Why I want to vomit when I see a time blocked calendar
Confession time, I hate time blocking, co-working calls and pomodoro timers, which I know is ironic for someone who helps solos with their focus and productivity.
But looking at a calendar full of colour coded microblocks makes me feel physically sick! If you’re day is split into “900-915 send invoice, 915-1015 call client A” etc you’re switching context so often you’re priming yourself to lose focus.
In this live I’m breaking down why traditional productivity hacks have failed for me and how I structure my week instead.
16 Sept 2026
Stop outsourcing strategic thinking to a chatbot
Outsourcing your agency to a chatbot is killing your business. Not because AI's about to end humanity — that's not today's conversation. This is about something smaller and way more common: how much time you're actually spending asking Claude or ChatGPT "is this normal," "what should I charge," "how should I market this" — and what that's doing to your thinking.
Spoiler: it's making you vanilla. Bland. Boring. Because a chatbot doesn't have an opinion of its own, no lived experience, nothing to draw on except the average of the average of the average of what's already out there. It mirrors what you give it and hands it back slightly more articulately which feels like validation, but it's actually just an echo chamber with a predictive text machine.
It's never had a client ghost you. Never sat with the 3am doubt about jacking it all in for a job in Tesco. It's got knowledge, but no wisdom — and it can't push back on an idea that's wrong for you the way a real human, with real lived experience, can.
Last week at IdeasFest, the conversations kept landing on the same handful of things solo founders actually need to survive and thrive: discernment, lived experience, learning through failure, real problem solving, and play. None of that comes from a chatbot.
If you're feeling jumbled, tangled, overcommitted, and a bit frazzled — book an Untangling Session. One hour, £97. https://tidycal.com/ruthtsui/untangled (https://tidycal.com/ruthtsui/untangled)
10 Sept 2026
Is it self-sabotage, or is it just the wrong strategy?
We're told that if we're not taking action, it's self-sabotage — some mindset block we need to smash through. But what if the plan you've been handed just isn't the right one for you? In this live, I break down the difference between fear and misalignment, using examples from my own business (turning down a platform strategy, refusing to sell income claims) and a conversation from a recent networking meeting.
0:01 – Is it self-sabotage, or is it the wrong strategy?
0:45 – The follow-through framework: aligned/misaligned, thinking/action
1:40 – What misaligned strategic thinking actually looks like
2:22 – Why "fear" isn't always the real explanation
3:20 – Using your own discernment vs. trusting a coach's process
4:00 – Story: why I turned down the School platform strategy
4:48 – Story: why I won't sell using income claims
5:30 – The networking meeting: the "should" of social media
6:15 – What to ask yourself before dropping a should-based strategy
7:08 – Why the old lead-magnet-to-funnel playbook doesn't work anymore
8:10 – So… is it actually self-sabotage?
9:26 – The real test: fear vs. misalignment
10:15 – Changing the strategy instead of forcing discipline
10:50 – Momentum Audit — https://tidycal.com/ruthtsui/momentum (https://tidycal.com/ruthtsui/momentum)
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