Category: Productivity

Balance, Business, Lifestyle, Productivity

When Systems Create Space for Peace | Kat Mari Coaching

by Kat MariLeave a Comment on When Systems Create Space for Peace | Kat Mari Coaching
When Systems Create Space for Peace | Kat Mari Coaching

From Clutter to Clarity

Sometimes, peace isn’t found in stillness – it’s built, one system at a time.

When I first sat down to organize my world: six businesses, shifting home life, spiritual commitments, and creative dreams – I wasn’t looking for perfection. I just wanted peace.

What I discovered is that when systems are designed with intention, they don’t box you in… they set you free.

The Breaking Point: Doing Too Much to Feel in Control

For months, I was juggling tasks like survival mode was my default. Every list felt like a lifeline, yet nothing truly moved.

I was working from my home office space (my bedroom which doubled as my gym), managing a food business out of a tiny kitchen, and trying to remember who I was beyond the chaos.

I was a planner – a list-maker. My to-do lists were long, color-coded, and satisfying to check off… but they rarely led to fulfillment. I was productive, yes, but not purposeful.

Now, every task is a step forward, not just to get things done, but to move toward a longer, more intentional, God-led goal that leaves room for order and serenity.

Because busy isn’t the same as fruitful. And I realized, I didn’t need more hustle, I needed more harmony.

The Reset: Building Systems That Breathe

I started with one intention: “Create rhythm, not restriction.”

With that, I built my Anchor & Flow System in Monday.com – a digital ecosystem that aligned my spiritual, creative, and business life.
Each day now has its own focus:
🌴 Monday: Bamboo & Stone (growth + brand)
⛪ Tuesday: Church & Admin Systems
🧭 Wednesday: Coaching & Consulting
💻 Thursday: Digital & Ghostwriting
💰 Friday: Finance & Flex Focus

Every column, formula, and automation wasn’t just a tech tool… it became a promise:

I will no longer let the urgent, silence the important.

The Magic of Automation (and a Few Llamas 🦙)

Five working automations later, my board now thinks with me. It resets tasks, color-codes progress, and nudges me when creative focus time hits.

The best part?! Monday.com has random celebratory llamas – literal dancing llamas – that cheer me on when I complete a task. Who knew peace could feel like confetti? 🎉🎉🎉

But the real win wasn’t digital; it was emotional. For the first time in months, I could see my week and breathe inside it.

The Space It Created

With systems in place, I started waking up differently:
☀️ Devotionals, workouts, walks with August – my pup, mushroom lattes with extra foam (& a dash of cinnamon)!
🧘🏽‍♀️ A calm brain instead of a racing one.
💻 Deep focus between 9:30-2:00, without guilt for what wasn’t finished.

The result? I found serenity in structure. The same planner that once overwhelmed me now serves as a reflection of gratitude, filled with color, flow, and faith.

The Lesson: Peace Is the Product of Order

You don’t have to earn your peace by finishing the list. You find peace when you create space for it to live.

Systems don’t make you rigid – they give you rhythm.
Boundaries don’t limit you – they protect your brilliance.
And order, when rooted in intention, becomes a form of worship. ✨

Reflection

If you’re reading this while feeling scattered or behind, here’s what I’ve learned:

You don’t need a new plan.
You need a peaceful framework that honors the person you’re becoming.

The system is just the soil. Peace is what grows from it. 🌿

Ready to Find Your Flow?

If this message resonated with you and you’re craving clarity, creativity, and calm in your own world, I’d love to connect.

Drop a comment below or reach out through linktr.ee/katmuli – let’s build your system for serenity together. 🕊️

Business, Productivity

Grace Over Grind: Setting Goals That Align, Not Exhaust

by Kat MariLeave a Comment on Grace Over Grind: Setting Goals That Align, Not Exhaust

If you’ve ever found yourself running on caffeine and pure willpower, you’re not alone. The world praises hustle. Wake up earlier, sleep later, do more, achieve faster. Somewhere along the way, we started confusing movement with momentum.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a good to-do list and a solid action plan. But if I’ve learned anything about goal setting, it’s that not all progress is God-led. Sometimes, we get so focused on creating our own timeline that we forget to check if we’re even on His path.

We live in a culture that glorifies grind, but God invites us into grace. And grace doesn’t mean laziness… it means alignment.

When you build from alignment, there’s peace even in the push. There’s purpose in the waiting. There’s trust when doors close, even the ones you were sure were meant to stay open.

I’ll be honest… I’m a little hard-headed. I like to plan, to prepare, to make things happen. So sometimes, when God redirects me, He doesn’t just close the door gently… He slams it shut and locks it. Not to punish me, but to protect me. Because He knows if there’s even a crack open, I’ll try to wedge my way back through it.

And every single time He’s done that, He’s led me somewhere better. Every. Single. Time.

