Who this is for
You are not in crisis. Nothing is on fire. But several things have been slightly wrong for a while — sleep is off, the flat is cluttered, admin is piling up, you have not seen certain people in months — and each one individually is too small to justify a project, so none of them ever gets one.
The usual advice makes this worse. A 5am routine, a full financial audit, and a decluttering system starting Monday is a plan built for someone with more slack than you currently have. It works for nine days.
This template is deliberately gentle: it assumes limited energy, it expects setbacks, and it is built so that doing one small thing a week still counts as the plan working.
The branches
Rest and sleep — the one that quietly determines whether any other branch is possible. Sub-branches: what time you actually stop looking at screens; what wakes you; whether the bedroom is a bedroom or an office. One change at a time.
The physical space — not "declutter the house." One surface, one drawer, one corner. Sub-branches per room, each holding a single specific thing rather than a standard. The kitchen table. The chair with clothes on it.
Admin backlog — the letters, renewals, appointments, and forms you have been carrying mentally for months. This branch exists mainly to get them out of your head and onto the map, where they stop costing attention. Most items here are Todos, not branches.
Money, looked at without panic — deliberately narrow. What comes in, what goes out, what one subscription you could cancel today. Not a budget system. Not an investment plan. Just ending the state of not knowing.
Food and movement — the smallest sustainable version. One repeatable meal you can make tired. A ten-minute walk. Anything requiring motivation to sustain does not belong on this map.
People — one or two specific names, with one specific action each. "Be more social" is not a branch. "Message Sam about the thing in October" is.
One thing that is yours — a book, an instrument, a game, a craft. Not self-improvement. The branch that reminds you the point of getting your life together is to have a life, not a maintained system.
How to use it
Import it, then delete at least two branches. Seven live areas is more than anyone can hold. The ones you cut are not failures; they are the ones this season is not for.
Then pick one as Focus. One, not three — this template is the exception to the usual one-to-three guidance, because the whole design assumption is low available energy. Everything else stays on the map, visible and inactive, doing its job by being written down instead of remembered.
Add a date only where a date is real. Most branches here need none. A dentist appointment has a Deadline; "sort the wardrobe" does not, and giving it one only creates something to miss.
What to add once it is yours
The template is a starting shape and will not match your life. After importing:
- Rename branches in your own words. "Admin backlog" might be "the drawer."
- Add the specific things — the actual letters, the actual names, the actual room.
- Delete anything that produces guilt rather than direction.
- Attach Evidence when something is genuinely finished. A photo of the cleared surface counts. A branch cannot be marked Complete without evidence, and here that constraint is a kindness: it means you can look back and see the things that actually changed, on the days it feels like nothing has.
Signs it is working
- You open it without dread.
- One branch has moved this month, and the others being still does not bother you.
- The admin branch is emptier than it was, and you have stopped carrying those items around mentally.
- You have deleted something, on purpose.
- Focus has changed at least once — meaning you finished something, or honestly decided it was the wrong thing.
Signs it is not
- Every branch is Focus. Nothing is, then.
- You have added sub-branches faster than you have completed anything.
- The map has become a more detailed description of the same stuck feeling.
If that is happening, cut the map in half. Gentle means fewer branches, not softer language on the same overwhelming list.