In January 2026, I began seeing couples for the first time as a therapist-in-training. I’ll be the first to admit that I was like a puppy on July 4 when I saw the appointment scheduled on my calendar. Even though I’ve been in school studying to become a Marriage and Family Therapist for over a year now, there’s a big difference between reading about couples therapy in a book and actually doing it with real people sitting in front of you. As somebody who’s been through couples therapy as a client, I know how intense it can get. My mind was racing with all the different ways my first session could go. What will the couple want to talk about? What if they start fighting? What if they start yelling? Will I be able to maintain control of the session? All of these catastrophizing thoughts instantly reminded me of a concept we learned in class. It’s called the Battle for Structure. As a therapist, there are two battles you need to be aware of that are taking place in the room: the Battle for Structure and the Battle for Initiative. The Battle for Initiative needs to be the client’s responsibility. It’s the idea that the client needs to take their own initiative in wanting change to occur and for the inner work to get done. The therapist can’t do that part for them. The Battle for Structure, on the other hand, falls on the shoulders of the therapist. They must maintain the structure of the therapy session. They are the facilitator and should stay in control of the process. It requires a bit of wisdom to know when to let the couple work through intense conversations and when to jump in and intervene if things start going south. When I did my first few couples sessions, my Battle for Structure skills were definitely put to the test. There were several moments when I had to either sit back and let things unfold or jump in and stop the couple from escalating. It’s one of those skills that simply takes practice and repetition. Even though I was shaking in my boots the first time I began seeing couples, the nervousness only lasted about a week. It’s been a month now, and I already feel like I’m past that scary phase and have progressed into the curiosity phase of how I can improve my skills. This whole Battle for Structure experience stuck with me all of January, and I realized that I’ve been fighting a similar battle outside the therapy room. It’s no secret that I’m a bit busier than I probably should be: a full-time day job, full-time student, part-time internship, part-time YouTuber. Going into 2026, I knew that productivity and time management were going to be a major theme of the year. In last year’s book, I described how I started my clinical training a bit later than my peers. This resulted in my internship getting pushed back by a few months, so I didn’t really start my busy season until December of 2025. With all the holidays, my schedule didn’t truly feel the full impact until a few weeks into January. I immediately knew that I needed to get my crap together and stay on top of my calendar. With so many different commitments coming from so many different areas of my life, maintaining a sense of structure was no longer optional. It was a hard requirement. So how does one win the Battle for Structure when it comes to work and life? I’m not sure how others do it, but I can share how my structure came about in an unexpected way. At first, all of the little Jenga blocks showing up on my Google Calendar were driving me insane. I needed to be at this meeting at this time, and this class at this time, and be home by this time in order to take our puppy out. I can’t tell you the number of late nights I’ve had just staring at my calendar, trying to move things around so I had a little bit of space to breathe. But no matter how hard I tried, no amount of Jenga skills would allow me to have the perfect schedule, or anything close to it. Each and every day was filled with a wide variety of meetings, context switching, and hard commitments. Paradoxically, I began to realize that all of these commitments were providing me with an immense amount of value. I started to notice that on the days when I had a fully packed calendar, I actually felt less stressed and more in control. Having places to be and people to meet forced me into a structure with external accountability. If I didn’t show up somewhere I was meant to be, there would be real consequences. On top of that, once my calendar was booked for the day, I didn’t have to spend any time making decisions. I just went where my calendar told me to go. If we compare this to the days when I had more free time, we see a very different picture. Every once in a while, I have days with long stretches of free time. A few hours of no scheduled meetings or places to be. In the strangest way, these days were beginning to feel like my most stressful. I didn’t have any structure to hold me accountable to do any work. I’d be so overwhelmed with having to decide what to work on that I’d ultimately end up binge-watching Netflix or YouTube. I’d convince myself that these times were a break and a way to recharge, yet I’d always feel worse afterward. Even if I tried scheduling my own tasks on the calendar, I knew they were not “real” and would often ignore them entirely. For me, the Battle for Structure can’t be won alone. I know some people are able to hold themselves accountable and do deep work on demand when they need to. I learned this month that I’m not one of those people. For years, I’ve thought that meetings were the enemy and that having a fully booked calendar would be the death of my creativity. Instead, I’m learning the opposite. Having meetings and commitments on my calendar forces me to be more creative. Having awkward windows of time throughout the week forces me to use them wisely and get work done in a way I’d never be able to if I had an entire afternoon off to myself. They say that work will always expand to fill the time you give it, and in my case, that’s 100% true. Even though my brain would prefer having long stretches of time to work on projects, I know this will almost certainly result in procrastination and resistance. Having a few external meetings on my calendar forces me to show up even when I don’t feel like it. This often spills over into the in-between gaps and results in less stress and more focus. Looking ahead as I write this, my relationship with my calendar has drastically changed. I no longer dread seeing appointments show up on my agenda. I embrace the structure they provide me. --- Related Notes: - [[Lessons From 2026]] This note was originally created on **January 2026**.