Time Mastery - Remove the interference and learn how to take charge of your days

Have you ever had one of those seasons where you’re doing a lot but you’re not entirely sure whether anything is actually moving forward? You’re showing up, putting in the hours, keeping the plates spinning, doing the invisible work that nobody sees… and yet when you sit down at the end of the week, you find yourself wondering whether any of it is genuinely shifting the needle. It’s one of the most common phases people go through in life and business, and yet it’s one of the least trusted.

What I’ve noticed, both in myself and in the people I work with, is that these slow, muddy, in-between seasons often appear right before something significant begins to move. They feel frustrating because you’re working - sometimes harder than ever - but the results aren’t showing up on your timeline. I’ve had days recently where I’ve been working till midnight, head down, building foundations behind the scenes that nobody will see until months from now. And yet, underneath the tiredness, there’s this quiet understanding that time and energy invested now always pay dividends later - but only if you’re investing them in the right places.

And this is the part people get stuck on. There’s a big difference between being busy, being productive, and being effective.

Busy people fill their days. Productive people tick boxes. Effective people move their life or business forward in meaningful ways.

Most people think they have a time problem, but what they actually have is an interference problem - the unseen noise, emotional static, nervous system activation, and mental clutter that scatters their energy and dilutes their impact long before action even begins.

Think of it like this: you can spend an entire day in motion and still not be in momentum. You can work all day and end up feeling as though nothing truly changed. You can clear your inbox, update your website, reply to messages, tweak something here, adjust something there… but none of those things necessarily move you toward the result you actually care about.

This is interference - and it comes in forms we don’t always recognise.

For some people, interference shows up as mental noise: the overthinking, second-guessing, worrying, catastrophising, and rehearsing of scenarios that haven’t even happened yet. The mind feels loud, busy, full - but nothing meaningful is happening. We can do a whole day's work in our heads, worrying about things, before we've even got out of bed.

For others, interference takes the shape of emotional distraction. I'm not talking about Netflix or doom-scrolling; I'm talking about avoidance (in the form of productivity) fooling you into thinking you're being effective. It’s the endless small tasks that feel important but quietly pull you away from the one thing that would genuinely make a difference. How clean is your house and how empty is your bank balance?

Then there’s the interference of demand - the pressure, urgency, deadlines, and reactive days where your nervous system is so activated that your clarity disappears and everything becomes about coping rather than creating. Often this is caused by your desire to be productive so you can feel like you have made progress. It's a vicious cycle. You get a good feeling from ticking things off, but you aren't willing to give up the things you're ticking off, in order to take the most important action that will get you results in the long term.

And then, there's alignment. This is where things feel clearer, simpler, cleaner; where your inner world and your outer actions match; where you’re not pushing, or proving anything, but moving from flow. Most people believe this state is a luxury or something that arrives when life finally becomes calm. But what I have seen is that alignment is something you reach by navigating the other dimensions well. It’s the natural result of lowering interference and getting truly present.

Some seasons feel slow even when they’re leading you somewhere important. And because we don't trust that things are happening, we tend to cram more in to feel better and more secure. Our "productive" habits show up again.

But if you're in aligned action, behind the scenes, roots are forming. Old stories are loosening. New clarity is emerging. People often mistake these foundational seasons for “nothing happening,” when in reality they’re some of the most productive, powerful, and necessary periods of growth they’ll ever go through.

But back to this distinction I referenced earlier - how do you move from productive to effective? You start by identifying the one needle-moving action that actually matters. Not the twenty small tasks that give you the sensation of progress but change nothing. The one thing that would move you closer to the result you genuinely want. If you only achieved one thing today, which one would matter most in three months or three years from now? That’s the question that changes everything.

From there, the shift is surprisingly simple. Notice the pattern - noise? avoidance? Name what’s happening: is this truth or story. Narrow your focus to the action that truly matters. And then nurture your system - calm your physiology, slow your breath, ground yourself - so you can take action from a clear, centred place rather than a reactive one. This is the difference between force and effectiveness. Between motion and momentum. Between ticking boxes and creating results that actually matter.

If you’re in a season where you’re working hard but the results aren’t visible yet, take a look at what you're working on. If your actions are in alignment with your vision for your life, you’re not doing it wrong. You’re not failing. You're not behind. You’re on your way!

But if, when you take a look, and notice you are busy, or productive, but not effective. Go back to the question I have given you here. And get back into aligned action. Once interference melts, you’ll be surprised at how quickly things start to move - not because you start pushing harder, but because you start operating from a clearer state of mind.