It works on the calendar, not on willpower
You will move appointments, change the hours you answer email and rewrite one line in your client onboarding note. Nobody is asked to want it more.
Denver, CO · online · six weeks
Two quiet hours a day, kept on purpose.
Quiet Hours is a course for people who work for themselves. You pick the two hours of the day that matter most, put them where nobody can take them, and learn what to do when someone tries. Six lessons, one a week, at your own pace.
$240 for the whole course. Nothing to install, no app to keep paying for.
- Two hours nobody books over. One task, phone in a drawer.
- One hour for email, messages and calls, at the same time daily.
- The rest of the day, still open for clients and small jobs.
Why another course about focus
Most advice on this was written for people with a boss.
Turn off notifications, block your calendar, say no. Fine advice if someone else owns your schedule. When you own it, and your income sits in the inbox you were told to close, the advice falls apart by Tuesday. This course starts from the other side.
Written for people with clients
Every week deals with the same problem from a different side: a person who pays you wants something now, and the answer is not simply to ignore them.
No app, no tracker, no membership
You need a calendar you already use and a piece of paper. The course ends after six weeks and does not renew. There is no group chat to keep up with afterwards.
Small, dull, measurable steps
One habit a week, tested on your own week and written down. If a step does not survive contact with your work, you keep the part that did and drop the rest.
What this course will not do: promise you more money, more clients or a different life. Two protected hours a day is the whole offer. What you put in them is your business.
The change, drawn
Same ten hours. Different shape.
Below is one working day before and after the third week. Nothing was added and nothing was cut. The pieces were moved.
The programme
Six weeks, one lesson each.
Every lesson runs about forty minutes and ends with one thing to try during the week. The next lesson starts by asking how it went.
Week one
Find out where the day goes
You change nothing this week. You write down what you did in half-hour lines, on paper, and at the end you read it back. Most people are surprised twice: by how little clear time there was, and by which interruptions they invited themselves.
This week: seven days of lines. Ten seconds each.
Week two
Pick the two hours
Not the hours that are free, the hours when you think best. We go through how to tell the difference, what to do when those hours are already full, and how to put the block in the calendar so it looks like an appointment to everyone who can see it.
This week: the block exists, five days running.
Week three
Hold it when someone pushes
The week the block gets tested. Email in two windows instead of all day. A reply time you promise on purpose and can keep. Three sentences you can send to a client who expects you within minutes, written so it reads as service, not as a refusal.
This week: two email windows, nothing between them.
Week four
One task in the block, not five
Two hours disappear fastest when you bring a list into them. You learn to pick the single piece of work the night before, to cut it down until it fits, and to stop mid-sentence so tomorrow starts without a warm-up.
This week: one named task per block, chosen the evening before.
Week five
Arrange the rest of the day
Invoices, calls, quotes, admin and the work that pays the bills but needs no depth. We group them into two parts of the day and give each a home, so nothing has to interrupt the block to get done on time.
This week: admin has a slot, and it is not the morning.
Week six
What to do after a bad week
A deadline, a sick child, a trip, a month where none of it holds. The last lesson is about restarting from one block on one day rather than starting the whole thing again, and about deciding in advance which weeks are allowed to be a write-off.
This week: write your own restart rule, one sentence.
Afterwards
What you should be able to do by the end.
Plain outcomes, in your own week. Nothing here depends on buying anything else.
- Name your two hours and defend them You know which part of the day is worth protecting, and the block sits in the calendar where clients and family can see it.
- Answer email at set times Two windows a day, a reply promise you can keep, and a short note that tells clients when to expect you.
- Start a block without a warm-up The task is chosen before you sit down, cut to the size of the block, and left in a state you can pick up again.
- Recover a week instead of abandoning it When a week falls apart, you have a written rule for restarting, and you use it the next morning rather than the next month.
Who teaches it
The person at the front.
Sample profile — replace before launch
Marta Ellis, illustrator and course author
Everything in this block is placeholder copy, written so the layout can be seen with real sentences in it. The details below are invented and should be swapped for the actual teacher's biography, city and working history before the site goes live.
Sample text: fifteen years of freelance illustration work for magazines and publishers, four of them while raising two children. Wrote the first version of this course for a group of six people who shared a studio in Denver, and has taught it since.
Nothing on this page invents students, results, reviews or numbers. Where proof belongs, the space is left empty until there is something true to put in it.
Price
One payment, and that is the end of it.
$240
for the six-week course, paid once
- Six recorded lessons, about forty minutes each, released one a week. The recordings stay yours.
- A live question session each week, one hour, at a time announced before the group starts. Recorded for anyone who cannot attend.
- A printable tracking sheet and a short workbook, one page per week, made to be written on by hand.
- The client note and reply-time wording from week three, ready to paste into your own email.
No upsell at the end, no advanced tier, no membership. If the course is not for you, the honest answer is a refund, not a second product.
What people who took it say
Nothing goes in this box until someone has finished the course and written it themselves.
Reserved for real students
The first group has not finished yet, so there is nothing honest to put here. An empty box is better than words nobody said.
When there are reviews, they will sit here with first names and the kind of work each person does, so you can judge whether they resemble you.
Before you decide
Questions people ask first.
How much time does the course itself take?
About forty minutes of video a week, plus the live question hour if you want it. The homework is meant to fit inside the day you already have: writing a line every half hour, moving one appointment, sending one note. If a week's task needs an extra evening, it is written wrong.
Is it live or recorded?
Lessons are recorded, so you watch them when it suits. The question session each week is live, and it is recorded too. Nothing expires when the six weeks end.
My clients expect fast replies. Will this cost me work?
Week three is about exactly this. The aim is a reply time you state up front and actually keep, which most clients prefer to an answer that sometimes arrives in four minutes and sometimes in two days. If your work genuinely requires being reachable all day, say so in the form below and we will tell you honestly whether the course fits.
Do I need any particular app?
No. A calendar you already use, an email account, and paper. If you prefer software for the tracking week, use it, but nothing in the course depends on a tool you have to buy.
What if I miss a week?
You carry on where you stopped. Lessons are released weekly but stay available, and the sixth week is written for people whose plans came apart at least once. That happens to nearly everyone.
Is this for a particular kind of work?
It suits people whose work has a deep part and a shallow part: writers, designers, developers, illustrators, translators, bookkeepers, consultants. If your day is entirely calls and errands, there is no block to protect, and the course will not help.
Can I get a refund?
Yes, through the end of week two, no explanation needed. That gives you two full lessons and two weeks of trying it before you decide. (Sample terms for this demo page, to be confirmed by the course owner before launch.)
When does the next group start?
Dates for the next group are being set. Leave your email in the form below and you will hear the start date first, with no other mail in between.
Enrolment
Join the next group.
Tell us a little about your work and which hours you would protect if you could. You will get the start date and the payment link, and nothing else.