But here’s something I’ve realized along the way – before we can align our goals with God, we often have to declutter our lives. Not just our schedules, but our souls.

Decluttering means stepping back and asking:

  • What am I chasing that God never told me to pursue?
  • Whose opinions have I elevated above His?
  • What definitions of success have I accepted that don’t even belong to me?

Sometimes, decluttering means setting down your own agenda: the plan you’ve been gripping so tightly. Sometimes it means releasing pride: the part of you that wants to prove you can do it on your own. And sometimes, it even means creating distance from voices around you that speak more doubt than direction.

Deconstructing the noise makes room for discernment.
When you quiet the world, you start to hear the whisper of God’s will again.

So how do we set goals that align instead of exhaust?
Here’s what I’m learning (and unlearning) about that process:

  1. Pray before you plan. Ask God to reveal what He wants you to focus on, not just what you want to achieve.
  2. Check your motives. Is this goal about validation or obedience? There’s a big difference between being called and being driven.
  3. Declutter your influences. Be mindful of who speaks into your dreams. Not everyone’s advice is meant for your assignment.
  4. Leave room for flexibility. God’s plans will always be bigger, wiser, and more fulfilling than ours, but they often unfold differently than we imagine.
  5. Rest without guilt. True productivity doesn’t come from pushing harder; it comes from moving at the pace of grace.

When you set goals in alignment with Him, you stop striving to earn peace – you begin operating from it. You realize that success isn’t measured by how fast you move, but by how faithfully you follow.

So if you’re tired of the grind, maybe it’s time to pause – not to quit, but to realign. To ask God what He wants to build with you, not just what you want to build for Him, or worse – yourself.

Because sometimes, His plan isn’t to make you work harder – it’s to teach you how to work intentionally.

If this message stirred something in you. If you’re standing at a crossroads, ready to slow the grind and rediscover your rhythm, know that you’re not alone.

Whether you’re searching for clarity, rebuilding your confidence, or simply looking for your next step, I’d love to walk alongside you. Together, we’ll uncover what God’s placed on your heart and map out the path forward… with grace, faith, and purpose.

You can connect with me here to start the conversation. Let’s see where faith leads next. 💛

Balance, Life, Productivity

Clean Up Your Mess

by KatSnead1 Comment on Clean Up Your Mess

Hi, there, 2021! So, we are 3 weeks into FEBRUARY & I am only now getting back into the swing of things. My bad, everyone! I had a few loose ends to tend to for me to “close” 2020 properly. You never want to bring over the old muck from the previous “whatever-fill-in-the-blank-you-want-to-insert-here” (ie: place, job, year, relationship, etc) into the new one. 

Ya, clean starts are always refreshing. Although, I don’t want to mislead you nor get you off the hook. A clean start doesn’t mean simply leaving everything as is behind or a free pass to mess things up again. It means that we need to clean up our mess permanently.

I’m actually, really excited to write about this today because I know it’s going to make a few people upset enough to actually do something good for themselves. I’m going to make a massive assumption that everyone wants to leave 2020 in the rearview mirror (alongside all of life’s mistakes, lol). So much so, that you are completely open to just walking away from all its consequences, newness, hurts, struggles, uncertainties, and solitude. Trust me. I totally get it. I’m right there with you, but there’s a right way to leave things behind.

Over the past several months, I’ve spoken to a lot of different people about a lot of the same things: “here’s what life gave me, what should I do with it?” 

Clean up the mess that you’ve made!! For good.

I think, for most people, it’s easier to just sweep things under the rug, rather than acknowledging the mess and cleaning it up right then and there. We’re all going to make mistakes, but growth only happens when you can admit that you’ve made a mistake and then correct it.

Let me share an example with you.

  • I incur a debt
  • I miss a payment
  • I know I’ve missed this payment and now I not only have the original debt, but the added interest to pay
  • I leave it be, not wanting to deal with it (this is when you “make a mess”)
  • Time passes and now I’m freaking out because I’m guessing what I owe has doubled in size and I don’t have the money
  • I leave it be, not wanting to deal with it (this is how you “make the mess” bigger)

You know … our fear is usually driven by the unknown. Since I continue to ignore cleaning up after myself and paying down the debt, I freak myself out about the negative possibilities without any actual facts. Then I make myself become stuck in my mess. So what should I do now?

Remove your hands from over your eyes and ears!!

  • Acknowledging the debt or issue is key
  • Get all the facts
  • Come up with a plan to fix / pay / reconcile / clean up whatever it is that needs cleaning up
  • Start cleaning up your mess

It’s actually not that hard. We just have to get over ourselves and our pride and commit to healing / cleaning / fixing / correcting the situation. Once you have everything laid out in front of you, it’ll be easier for you to process your next steps. I hope that seeing how simple the clean up could be, helps you face the unknowns that you’re dealing with. Now, the process may be difficult, but it’s a process nonetheless, and you’re committed to doing it.

