My Semi Sorted Life
The challenge
Semi Sorted 73
73 days of becoming, across Home, Heart, Body and Soul. One rule, a colouring-page game you fill in as you go, and absolutely no streak-shaming. This is the anti-punishment challenge, and you can start it any day you like.
Why 73?
A season, not a sentence
A 73-day season is short enough to hold and long enough to change something. The year is built from them: 73-day seasons with a one-week reset between each, finished off with a four-week wind down over Christmas and New Year.
This isn't a one-off challenge you survive and then abandon. It's a rhythm the calendar runs on, so the habits you build actually have somewhere to live afterwards. The "new year" feeling, several times a year.
And yes, it's two days shorter than a certain punishing challenge. That's not an accident. New to the whole rhythms idea? Read why rhythms beat routines, it's the thinking behind everything here.
The one rule
Never miss three days in a row.
That's it. That's the whole rule. Two days off is grace, not failure. Day three is a choice. No streaks, because streaks punish. Rhythms forgive.
Home, Heart, Body & Soul
Four pillars, one whole life
The pillars aren't a to-do list. They're the four wheels on the car. They don't need equal air every day, but ignore one for long enough and the whole ride gets wobbly.
{Home}
Your space, your money, your meals. A calmer home lowers the noise on everything else, which is why it's usually the easiest place to start.
{Heart}
Your people: partner, kids, friends, community. Connection is the first thing to slip when life gets loud, and the thing you feel most when it's gone.
{Body}
Physical and mental health, movement, sleep, energy. You can't pour from empty, and midlife bodies renegotiate the deal without asking first.
{Soul}
Growth, creativity, learning, spirituality, the why. The part that's you, not just the roles you fill. It has to be intentional or it never happens.
The goal was never equal time in each. It's a regular check-in with all four, so the squeaky wheel gets noticed before it falls off. When life feels off, one of these four is usually where. That's the balanced ride.
It's a game now
Every day colours the picture
You're never choosing pass or fail. Every scored day earns XP and colours a piece of your season picture, so the only question is how much of it today earned. Skipping isn't punished, the picture just doesn't grow, and the picture is the whole point.
Did Something
5 XP · 1 piece. The semi sorted day: one real rhythm in each pillar, 15 to 30 minutes all up. Most days land here, and that's exactly the point.
Nailed It
10 XP · 2 pieces. The sorted day: the full rhythm, when capacity allows. A bonus, never the expectation, and it colours two pieces in two different pillars.
Grace Card
0 XP · the picture rests. Life happened and you played a card on purpose. Streak safe, logged, zero shame. Four cards in hand, and beating a Sunday boss wins one back.
You still build your own version of each day across the four pillars: {Home} · {Heart} · {Body} · {Soul}. If you couldn't do a rhythm on a 6/10 day, it's too big, so shrink it until you could. The old "Ugh, Fine" tier has retired: those two-minute minimums are simply what you do on a Grace Card day to be kind to tomorrow-you.
The tracker is the picture
One colouring page on the fridge
The tracker is a single printable: a storybook cottage built from 91 numbered stones. Every 5 XP colours the next stone in order, in the colour of whichever pillar worked hardest that day. No deciding at night, ever, the page always knows what's next.
By Day 73 the cottage isn't just finished or unfinished. It's a birdseye view of where your season actually went. Come out nearly all one colour and you'll know exactly which pillar you leaned on and which you forgot. The picture keeps you honest across all four, not just busy in one.
Each piece is coloured in that day's hardest-working pillar colour, and a Nailed It day's two pieces must be two different pillars. Some pieces can't be bought with XP at all: the windows light up as you level, chimney smoke appears once you've beaten three bosses, and the cat only colours in after your first comeback week. Because of course it does.
Ten levels, quick wins early
The ladder is front-loaded, so the first levels come fast. Season One's target is 350 XP: Level 10, Season Legend, which colours the heart above the door. About five scored days a week gets you there.
| L1 | Beginner | 0 XP |
| L2 | Finding Your Feet | 25 XP |
| L3 | Getting Momentum | 50 XP |
| L4 | On a Roll | 75 XP |
| L5 | Semi Sorted | 100 XP |
| L6 | Consistent | 150 XP |
| L7 | Thriving | 200 XP |
| L8 | Unstoppable | 250 XP |
| L9 | Cottage Keeper | 300 XP |
| L10 | Season Legend | 350 XP |
XP never resets and can't be lost. Past 350 the picture keeps going to 455 (Beyond Sorted), and the heart gets coloured on Day 73 no matter the score, because finishing a season is the win.
