What Is Elemental Time Ecology?
For most of my life, I thought I just needed a better planner.
A smarter system. A shinier app. A stricter calendar. Electronic. No, paper. No, six of them. (I do this.) Anything that would finally make me:
Show up on time, no matter what.
Follow through on the right things, even though I am a FactFinder-QuickStart through and through.
Stop oscillating between hyper-focus and “I’m on the couch scrolling, send help, or at least coffee.”
For a while, I blamed “nurture” factors like: my childhood spent adjacent to classroom activities without being included, my trauma and the hypervigilance it instilled, coping with loud extroverts as a 9/10 introvert, the corporate cultures that wanted my brain but not my whole self. It was easy to imagine that if I just healed my “stuff” truly enough, I’d become one of those people who loves color-coding their Google Calendar and never forgets to drink water.
I have, in fact, healed a lot. And yet… my nature is still my nature.
That’s what this work is about.
Meet My Elemental Mix (aka: Why Traditional Time Management Blows Up For Me)
If you’re new here, I work a lot with elements as a way of understanding how we move through the world:
Air – thoughts, ideas, communication, concepts, rational and cerebral stuff.
Water – emotions, intuition, relational tides, fluid and creative stuff.
Fire – drive, action, visibility, enthusiasm, energy and agency stuff.
Earth – body, money, home, logistics, containers, practical stuff.
My current self-assessment synthesis looks something like:
30% Air
30% Water
30% Fire
10% Earth
Which is… really balanced (my paradigm is the “triple engine”) but there’s not a lot of Earth. It used to be more imbalanced, before some big healing rounds, more like:
45% Air
20% Fire
25% Water
10% Earth
That older pattern meant I often lived:
In my head (Air)
Spiraling through ideas and possibilities (more Air)
Occasionally sprinting into action (Fire) to save my own skin, or someone else’s, or a really large corporation’s
Skimming the surface of my feelings (Water, but verrrrry compartmentalized)
And almost never anchored in my body or my logistics (Earth, which was outsourced, forced, and work-horsed…)
On paper, that looks like:
Smart, fast, articulate, “on it,” full of ideas, hyper-responsible for other people’s needs.
But internally? Often disconnected from my own emotions and my own action in the world.
And honestly? It looks disengaged, cold, reserved, and a little broken. I used to think that was just “how I am.” Later I realized: a lot of that was actually a trauma response. It was safer to stay in my head, to keep moving, to manage everyone else’s reality, than to feel my own or slow down enough to notice my pain. Once I stripped away the pieces that belonged to the effort to manage a misfit nurture, cope with dysfunctional systems, and outrun the claws and fangs of survival mode, do you know what I discovered?
I still have:
a highly active Air system
deep Water undercurrents
a potent Fire when it’s aligned
and… very little native Earth.
My nature didn’t magically become “balanced” just because I got healthier. It was still quite the struggle to manage my time, energy and attention through the systems and tactics that seem to work for the mainstream. Some of that is giftedness or neurodivergence. Some of that is that I am highly attuned to a lot of things, including miscalibrations in my environment. Some of which are self-created. Talk about a catch-22.
When Healing Isn’t Enough (For Your Calendar)
Here’s where a lot of gifted, sensitive, neurodivergent people get stuck:
We do therapy. We do somatic work.
We deconstruct productivity culture, among other constructs that don’t serve us.
We quit the job / leave the marriage / change the environment to reflect our true nature, not what we thought we were supposed to be back then.
We take off a ton of weight that never belonged to us. And then we go back to our days and realize: We still don’t fit the planning or task or time or energy management systems everyone else swears by.
Because even without the trauma compensations, our underlying nature is still:
not evenly elemental,
not factory-standard,
not built for linear, nine-equal-boxes, same-every-day structures.
If you are, say:
60% Earth, 20% Fire, 10% Water, 10% Air — you genuinely might love a rigid time-blocked calendar, a detailed habit tracker, and a chore chart. It can feel satisfying and soothing.
If you are more like me:
30% Air, 30% Water, 30% Fire, 10% Earth — that same system can feel like a cage, a criticism, or a guilt engine.
The problem isn’t that we’re “bad at time management.” The problem is that we’re trying to run an entirely different elemental ecosystem through the wrong climate.
Planning That Matches Your Actual System
This is why I talk about Elemental Time Ecology instead of “productivity hacks.” Because what we’re really doing is asking:
Given your nature (your elemental baseline, your nervous system, your cognitive/emotional wiring)
and your context (your season of life, caregiving, health, money, responsibilities)
— how does your system naturally want to manage energy, attention, and time?
Not: “How can we force you into the box that sells best on Instagram?”
But: “What is your ecosystem asking for?”
For me, that looks like:
With all that Air:
I need idea time that isn’t immediately monetized or turned into a task list. I need mental play (and partners for it).