I wrote about debt but I know that there are so many other things that everyone is dealing with, as well. This clean up process is applicable to most any of it. Regardless of how painful it is to remove your hands from over your eyes and ears and see or hear about the hurt you’ve caused others or the mess you’ve created for yourself, it’s imperative that we do it.

I’m hoping that you’re coming into this year with boldness and trust … trust in your process. Embrace your progress. Give yourself a running start by laying everything you need to deal with, out in front of you. With eyes wide open, start the clean up process.

 

Balance, Productivity

Multi-tasking

by KatSneadLeave a Comment on Multi-tasking

With everyone #WFH (working from home) these days, “multi-tasking” between home life and work life has probably become an added skill on your LinkedIn page. But are you really accomplishing more? Are you really that much more productive? Only you can answer those specific questions, but I’m here for you to walk though successfully multi-tasking.

Since I’ve been working from home way before the shelter-in-place forced the remote-working culture on the world, people have been asking me for advice from how to set up their home work space to being disciplined enough to not binge on a bowl of cookies while working; in pajamas (at 10:00am) – you get the idea.

Photo by Tamas Pap on Unsplash

Whether you’re just WFH for the time being or this is in your unforeseeable future, the very first thing that you need to define is the difference between work and busy work. Think of it like this: WORK is what pays your bills; the tasks and projects that you need to submit; deliverables due by a certain time with an expectation of higher-level thinking and/or focus. Then BUSY WORK is what you can do to support your work (ie: organizing/sorting through emails, checking updates, mailing out items, returning phone calls, etc.) Once you have those two things defined, then you can move into multi-tasking between work life and home life … but not quite yet. It’s important to build out those two catagories on paper because you need to appropriately block out your time to accomplish both.

FACTORS:

  • Space
  • Time
  • Goals
  • Tasks
  • Tasks in lieu of …

SPACE: Create a space that mimics your office desk. This way your mind doesn’t have to absorb yet another change in your work life. Now, if you don’t have all of the fancy equipment that your corporate office can offer, try to at least invest in cords & supplies that can help transform household furniture into an upgraded work piece. Here’s my home/mobile office.

Amazon Items: iPad Mini case with keyboard, HDMI cable to turn my TV into a 2nd computer monitor, Mic Bundle & Bluetooth headphones. The Planner is from Tools4Wisdom.

TIME: Make sure to allocate your time appropriately. If you think that you can make dinner while on a conference call, you’re deceiving only yourself. You”ll end up burning something while not catching exactly what was just delegated to you – it’s a lose-lose situation. Know when you are your most productive/attentive and schedule your important tasks and calls during that time. What’s worked best for me is to get my husband and my daughter situated into their schedules then let them know that unless someone is about to lose a limb, I’m not available to feed, help, answer questions, or problem solve for them during these specific hours. This way I can fully focus on my WORK. I’m a firm believer of giving your commitments 100% of yourself during the allotted times. Being present (whether for my family or my work) is my number one!

GOALS: Make sure to set achievable DAILY/WEEKLY goals for yourself. If you skip this skep, I promise you, the “groundhog day” effect will consume your WFH experience. Be intentional about what you’re doing.

TASKS: These are your “must-do’s” for the day. List out what your deliverables are. Prioritize them according to brain-power-required tasks and deadlines. I often like to do the task that requires the most focus first then work my way down the list. I know that most people will want the satisfaction of checking things off of their to-do list so then they will zip through all of the easy tasks first. Most always, one will hit their mid-morning slump (regardless of what time that is) right before they are about to tackle the biggest ask of them. Then they realize that they don’t have the bandwidth to make it happen – & make it happen well – so then it gets pushed aside “until tomorrow.” So learn to prioritize early on.

TASKS In Lieu Of: Commuting takes what?… 10 minutes? 70 minutes? Whatever tasks that are on your to do list today, allot your commute time to a task that may be on your busy list that you just need to get done. Tasks that not so important to your work or something at home, but a task nonetheless. Good examples are cleaning out the junk drawer, organizing files (paper or electronically), updating due dates, going through old clothes, etc. These tasks can happen while I throw in a load of laundry or listen in on a webinar. Now, you obviously don’t have to do it during the actual time that you used to commute, but use that time for these BUSY WORK tasks. By the end of this “shelter-in-place” era of our lives, you’ll be surprised at how many “little projects” you’ve been able to tackle and how much more your life flows within each day, without becoming overwhelmed.

The ultimate to-do: organizing the Junk Drawer

So that’s it. These are some of the things that I’ve learned through trial and error, as well as, some burnt dinners – LOL! If you’d like to hear more about each of these areas on multitasking, come and check out my podcast: His Kind Of Lady, launching TUESDAY, July 14th, 2020 on Spotify & Apple Podcast.

I’m so excited to hear back from you to see what you were able to accomplish today!

Be Intentional ~