Sundays are Boss Battles
Every Sunday the weekly reset becomes a named enemy: the Kitchen Boss, the Budget Boss, the Appointment Boss (that GP booking you keep dodging). Pick whichever one is terrorising the week, but never fight the same pillar two Sundays running. Beat it and the day scores double XP and wins back one spent Grace Card. A bad week isn't a hole, it's a comeback setup.
Four Grace Cards, played on purpose
One card in each pillar colour, and any card covers anything. Cover a pillar when three rhythms happened but one had nothing left, and the day still scores its 5 XP. Cover a day when the whole thing fell over: 0 XP, streak safe, zero shame. They're limited, so they mean something. The one rule never moves: never miss three days in a row.
The whole point
From rhythms to habits to a lifestyle
The challenge isn't the goal. The life after it is. Every rhythm on your tracker is a habit in the making, and the tracker is a nursery, not a home.
1 · A rhythm
You're doing it on purpose. It needs the tracker, the colouring-in, the deliberate effort. That's not weakness, that's what new behaviours look like. Everything starts here, tiny and tended.
2 · A habit
It's doing itself. The landmark research on habit formation (Lally et al., University College London, 2010) found behaviours take on average about 66 days of repetition to become automatic, not the mythical 21. A 73-day season is longer than that average, on purpose. The same study found missing a single day made no measurable difference, which is why the one rule allows two.
3 · A lifestyle
It's just who you are. Habits pile up season after season while the tracker never gets heavier. A few seasons in, you're not someone trying to walk every day. You're someone who walks. James Clear calls this identity-based habits in Atomic Habits. Around here we call it always becoming, made real.
How the habits actually last
The graduation mechanic
At the end of each season, look at your four rhythms and ask: which one happened even on the bad days, without me deciding to? That one graduates off the tracker. It's a habit now, it's just life, and a new rhythm takes its empty slot.
You only ever "work on" four things, but the life underneath keeps accumulating: a couple of graduations a season adds up to a genuinely different life within a year or two, without a single punishing challenge. The goal was never a bigger list. It's an emptier one.
Every Sunday: the check-in
Five minutes, honest as you can be.
How did the week actually go? What's worth remembering? What are you going into next week with? Do any rhythms need adjusting? Adjusting isn't failing. It's the point.
The road to 2027
This year's seasons
These are my dates: Season One is my live experiment of an idea that's been in my head forever. Ride along with them, or build your own season just below. Same dates in both hemispheres, just with the weather swapped.
8 July – 18 September · 73 days
Southern winter into spring, northern summer into autumn. Day 37 halfway lands 13 August, then a one-week reset (19–25 September) to reflect and graduate a rhythm.
26 September – 7 December · 73 days
Southern spring into summer, northern autumn into winter. Halfway lands 1 November, Day 73 on 7 December, and then the year is done with the doing.
8 December – 3 January · 27 days
No tracker, no tiers, no rule. Southern high summer, northern midwinter: eat the ham or the roast accordingly. Season One of 2027 begins Monday 4 January, and you'll already be in motion.
Make it your own
Build your own season
You don't need my dates. Pick your Day 1, map your season, and put the dates on a calendar you'll actually look at. Or wait and join Season Two with me on 26 September.
Free printable, no sign-up
The season calendars
All three seasons on three A4 pages: every date, every Sunday check-in, the halfway milestones, the reset weeks, and the full moon cycle (new moon, quarters, full moon) marked on every page. Two editions, so your calendar names your seasons.
Same dates and same moons in both editions (AEST, UTC+10 — moon dates can shift by a day in your time zone). Only the seasons are swapped, so we're all crossing off the same days together.
It's a challenge, not a funnel, so these are straight downloads. Print yours, stick it up, cross the days off with whatever pen is closest.
Done dabbling
Follow the season as it happens
I'm doing my own Semi Sorted 73 right alongside you and documenting the whole thing, honest weekly check-ins included. The good days, the meh days, and the days ticked out of pure stubbornness.
Going through a patch that's bigger than a rhythm can fix? That's not a willpower problem. Here's where the real support lives.