What would work look like if it actually fit your life?
It's Tuesday morning, three years from now...
Last chance!
This Tuesday, Sept 16 2025, I'm hosting my final free New Work Masterclass of the year: The Future of Work is Personal. One hour, one workbook, one pause to design work that truly fits your life.
It's a chance to pause, reflect, and design work that truly fits your life. If you sign up, you'll receive a workbook to help you sketch out a life that serves you – a mini version of what we explore in CoR Thrive.
I hope to see some familiar faces in these spaces – and to welcome new ones too.
And speaking of CoR Thrive, I'll soon be starting the final cohort of 2025 at the end of September. If you've been waiting for the right moment to dive deeper – this is your moment. Join the waitlist now, and save a sweet extra, if you join us.
Graziella
What If You Designed Your Work Around Your Life, Not the Other Way Around?
It's a Tuesday morning three years from now. You're starting your workday.
You wake up naturally: no alarm shrieking you into consciousness. Your first coffee happens slowly, maybe with a book, maybe watching light shift across your kitchen table. You check your calendar and smile instead of wince. Two deep-work blocks, one collaboration session with people you genuinely enjoy, and space to breathe between it all.
The work you're doing matters to you. Not in a "find your passion" Instagram way, but in a quiet, sustainable way that aligns with how you're actually wired. Your Tuesday brain gets Tuesday-shaped work. Your energy rhythms aren't fighting your schedule. They're dancing with it.
You have time for lunch. Actual lunch, not desk-scarfing or meeting-munching. You take a walk without feeling guilty. The workday ends when the light softens. Really ends. Your evening belongs to you, your family, your hobbies, your glorious, unproductive wandering.
What's different? What's the same? What would you protect at all costs?
The Permission Problem
Here's what's wild: most of us can envision this Tuesday in detail. We know what would need to shift. We can practically taste the slower coffee, feel the relief of a calendar that breathes.
But then we slam the laptop shut on the vision.
"That's not realistic."
"I can't afford to experiment."
"Other people don't have these options."
"I should be grateful for what I have."
A fellow Substacker, Jules Gregory, replied to one of my notes about this:
"Employees are sometimes like tamed domesticated creatures, who don't claim their sovereignty over their lives."
She's right. It is a choice. And a privilege, if we're among the lucky ones who can choose.
We've been trained to see work-life design as selfish, naive, or available only to trust-fund millennials with meditation apps. So we keep our dreams small and our experiments smaller.
But what if the opposite were true? What if designing work around life wasn't indulgent – but essential? What if it was the most practical thing you could do for your long-term productivity, relationships, and sanity?
The Quiet Revolution
The people living closer to that Tuesday vision? They didn't win the lottery or inherit startups. They made different choices, often small ones, accumulated over time.
They questioned the premise that busy equals important. They experimented with boundaries until they found ones that held. They measured success by time wealth, not just financial wealth. They designed for their actual energy patterns instead of pretending to be productivity robots.
Most importantly, they gave themselves permission to want something different. To imagine. To tinker. To protect what mattered.
Some work remotely. Some don't. Some are entrepreneurs. Some work for others. The common thread isn't the structure. It's the intentionality. They designed their work around their values, not around what everyone else was doing.
The Framework Question
The bridge between your current Tuesday and your dream Tuesday isn't motivation. It's method.
You need a way to map what actually matters to you – not what you think should matter, but what genuinely lights you up and what quietly drains your soul. You need experiments that feel safe enough to try but meaningful enough to shift something real.
Most importantly, you need a community of people who aren't just dreaming about different Tuesdays. They're actuallybuilding them. Because individual courage is powerful, but collective courage is unstoppable.
When you're surrounded by people redesigning work and life on their own terms, the "impossible" starts feeling inevitable. The radical becomes practical. The Tuesday vision stops being fantasy and starts being Tuesday.
Your Future Tuesday
So here's the question that changes everything: if you could design your ideal Tuesday three years from now, what would you protect at all costs?
The answer matters more than you think. Because once you know what you're designing toward, every small choice becomes a vote for that future or against it.
The way you respond to that meeting request. The boundary you set (or don't set) today. The experiment you try this week. The community you choose to learn alongside.
Your Tuesday vision isn't just a nice thought – it's a compass.
If this vision excites you, you'll love what's coming next week. I'm opening something special for people ready to stop dreaming about different Tuesdays and start building them. Sign up here, if you want to be part of this:
P.S. The most dangerous phrase in work-life design? "I'll start when..." The second most dangerous? "That's not realistic." Sometimes the most realistic thing you can do is honor what you actually want.
I'm a Learning Design Alchemist who helps changemakers rediscover vitality and make work meaningful. Subscribe for weekly reflections on values, energy rhythms, and portfolio living.