The 3-2-1 Work Calendar
The problem with a lot of productivity advice
My biggest gripe with a lot of productivity advice, especially on burnout, is that it often feels like I’m drinking poison, and everyone has their home remedy they swear by.
“Spread out the poison throughout the day!”
“Start with the strongest poison first to get it out of the way!”
“Stop drinking poison on the weekends.”
But not many people are asking, “Have you tried not drinking poison at all?”
In this case, the poison is a constant full work schedule where everything feels like a priority.
A schedule where I don’t have time to do all my work at the quality I’d like, let alone have the mental energy for a personal life.
Over the last nine years, this very common work schedule has led me to at least four periods of massive burnout.
2025 marks my 10th year in business. It was the perfect excuse to shake things up. So, I sat down a while back and did an audit. It made me realize that I could approach it all differently.
I can stop drinking the poison.
Months: Green (Full-time schedule), Yellow (Part-time schedule), Red (Off)
The 3-2-1 calendar
Starting August, I’ll be testing out a new work schedule I’ve dubbed the “3-2-1 Calendar.”
We’re cycling between:
3 months of full-time hours (Green)
2 months of part-time hours (Yellow)
1 month completely off (Red)
The main goal is to create a calm work schedule that allows for deep work and rest periods.
Here how it’s going to look like for us
During Green/Full-time months: Frontloading the heavy work — 1:1 clients, writing blog posts, shooting video content, developing products, crafting social media posts, etc.
During Yellow/Part-time months: Finishing and scheduling content, checking in on past clients, responding to social media posts, and product launches.
During Red/Time off months: Absolutely nothing business related!
Some important caveats
We run our own business. If you work for a company, this might be challenging to implement. But if you own your business or freelance, it could be a viable solution to creating a calmer work schedule.
Our work is predictably seasonal. I run a men’s styling service that creates content on men’s style. We have clear peak and off seasons (people don’t shop much at the height of winter and summer.)
What it’s going to take to implement
This requires completely rethinking our approach to work, especially as a service-based business.
A shift towards digital forms of revenue. Client work can be unpredictable — especially if we have particularly demanding clients during months when we want to slow down. Exploring digital forms of revenue like digital products (courses, guides, templates), ads & sponsors, and affiliate programs means we can reduce the number of clients we need to book, as well as bring in consistent revenue during the yellow and red months.
Doubling down on automations. We’re doubling down on automations like scheduling content months ahead, email auto responders, to more complex Zapier integrations. The more hands-off we can be with the business, the better.
Shift towards “timeless,” evergreen content. This is tricky. Since fashion is a business that is so trend-focused, we don’t want to completely eliminate sharing what’s new and fresh. But we also don’t run a fashion news business. Our business isn’t doesn’t rely on a constant stream of new content. We can slow down, create great work, and schedule most of it in advance. Focusing on evergreen content means we don’t need to update it often.
Use the temporary nature of social media to our advantage. I find it hard to create great content (especially evergreen or longform) on the usual grueling week-to-week schedule many of us are accustomed to. Slowing down on the deeper content and scheduling it ahead of time now frees up time for us to create trendy content. These tend to be quicker and easier to make. And because social media content lifecycle is much shorter, this feels more sustainable.
This month, my team and I are working on setting everything up, primarily the automation.
I’ve also restructured my client schedule to create a buffer between working and off months in case a client goes over schedule.
I’ll post an update in about 4-6 months.
