Burn the WTF Pile: How to find Step One of any plan

Five steps, one dawn, zero chaos. Works for content or life.

Day 88/100

 

Hey—It's Tim. 

Reporting from this time last year.

York, England.
Grey drizzle, cobbled lanes, and my entire life in cardboard boxes.
I was flogging desk lamps on Facebook Marketplace to fund a one-way ticket to Vancouver.

Between suitcase Tetris and HMRC paperwork my content strategy looked like 15 year old Tim’s bedroom floor: ideas everywhere, nothing folded.

For times like this.
When you have to take a step back and figure out your next move.
I’ve got a strategy I fall back on.
Every time.

5 moves. Works for content. Works for anything. Steal it.

0. Why 5 a.m. or bust

I’ve tried afternoon resets.
By 2 p.m. Slack is a carnival and my brain’s a sponge.
So the rule is simple:

  1. Decide tonight. Close the laptop by 9.

  2. Alarm 04:55.

  3. Coffee, desk, silence — souhbiye (Arabic for that hushed dawn vibe).

If the birds aren’t gossiping yet, you’re on time

1. Pull the Plug (24-Hour Digital Blackout)

  • Phone to airplane mode.

  • Laptop lid down.

  • No “quick check” of Ahrefs, Notion, or X.

Why? Quiet equals clarity. You can’t hear the big idea over Slack pings.

2. Brain → Table Dump

Grab a stack of index cards (paper > pixels) and unload:

  • Article angles

  • Keyword obsessions

  • Half-written hooks

  • Random shower thoughts (“SEO for pigeons?”)

  • literally everything

As long as it takes. One thought per card. Zero filtering..

3/ The Four-Stack Sort (timer: 25 min)

Stack

Name

Fate

1

North Star

Directly moves the metric (newsletter subs for me)

2

Supporting Cast

Helps Stack 1 shine (distribution, CTAs)

3

Inspiration Pile

Interesting but not urgent. File for rainy days

4

The BURN Pile

“Why the &%$ am I thinking about this?”
Dragging you down. Torch or delegate

Pro tip: Stack 4 is always bigger than you think. Burn freely.

4. Two-Step Roadmap

Kitchen lesson from my chef days: you only ever know two things:

What are you doing now?
What are you doing next?

So:

  1. Lay out the North Star cards: Now.

  2. Slide one Supporting Cast card above or below.

    1. This is what comes next.

    2. Or what enables the North Star.

  3. Snap a photo. That’s today’s playbook. Everything else waits.

Tomorrow you’ll promote a “Next” to “Now” and slide a fresh card underneath.
Infinite momentum, zero overwhelm.

5. The Public Contract

140-character promise in the group chat / Twitter / Slack:

“By July 31 the ‘York → Vancouver’ series drops & subs double. Hold me to it.”

Accountability is cheaper than another espresso.
And twice as potent.

Why do you think I told every one I was doing this for 100 days?

Optional turbo-mode

When deadlines laugh in your face, deploy the 5 White Monsters, 3 All-Nighters, and a Dream protocol: caffeinate, sprint, sleep on the plane. Physicians hate this trick.

If you enjoyed this, I put a bunch of bonus tweaks to this process on Twitter.
Like, RT, forward to friends. It really does help :D

 

Quick menu recap

  1. Early-bed / 5 a.m. wake - souhbiye silence.

  2. Card dump - brain on the table.

  3. Four-stack sort - keep, support, shelve, incinerate.

  4. Now / Next roadmap - chef-simple focus.

  5. Public contract - skin in the game.

Works for content strategy, product pivots, wedding plans, you name it.
Because clarity at dawn beats chaos at lunch every single time.

 

✌️ Tim "Sunrise Strategist" Hanson
CMO @Penfriend.ai

Same brain, different platforms: X, Threads, LinkedIn.

P.S. If you bought a £5 desk lamp from a frantic bloke in York last summer - congrats, you indirectly sponsored this newsletter

 

Penfriend.ai
Made by content marketers. Used by better ones.
 

What to do next

  • Share This Update: Know someone who’d benefit? Forward this newsletter to your content team.

  • Get your First 3 Articles FREE EVERY MONTH! We just dropped the biggest update we’ve ever done to Penfriend a few weeks ago. Tone matching with Echo, Hub and Spoke models with Clusters, and BoFu posts.

  • Let Us Do It For You: We have a DFY service where we build out your next 150 articles. Let us handle your 2025 content strategy for you.