So, I wanted to talk a bit about this “Kaitlin Koch” thing I’ve been trying out. Not a person, well, maybe it was originally, but for me, it’s become a kind of system, a way I’ve started to tackle my own little projects and to-do lists. You know how it gets, right? You’ve got a few things on the go – maybe some coding for that app idea, a blog post you’re trying to write, and then that online course you swore you’d finish. Before you know it, it’s just a jumble of half-starts.
That was me, totally. My digital workspace was a disaster zone, and my actual desk wasn’t much better. I’d jump from one thing to another, thinking I was multitasking, but really, I was just multi-failing. It was getting seriously frustrating, and I felt like I wasn’t actually finishing anything meaningful. I’d tried some of those fancy productivity apps and methods, but they always felt too complicated or rigid for how my brain actually works on a day-to-day basis.
Then, I kind of accidentally found this “Kaitlin Koch” approach. It wasn’t from a bestseller or some guru. I actually heard the basics of it from an old buddy during a phone call. He was rambling on about how his cousin, this Kaitlin Koch, managed her crazy freelance schedule and her own creative projects without losing her mind. He didn’t call it a “method,” just told me how she did things. It sounded pretty down-to-earth, not all full of jargon and complex rules.
So, I thought, what the heck, I’ll give it a shot. The very first thing I did was make a massive list. And I mean everything. Not just the big, important stuff, but all those little annoying tasks that hover in the back of your mind. Kaitlin, according to my friend, used a huge physical whiteboard for this. I don’t have space for that, so I used a mind-mapping tool on my computer. Honestly, just getting it all out of my head and onto the screen took a good couple of hours, but it felt pretty good.
Next up was what I started calling the “Koch Grouping.” This was the interesting bit. It wasn’t about sorting tasks by deadlines or by how important they were in that typical A-B-C priority way. Nope. It was about matching tasks to my own energy and mental state. She apparently sorted her stuff into three main types:
- Things that needed real brainpower, fresh thinking, creative juice – let’s call them “Focus Fuel” tasks.
- Things that were more routine, repetitive, stuff you could do when you’re a bit tired or just need to keep busy – the “Steady Eddies.”
- And then, the small, quick tasks that you can knock off easily and get that little buzz of accomplishment – “Quick Hits.”
I spent a whole Sunday afternoon going through my massive list and trying to slot everything into these three buckets. That new feature I wanted to code for my personal project? Definitely Focus Fuel. Answering a bunch of standard emails? Steady Eddie. Backing up my photo library? Quick Hit, for sure.
Putting it into Practice
Once I had my tasks sorted into these piles, the Kaitlin Koch way, or at least my interpretation of it, was pretty straightforward. Each day, I’d aim to tackle just one main Focus Fuel task, usually in the morning when my brain felt sharpest. Then, I’d mix in a couple of Quick Hits throughout the day, and dedicate a solid block of time to ploughing through some Steady Eddies. The real kicker, my friend emphasized, was that Kaitlin never forced herself to do a Focus Fuel task if she just wasn’t feeling it. If the brain wasn’t braining, she’d just switch to more Steady Eddies or clear out a bunch of Quick Hits. No guilt.
It felt a bit too simple at first, almost suspiciously so. I kept thinking, “Where’s the detailed planner? The sub-tasks? The Gantt chart?” But I made myself stick with it. I even got one of those small, cheap whiteboards and each morning I’d write down my “One Focus Fuel,” my “Two or Three Quick Hits,” and my main “Steady Eddie Block” for the day. Seeing it written down made it feel more real.
The first week or so was a bit wobbly. I often felt tempted to load up on more Focus Fuel tasks, because they felt more “valuable.” But then I’d just end up feeling frazzled and tired by afternoon. This Kaitlin Koch way seemed gentler, more about building a sustainable rhythm rather than sprinting all the time. It was about not constantly fighting my own energy levels.
It actually reminds me of when I decided to get into woodworking a few years back. I bought all these books, watched hours of videos, and got completely bogged down in the “right” way to do every little thing. My first few projects were stiff, overthought, and honestly, not much fun. Then I took a little evening class with this old timer, a chap named Bill. He just said, “Feel the wood, listen to your tools. Don’t force it.” And suddenly, things started to click. I started enjoying the process, and my pieces got better. This Kaitlin Koch thing has a similar vibe – less about rigid rules, more about finding a flow that works with you, not against you.
After about a month of doing this, things genuinely started to feel smoother. I was actually getting more projects finished. My digital life felt less chaotic. And the biggest win? Way less of that background hum of anxiety about all the things I wasn’t doing. If I had a day where I only had the energy for Steady Eddies and a few Quick Hits, that was okay. It was part of the system, not a failure. It stopped me from feeling like I’d completely fallen off the wagon if I didn’t have a super “productive” day by some arbitrary standard.
Now, it’s not like it’s solved all my problems overnight. I still have days where I get distracted by a shiny new idea, or when my to-do list seems to grow instead of shrink. But having this simple “Kaitlin Koch” framework in my back pocket gives me a reliable way to hit the reset button and get back to a manageable workflow without a ton of drama. It’s less about being a productivity machine and more about being, well, a productive human. I’ve even started using the same idea for my garden jobs – “Focus Fuel” for planning a new vegetable bed, “Steady Eddies” for the never-ending weeding, and “Quick Hits” for things like harvesting a few herbs. Works a treat there too!