I need space to map things visually and conceptually before I execute.
I have to watch for the “thinking as avoidance” trick: when I’m circling a problem intellectually instead of feeling it or acting on it.
With all that Water:
I need emotional check-ins as part of my planning, not an afterthought.
My energy is affected by my relational field: what’s happening with my kids, my clients, my people.
I do better when there’s ritual around beginnings and endings—of days, projects, seasons.
With all that Fire:
I respond well to short, focused sprints with a clear outcome.
I cannot do twelve tiny half-hearted tasks all day. It smothers the flame.
I need visible progress and moments of being “on stage” or I start to fizzle.
With very little Earth:
I need simple, forgiving containers, not 47-step systems. (Sorry, LME, couldn’t help it.)
I benefit from a few strong anchors in my week: appointments, routines, and financial practices that ground me.
I need help and structure around the boring-but-essential stuff: bills, forms, logistics, maintenance.
I actually use multiple tools that are mainstream, and a few custom ones. I just don’t use them all the way they are designed.
When I stopped expecting myself to be “balanced,” and instead started designing around this particular mix, my life got a lot saner. Not because I became more disciplined. Because I became more accurate and honest about my capacities—and integrity is an accelerator.
Nature + Nurture + Now
Here’s the key piece I want to name:
Yes, a lot of us have patterns that came from trauma, misfit environments, and survival strategies. Those deserve tenderness, attention, and sometimes professional support.
AND… underneath that, there is a real, enduring nature. An elemental baseline. A way your system runs when it’s not actively under attack.
Both matter.
If we only work on nurture, we risk:
Over-pathologizing traits that are actually neutral parts of our nature.
Assuming that once we heal, we’ll suddenly love the same systems as everyone else.
If we only work on nature, we risk:
Spiritualizing or romanticizing coping mechanisms that were actually born of harm.
Trying to “optimize” ourselves without addressing the pain points first.
Elemental Time Ecology is the space where those two things meet:
We name what came from misfit nurture, trauma responses, and over-responsibility.
We also name what is just… you. Your elemental balance. Your particular cocktail of Air, Water, Fire, Earth.
And then we design your days, weeks, and seasons around that reality, not someone else’s template.
Why Generic Planning Systems Keep Failing You
If you’ve ever wondered why you can:
crush a crisis at work but can’t keep up a basic habit tracker,
hold complex, multi-layered projects but forget to eat lunch,
be incredibly reliable for others but chaotic with yourself…
…it might not be because you’re lazy, undisciplined, or flaky.
It might be because:
Your Air is overfed and your Earth is starving.
Your Water has been exiled to survive, so you don’t consider feelings when you plan.
Your Fire has been shamed, so you hide your drive until it explodes.
Your Earth has been overburdened, so your body is in quiet revolt.
Generic systems don’t account for:
the element you’re swimming in,
the ones you’re missing,
and the ones that got distorted by the environments you grew up and worked in.
They also don’t account for:
giftedness,
sensitivity,
trauma history,
or the invisible labor you’re doing in your relational field.
So you end up feeling like a failure inside a system that was never built for you. (I still sneer at time-blocking calendar templates that run from 5am to 5pm. I’m more likely to STILL be up at 5am, even though I am solidly in midlife and should know better by now. I was born in the middle of the night.)
What an Elemental Operating Manual Actually Does
When I talk about creating an Elemental Energy Operating Manual for someone, I’m essentially saying:
“Let’s look at your nature, your nurture, and your now—and then write you a small book of ‘this is how your system wants to move.’”
It’s not a list of “shoulds.” It’s a translation.
It might say things like:
“Given your heavy Air and Water, you need more bridges between emotion and action.”
“Given your low Earth, you need help with containers, not more shame about consistency.”
“Given your strong Fire and burnout history, you need structured sprints and mandatory cool-downs.”
“Given your current caregiving load, we’re not building a fantasy week; we’re designing a merciful one.”
In other words: We stop trying to terraform you into a different planet. We learn how to live well on the planet you already are.
If You See Yourself in This
If any part of you read this and thought:
“Oh. That explains a lot.”
“No wonder I keep bouncing off systems that work for everyone else.”
“I’ve done so much work on my trauma, but my days still don’t make sense.”
…then you’re exactly who I had in mind when I started building this work. You don’t need another planner that quietly assumes you are 50% Earth with a side of Fire, and enough air and water to pass as human. You need a way of planning that:
honors your elemental baseline,
acknowledges your history,
respects your current constraints,
and helps your future self feel supported instead of ambushed.
Whether you ever work with me directly or not, my invitation is this:
Stop asking, “Why can’t I just make myself fit this system?”
Start asking, “What does my elemental mix actually need to feel safe, resourced, and effective in time?”
That question alone changes everything. If you want company while you figure it out… you know where to find me.