I Only Take Meetings Two Days a Week

Lawrence hosts ADHD Goals, and his listeners tend to end up self-employed for a specific reason: the cubicle never fit. That was true for me too. I went into entrepreneurship partly because I couldn't sit still through the monotony a corporate role requires.

The trade is that you swap one kind of difficulty for another. Nobody interrupts you with pointless meetings, and also nobody stops you starting four new things this week instead of finishing last week's.

So here's how I actually structure a week.

Tuesdays and Thursdays. That's it.

Those are the only two days anyone outside my companies can book time with me. Most internal meetings go on Thursdays as well.

Which means Monday, Wednesday and Friday are large uninterrupted blocks where actual work happens.

My calendar is booked about two and a half months out on those two days, and that's fine. If someone can't get this Tuesday, they get the next one. Shrinking the window in which people can interrupt you is most of the game.

The rest of the week is themed:

Monday — the double M. Money and marketing. I meet the accountant, I meet the sales side, I meet the marketing team, PR, social, ad buyers. Everyone comes with results from last week and a plan for this one.

Wednesday — deep work. Everything Tuesday's meetings generated, I sit down and do.

Friday — cleanup. Finish what's half-done, close things out, actually tick them off.

Saturday — half day, then family and friends. Doesn't always hold, but that's the intent.

Sunday — nothing. No calls, no meetings. A genuine day of rest.

Lawrence made a point I hadn't articulated: themes create rhythm, and rhythm is easier to maintain than discipline. You're not deciding what today is for. Today already has a shape.

Start of day, end of day — even alone

Every morning my team does a stand-up, split into four blocks by department. What did you get done yesterday, what are you doing today, is anything blocking you. End of day, same three questions, and they share their screen and show me the work.

On Fridays they set their tasks for the following week, so Monday starts loaded rather than spent getting ready.

I did this before I had a team. Start of day, I'd set an intention and a realistic list. End of day I'd ask myself what actually got done. Two out of five? Then tomorrow's list needs to be shorter.

And I did it in a project management system rather than on paper, deliberately. It taught me to be organised, it taught me to judge how long things actually take, and it built a year of history — notes, files, links, decisions — that my first hire could simply be given access to.

That's the part people miss. If you wait until you have a team to build the system, you're learning the system and onboarding a person simultaneously, and that produces chaos. Build it while you're alone and hiring becomes handing someone a door key.

Don't expect what you're not willing to inspect

A mentor told me that and it's the sentence I return to most.

It applies to teams, obviously. Let a week run without checking in and you arrive at Friday with a gap between what you expected and what exists. That's where the explosive conversations come from — not from failure, from unchecked assumption.

But it applies harder to yourself. I expect to get a great deal done. Am I inspecting the rate I'm actually producing at? The quality? Consistently? If not, it's a bit silly to hold the expectation, because I'm not being honest about my own capacity.

One thing worth saying to anyone who's been made to feel disorganised by previous workplaces: the daily check-in isn't surveillance. Problems surface on day one instead of day five. Nobody has to sit privately with a blocker deciding whether admitting it makes them look incapable.

What actually frustrates me isn't someone struggling. Not understanding something, lacking a tool, needing training — all solvable. It's having the system, the tools and the expectations and choosing not to give me visibility. That's the only version that's a real problem.

Getting the idea out of your head

I had a client who'd carried an idea for ten years. She'd built multiple sites, been to conferences, bought the courses. Never got it into the market.

Six or seven months after starting with us, she was negotiating two six-figure contracts with municipalities. Nothing about her changed. She just followed a sequence and didn't deviate.

That's what Launch Ignition is for, and it's why it's a nine-step framework rather than advice. Who is your customer. What's the message that makes them look up. What's the offer, and what's it actually worth versus what you're charging. Then lead magnets, authority, sales funnels, content, traffic, launch.

The order matters more than any individual step. Overwhelm mostly isn't too much work — it's not knowing which thing is next.

It works on things I know nothing about

Lawrence asked whether this only suits coaches and course creators. One of our clients runs a laser cleaning business — class 4 lasers used to strip rust off conveyor belts, tractors, concrete and brick.

Their problem wasn't the technology. It was that almost nobody knows the option exists.

So we deconstructed the journey from rusty conveyor belt to restored one: the initial meeting, the site assessment, the plan, the communication with everyone on site, the scheduling, the safety perimeter, the clean, the coating. Then we turned it into a graphic they hand to prospects, so someone can see exactly where they are in the process.

It sold better. It also turned out to be a training asset, because once the steps were separated they could build material around each one.

A confused prospect doesn't convert. That's true whether you're selling coaching or industrial lasers.

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Success Strategies for ADHD Entrepreneurs. ADHD Goals with Lawrence Pratt, February 2025.

Building the system before you need it is the whole idea behind Ignite Funnels.