COMPASSIONATE PRODUCTIVITY

a 6-week online workshop

This is your situation:

  • You have a meaningful project you need to get on with - a piece of writing, a research project, a new venture or a new role

  • You may be neurodivergent or highly sensitive, or have difficulty regulating your energy, attention and emotion.

  • You’re not making progress because of any or all of the following things:

    • an overwhelming workload - in your personal and professional life

    • impostor syndrome

    • perfectionism

    • procrastination

    • fear of making the wrong choices

    • fear of mediocrity

    • fear of criticism / ridicule

    • inability to say no to extra work

And maybe this is also happening:

  • You just realistically do not have a lot of time

  • Work anxiety is impacting your personal life

  • You feel guilty any time you are not working

  • You aren’t experiencing pleasure or enjoyment

  • You are relentlessly self critical

  • You ruminate anxiously about what other people think of you

  • You fantasise about giving up and running away

You know you need to be kinder to yourself.

But you’re not 100% sold on the idea.

After all, life isn’t going to stand still while you work through your issues.

Find a way to work that works better for you.

Compassionate Productivity is a six-week programme for people who live by their brains.

It is founded on the premise that you wouldn’t be doing the work you do if you didn’t have a hungry, restless, demanding mind.

This mind will not be told what to do. It might hold a lot of the liveliness and rebelliousness and humour and spontaneity that has been conditioned out of you.

In its own way, it wants the best for you.

You have to work with it, not against it.

This is what you’ll learn to do:

  • Acknowledge your talents without apology

  • Identify your lagging skills without shame

  • Reorganise the way you live and work to optimise flow and fulfilment

  • Clarify your values & prioritise accordingly

  • Find ways to say no that you can cope with

    … so that you can find more ease, confidence, and pleasure in your life, and your relationship with yourself.

I’ll be doing this with you.

My name is Kate Ahl. For 20 years, as a book editor and later as an in-house therapist for Cambridge University faculty and staff, I have come to know intimately the difficulties of creating intellectual work under pressure.

I am tired of seeing people with lively, creative, unusual minds haunted by the fear of wasting their potential, and constrained by outdated assumptions about what matters most in work, learning and life.

I want you

to feel connected and energised, so you can have the impact we need you to have in the world.

How it works:

  • You’ll be given access to a curriculum of video explorations of each weekly topic, and ‘homework’ in the form of journal prompts and worksheets.

  • You’ll take part in weekly, 60-minute video calls to consolidate and discuss what you’ve been working on.

  • Each call will involve:

    • a check-in

    • group discussion

    • ‘spotlight’ coaching for participants who want to work through a particular issue

  • You will also get:

    • Asynchronous Q&A.

      This means you can send me as many questions as you like - anonymously if you wish - throughout the duration of the course. I will respond by video once a week to all the questions I’ve received.

      This means you don’t miss out on my input if you don’t like asking questions in a group, or if a question doesn’t occur to you until after the call.

    • Forever access to the asynchronous Q&A sessions and all course materials.

What happens next:

  • Apply by clicking the button on this page.

    • You’ll need to click ‘apply’ again on the workshop registration page, then click on your ‘cart’ (which you’ll find in the lower right corner of your screen)

    • You’ll be asked for contact information & a couple of brief questions about yourself. (Your questionnaire responses are destroyed after completion of the workshop.)

    • You’ll make payment for the workshop & check out.

  • You’ll receive an automated email with a brief questionnaire to fill in, and an invitation to schedule a 30-minute intake call with me.

  • Once I’ve received your questionnaire, you’ll get the workshop pre-work and log-in details for the workshop webpage.

Here’s what we’ll do week by week:

Week 1: Values

We’ll identify the values at the centre of your personal and professional life, to guide you as you choose where to spend your energy.

Week 2: Skills Audit

We’ll take stock of your strengths and compassionately accept the things you struggle with, so that you can maximise satisfaction and minimise frustration.

Week 3: Prioritising

You’ll identify your top priorities and consciously de-prioritise everything else. You’ll acknowledge the need to say no, turn things down, let things go - and we’ll find ways to make this less painful for you.

Week 4: Internal Conflicts

You’ll identify the parts of yourself that get locked in power struggles with one another, and find ways to de-escalate the conflicts that keep you stuck and unhappy.

Week 5: Support & Encouragement

We’re going to identify the support you need for your lagging skills, and the boosters you need to amplify your strengths, and make practical plans to put these in place.

Week 6: Consolidation & Commitment

We will consolidate our work and you’ll commit to a framework for making decisions about how you spend your time and energy, based on your values and priorities, making the best use of your talents without requiring of you things you just can’t do.

Dates and times:

TBC

Deadline for applications: TBC

This is a small group experience, so numbers are limited.

Cost:

Compassionate Productivity costs £500.

This includes forever access to the course materials and asynchronous Q&A videos.

This programme is for you if:

  • your livelihood depends on intense intellectual / cognitive / creative work

  • you struggle with regulating your attention, energy and emotion

  • you want to feel fulfilled without so much anxious striving

  • you want to explore all areas of your life, not just work

  • self-compassion sounds good in theory, but you don’t know how to put it into practice

  • you understand that cultural expectations and structural inequalities influence individual coping mechanisms - and you also want the space to explore your own unique and personal circumstances.

  • you want greater freedom and choice in how you live and work

  • you are ready to make changes now

This programme is not for you if:

  • you are looking for off-the-peg productivity hacks

  • you are chiefly interested in increasing your own or someone else’s work output

  • you are looking for an authoritarian, boot-camp experience

  • you want theory-based learning rather than an experiential process

  • you are not open to changing some of the expectations you hold for yourself or others

  • you aren’t able to commit 2-3 hours a week to engage with the workshop materials and exercises

Q&A:

Is this a therapy group?

No. This is a structured, supportive, group coaching experience. You will be working through 6 ‘modules’ alongside other group members, and weekly calls will involve a mixture of psychoeducation, reflective exercises, discussion, and spotlight coaching. Discussions can build a sense of solidarity in common experiences within the group, and this can be powerful and motivating, but there is no pressure to make any personal disclosures you’re not comfortable with.

How much time should I dedicate to this?

Each session lasts an hour, and there are exercises, worksheets and other activities to do in between sessions. Plan to spend about 2-3 hours a week for the worksheets and other activities.

I can’t make all these times. Is that a problem?

You’ll get the most out of this group if you’re able to join live - but if you need to miss one of the calls, you can still ask any questions you like via asynchronous Q&A and I’ll respond via video.

What is your refund policy?

If it becomes clear during the intake process that this programme is not a good fit for you, your fee will be refunded in full.

Once you have started the programme there are no refunds. You will get the most out of this programme if you go into it fully committed, rather than leaving yourself the option to de-prioritise it if you feel pressed for time - as it the pattern for people who routinely overwork. We are trying to change that pattern.

Do I need to do any prior reading?

None at all.

You’re in the UK and I am based somewhere else. Can I still join?

Absolutely. You may join from anywhere. Please note, though, the times for the group are stated in GMT.

Those dates again:

TBC

Cost: £500

Any other questions?

Feel free to drop me a line at kate@kateahlconsulting.com, and I will respond in two working days.