NESS

LABS
Welcome to the 7-Days to Mindful Productivity worksheet!
The summaries, checklists, and prompts are designed to
complement the email course, providing you with helpful
actionable exercises to put the lessons into practice.

As you progress through each lesson, use this worksheet

side-by-side to check off action items from the checklists
and fill out the prompts. These will help reinforce your
WORKSHEET learning and track your progress.

7-Days to Mindful Productivity
By the end of the course, you will have taken the first steps
to building better goals, managing your stress, and
reflecting on your progress. With flexible consistency and
an experimental mindset, you will gain the confidence and
the clarity needed to do the things that matter to you
without sacrificing your mental health.

I’m excited for you to unlock your potential with mindful

productivity!

– Anne-Laure Le Cunff
If this worksheet was forwarded to you, Founder of Ness Labs
follow this link to receive the full lessons:

NESSLABS.COM/7-DAYS
LESSON 1 CHECKLIST
How to Design Better Goals
Identify goals where I have fallen prey to
the arrival fallacy
• Achieving goals often leads to the “arrival fallacy,” a sense of
dissatisfaction upon realizing that the outcome doesn’t bring the Convert one of those linear goals into a
expected fulfillment. That’s because focusing on rigid linear goals
growth loop by designing my first pact
sets us up for disappointment when reality doesn’t align with our
expectations.
IN PRACTICE
• A better strategy is to use flexible growth loops, which focus on
cycles of experimentation rather than a fixed endpoint. A growth loop
MY PACT IS TO
involves committing to a new action (Pact), actively engaging in it
(Act), reflecting on the experience (React), and deciding on the
changes needed to improve it (Impact).

• This approach shifts the focus from achieving a specific result to a

continuous process of learning and adaptation. It encourages you to
embrace uncertainty as an opportunity for growth and helps in
building deeper self-knowledge as progress organically emerges
more from experiences rather than artificial milestones.

• To create your first growth loop, start by designing a pact that is

time-bound and actionable and approach it with an experimental
mindset geared towards exploration and learning, discarding the
toxic productivity notion of binary success or failure.

2
LESSON 2 CHECKLIST
A System for Flexible Consistency
Block time in my calendar for my pact

• Pursuing rigid consistency often backfires because life is Write down a contingency plan for the
unpredictable. A better approach is flexible consistency which most likely disruptions
combines proactive planning with reactive adaptation when
disruptions inevitably occur.

• Mindful time-blocking is an effective tool for flexible consistency. IN PRACTICE

Be selective about what you block time for, but build in flexibility to
move or shorten blocks as needed. Some progress is better than
IF
nothing.
(disruption)
• Plan for disruptions by creating simple “if/then” contingency plans
to adapt your schedule when the unexpected occurs.

• Prioritize maintaining a schedule over achieving a set scope of work. THEN

It’s better to reduce the scope of the activity (like running a shorter (solution)
distance or writing fewer words) than to skip it entirely.

• Adopt a scientific mindset towards failure, treating each unexpected

outcome as valuable data to learn from, rather than as a setback.

3
LESSON 3 CHECKLIST
How to Manage your Stress
Identify my common distress and
eustress triggers
• Stress can either be eustress (“good stress”) that provides healthy
motivation, or distress (“bad stress”) that becomes paralyzing when Design my full-spectrum reset to use
demands exceed coping abilities. Your optimal performance level is
when I feel overwhelmed
the Goldilocks Zone between the two.

• While external factors cause stress, you can manage your internal IN PRACTICE
psychological, emotional, and behavioral responses to transform
distress into eustress.
When I notice myself feeling distressed, I will:
• Reframe your thoughts, cultivate positive emotions such as
curiosity and excitement, and set boundaries to prioritize health so
you can adapt to demands in a sustainable way. Reset my body by

• When overwhelmed by stress, do a full-spectrum reset: reset your

body, mind, and plan. The full-spectrum reset is also helpful for Reset my mind by
free-floating anxiety not tied to a specific trigger. It gets you unstuck
and back into your Goldilocks Zone.
Reset my plan by

4
LESSON 4 CHECKLIST
How to Think Better with Note-Making
Identify content I tend to passively
consume
• Note-taking is passive, but note-making actively engages with
information for better understanding and recall through the Choose a notes app to use for
Generation Effect.
note-making
• Note-making is an active alternative that enhances understanding
and recall through the Generation Effect, which involves deeply Try active note-making using the 3R
processing the information. It enhances memory, improves your framework
understanding, and cultivates intentional learning and living by
training you to actively process information.
IN PRACTICE
• Use the 3R framework to actively engage with the content: rephrase
information in your own words, relate ideas together to make
The content I passively consume and want to actively
connections, and revisit notes later to build on them over time.
engage with through note-making includes:

5
LESSON 5 CHECKLIST
How to Conduct a Weekly Review
Pick a consistent time and place for my
weekly review
• A weekly review provides direction beyond just a daily to-do list. By
tracking your progress and pivoting as needed, it provides a compass Add the Plus Minus Next template to my
to help you become more mindful of your productivity and foster
notes app
continuous growth.

• Plus Minus Next is a simple yet effective weekly review format IN PRACTICE
template. Use the first column (+) for what went well, the second
column (-) for what didn’t go as planned, and the last column (→) for
I will conduct my weekly review…
what you will focus on the following week.

• Pick a consistent time and place each week to remove cognitive load
of when and where and build the habit. WHEN

• Experiment with the format of your weekly review to find what

works best for you, for example by adding journaling prompts. WHERE

• Don’t beat yourself up or judge yourself harshly over bad weeks.

Instead, reflect with curiosity self-compassion to understand why
certain things went wrong.

6
LESSON 6 CHECKLIST
Grow Faster by Learning in Public
Identify who I want to learn with

• Learning in public involves sharing your progress and processes, Choose a platform to share my learning
not just end results. It can be as simple as writing a weekly internal journey
memo on learnings or asking more questions on social media instead
of just scrolling.
Take one small step to start learning in
• The benefits of learning in public include receiving early feedback, public (e.g. post a question, share
creating accountability, developing your metacognition, boosting work-in-progress, ask for feedback)
your creativity, and building your network.

• Overcome the fear of judgment by embracing radical transparency, IN PRACTICE

openly sharing doubts and admitting you don’t know everything.
This removes the pressure of sounding like an expert and normalizes
My learning in public pillars:
the messy process of growth.

• Identify your three pillars: People (the community you wish to

PEOPLE
connect with), Platform (where your audience is present and aligns (who)
with your goals), and Practice (start small sharing less risky aspects
before increasing vulnerability). PLATFORM

(where)
• Start small to build confidence. Identify your community and
platform, then share low-risk aspects of your work first before PRACTICE
progressively increasing vulnerability.
(what)
7
LESSON 7 CHECKLIST
The Path to Sustainable Success
Identify 3 habits to stay in my Goldilocks Zone

• Growth loops allow you to continually reassess progress and adjust Revisit Lessons 4 & 5 to ensure I have tools
your approach for continuous improvement. Once you complete your in place for note-making and reviewing
pact, you can continue on the same path, adjust the scope, or
abandon it if it no longer serves you.
Choose one action to make my system
• Stay in your Goldilocks zone of optimal performance by mindfully sustainable, such as finding a learning
managing your stress and prioritizing your well-being. Don’t forget community or an accountability partner
the fundamentals like sleep, nutrition, and social connections.

• Become a scientist of your own life and an agent of your own growth IN PRACTICE
through note-making, weekly reviews, and learning in public.
To stay in my Goldilocks Zone, I will: