ‘do not disturb’ time? What kind of business owner doesn’t answer emails on weekends? You’re already asking for so much—flexible hours, understanding when the kid gets sick, grace when you’re running on four hours of sleep. And now you want boundaries?”

FOMO whispers:

“Everyone else is posting daily. Everyone else is on five platforms. That person who started after you just hit 10K followers. If you’re not everywhere, you’re nowhere. That trend you missed? It was THE trend. That collaboration you passed on? It could’ve been your big break. You’re literally watching opportunities sail by while you ‘focus.’”

Expectation chimes in:

“Your client expects you by end of day. Your boss expects you online. Your partner expects you to handle dinner. Your kid’s teacher expects you at the thing. You can’t let anyone down. You’ve built your reputation on being reliable. If you start saying no now, what does that say about you?”

Here’s the quiet counter-move that sounds too simple to work but absolutely does:

Let your results do the talking.

Most good clients, employers, and collaborators care far more about the quality and reliability of your work than the speed of your replies. A focused parent who consistently delivers on a few commitments beats a frazzled one spinning 20 plates and dropping 12 of them.

But let’s be real about the cost:

Some clients will leave when you slow down. Some opportunities will pass you by. Your income might dip temporarily.

That’s not a bug—it’s the filter working.

The question is: can you afford the short-term revenue dip to build long-term sustainability?

Because here’s what’s at stake if you don’t:

• Health: Chronic stress from trying to do it all literally shortens your lifespan (not to be dramatic, but also, yeah)
• Relationships: Your kids will remember if you were present or just nearby (physically there but mentally in your inbox)
• Business longevity: Most solopreneurs quit not because they failed, but because they burned out doing it the “hustle” way

This isn’t about being lazy or unambitious. It’s about recognizing that building a sustainable business as a parent requires different architecture than building one as a 25-year-old with infinite hours.

The solopreneurs who last aren’t the ones who grind hardest—they’re the ones who design for endurance from day one.

That’s why your job is to build a system that lets you protect the 20% of work that creates those results, while staying human in the process.

If someone looked at your commitments from the outside, would they see a person in control of their time—or a person constantly paying interest on overpromised hours?

If that question stings a little, good.

That sting means you’re ready to actually do something different.

Not “someday when things calm down.”

This weekend.

5. A 5-Step 80/20 Reset You Can Do This Weekend

(Look, if you’re the type who just skipped to the “tell me what to do” part—I get it. This section works even without the theory. But if you have 10 minutes later, scroll back up. The “why” makes the “what” stick.)

Here’s a leverage-first reset you can actually run in the next 48 hours:

1. List every active commitment.

Every single one. Client projects, volunteer stuff, that podcast you said you’d guest on, the newsletter you started, the course you’re building, the renovation project, the thing you promised your friend you’d help with.

All of it.

2. Mark each as Revenue, Relationship, or Reputation.

• Revenue: brings in money or leads soon
• Relationship: deepens key connections (like family, partners, or top clients)
• Reputation: builds long-term authority or assets

Be honest here. “Reputation” isn’t a catch-all for “stuff I feel like I should do.” It’s work that genuinely builds something that compounds—your expertise, your portfolio, your authority in a specific niche.

3. Circle your top 3–5 highest-leverage items.

These are the things that, if you did ONLY these for the next month, would move your business and life forward more than doing 20 mediocre things.

4. Choose at least 2 things to shrink, pause, or drop.

This is the hard part. But also the liberating part.

What can you pause for 90 days? What can you shrink (maybe that weekly newsletter becomes monthly)? What can you just… stop?

5. Design next week around the circled items.

Not “fit them in.” AROUND them. These get scheduled first. Everything else fills in the gaps—or doesn’t.

Run this for four weeks and watch what happens: fewer open loops, deeper work, and a to-do list that finally starts to feel like a tool instead of a threat.

One more thing to keep in mind: Your 20% will shift as your kids age. The goal isn’t to find the perfect system—it’s to build the skill of ruthlessly re-evaluating what matters every 6-12 months.

Infant vs. teenager = totally different constraints. Summer vs. school year = different available pockets. Building phase vs. maintaining phase = different leverage points.

If you have zero flexibility right now—if you’re a single parent with no backup, in precarious employment, or managing special needs or elder care—your 20% might look different:

• Shoring up one support system
• Protecting one 30-minute pocket per week for strategic thinking
• Simply surviving this season while building one small asset

Even that is leverage when you’re drowning.

Okay. Deep breath.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably either: (a) feeling called out, or (b) finally feeling permission to build differently.

Either way, here’s where we stop philosophizing and start doing.

These aren’t “10 ways to optimize your morning routine.” These are the 5 moves that actually change how you operate.

Action Steps:

• Do a 30-minute commitment audit and tag each item as Revenue, Relationship, or Reputation.
• Identify your top 3–5 Pareto priorities that actually move the business forward and schedule time for them before anything else.
• Pick two low-leverage commitments to pause for a month and communicate those boundaries clearly (the communication part is key—ghosting doesn’t count).
• Create a Weekly Enough Plan: define 1–2 wins that would make the week successful, then design your calendar around them.
• At the end of each week, review: what worked, what can be cut, and where you can tighten the 80/20 lens even more.

But also ask yourself these questions:

• When was the last time you said no to a revenue opportunity because it would cost too much life energy?
• What would you need to believe about yourself to give yourself permission to build slower than everyone else?
• What’s the business advice you’re following that was written for someone with a completely different life than yours?

Here’s the counterintuitive truth: The parent solopreneurs who build lasting businesses aren’t the ones who figure out how to do more—they’re the ones who get religious about doing less, better.

They accept that their business will grow slower than the 25-year-old with no kids and a caffeine addiction.

And then they stick around long enough that the 25-year-old burns out, and they’re still here, compounding.

Still building. Still showing up. Still refusing to optimize themselves into oblivion.

If you run this 80/20 reset, hit reply and tell me what you cut and what you’re doubling down on—I’d genuinely love to hear.

And if you know another parent solopreneur buried under “just one more thing,” send this their way as permission to design a saner system.

Because honestly? We’re all just out here trying to build something meaningful without losing ourselves in the process.

That’s enough of a mission for one lifetime.

Matt

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