You’re holding more than one life was designed to hold.
LIFE ARCHITECTURE
Life Architecture for executives, Chiefs of Staff, and the other frequent fixers who keep everything running.
You’re the one who keeps everything running
You got the job because you're exceptional, and you're learning it in real time: managing up, saying no to the other executives, building the systems that keep you from becoming the system.
Meanwhile your own life is held together with duct tape, hope, and an alarming number of mental tabs you can't close.
Board prep AND preschool pickup.
Strategic planning AND stepfamily logistics.
Investor pitches AND aging parents.
Why Everything You’ve Tried Hasn’t Worked
You’re not disorganized. You’re under-infrastructured.
Your to-do list doesn't just include important work. It contains an entire ecosystem:
Quarterly board deck due Friday
Research memory care facilities for Mom
Coordinate preschool pickup with new custody schedule
Prepare CEO for Senate testimony
Figure out what's for dinner (again)
You've tried to get organized. You've bought the apps. Read the books. Hired the coaches. Implemented the frameworks.
It works for about three weeks.
Then a crisis hits — a family emergency, an organizational fire, a health issue, a kid meltdown — and your beautiful system crumbles.
You're back to keeping everything in your head because that's the only thing that feels reliable when chaos strikes.
Every system you've tried assumes you have one job.
Most systems organize one part of life at a time. But your responsibilities are interdependent: work, family, health, and relationships all draw from the same finite pool of attention, energy, and judgment.
What Life Architecture is
Life Architecture is the structure underneath all of it. We figure out what's really going on and what matters right now, then build around your actual constraints: where things live, how decisions get made, what gets reviewed when, and what has to change when the season does. The work and the rest of your life draw on the same attention, so we work on both.
Why I Do This Work
I spent two decades as a VP-level operator managing large teams, significant revenue, and organizational transformations through mergers and acquisitions. I've sat in both chairs, the executive at the table and the one managing up to it. I was excellent at building infrastructure for other people.
At the same time, I was navigating the complexity of my own life: a blended family, the realities of custody, elder care, parental loss, extended-family dynamics, and personal goals that kept getting pushed to “someday.” I know what it is to manage consequential decisions across every part of life while continuing to be the person everyone relies on.
I built Life Architecture because I needed infrastructure that could hold all of it. Today I combine executive operations experience, ICF-certified coaching, and lived experience with full-life complexity to help other capable fixers build systems around their actual lives.
It’s operational strategy and coaching, applied to your whole life.
“Karen is truly the definition of organizational nirvana. She’s the Home Edit for your life. And she’s completely changed the way I think about, process, and store information.
Life before Karen was total chaos. Life after she worked her wonders with me has been nearly blissful. (She can’t really solve for the 3-year-old who dictates my life.)”
— Chief of Staff & Life Architecture Client
How We Work Together
Most individual clients work with me in one of two ways.
Groundwork is for building it. Six sessions, in sequence, where we establish what's true, decide what comes first, and build the first working version of your Life Architecture, written down in your Operating Manual so it outlasts our time together.
Individual Advisory is for running it. Ongoing access to my judgment as things come up: I read the drafts, tell you which fire is real, and help you manage up, sideways, and through. Two sessions a month, and WhatsApp in between.
You don’t need to know which one you need before we talk. I’ll make a recommendation based on what you’re navigating.
Groundwork
Six sessions | $3,600
Typically completed over 12 weeks, with weekly scheduling available if a faster pace is preferred.
The first six sessions of your Life Architecture build, sequenced around what will make the greatest difference first.
Groundwork is for when your life has become too complex to keep addressing one problem at a time. It gives us a structured way to see the whole system, determine what matters most, and begin building around it.
We begin by clarifying what you’re trying to build, mapping what’s competing for your attention, and establishing Ground Truth: your actual priorities, constraints, and capacity. From there, we determine which parts of your Life Architecture need attention first.
Across six sessions, we begin building and testing those foundations. Between sessions, I synthesize what we uncover and develop the first working version of your Life Architecture Operating Manual — a living record of what you’re building, why, and how it works.
Includes: Six 60-minute sessions, plus my preparation, synthesis, and Operating Manual development between sessions. Groundwork does not include between-session coaching access.
Want to complete the full build? Continue for six additional sessions and $3,600 to complete the remaining Life Architecture modules and your full Operating Manual. You may also commit to all twelve sessions from the beginning for $7,200.
“It puts into words what my head and heart were wrestling with for months. Wow!”
Individual Advisory
$1,200/month
Three-month minimum
Flexible, ongoing support for people who want a trusted outside perspective as real life unfolds.
Individual Advisory is for executives, operators, and other capable fixers who already know how to run things but want ongoing access to a sharp outside perspective.
There is no prescribed sequence. You bring what is live: a decision that has become complicated, something that isn’t working, material you want me to review, or a situation where you need a read you can trust.
Includes: Two 60-minute sessions each month, plus between-session access via WhatsApp for questions, materials, decisions, and stuck moments.
Unlike Groundwork, Individual Advisory does not include a structured Life Architecture sequence or Operating Manual development.
If you're the executive she reports to: you hired someone exceptional and handed her everything. The hardest parts of her job are the ones you can't teach from where you sit. That's the work, and it's often paid for by the company.
“Our conversations are helping me think differently about things, figure out better questions to ask, or just find different ways of doing things.”
— Chief of Staff & Individual Advisory ClientYou don’t need to know where to start.
Tell me what you’re navigating.
I’ll help you determine whether Groundwork or Individual Advisory is the right kind of support — and whether I’m the right person to provide it.
Free. 30 minutes. You’ll leave knowing whether this is the right fit — and if it is, where to start.
This Work Is for You If…
You're a good fit if:
You’re managing complexity across multiple parts of life simultaneously
You’re willing to be honest about your actual constraints, capacity, and patterns
You’re ready to change how you operate — not simply acquire another tool
This probably isn’t the right fit if:
You want a prescriptive system you can implement without reflection
You want work-only support that ignores the rest of your life
You want someone else to fix the problem without your active participation
Frequently Asked Questions
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Groundwork includes six sessions and typically takes place every other week over twelve weeks. The space between sessions gives you time to apply what we’re building, notice what works, and bring real evidence back into the process.
If a faster pace better suits the work and your capacity, we can meet weekly and complete Groundwork in six weeks.
If you continue through the complete twelve-session Life Architecture process, we’ll determine the cadence based on what the remaining work requires and what your life can realistically support.
Individual Advisory is ongoing, with two sessions each month and a three-month minimum.
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There is no fixed homework quota. Groundwork does require you to engage with what we’re building: reflecting on experiences, testing decisions, noticing friction, and applying new infrastructure in your actual life.
We build that work around your real capacity, not an idealized version of it. The point is to create something that can survive your life, which means developing it within the life you’re actually living.
Individual Advisory has no prescribed between-session work, although you can use WhatsApp access as questions and decisions arise.
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Life Architecture doesn’t begin with a tool, template, or predetermined system. We begin by understanding your whole life, establishing what is actually true about your priorities and capacity, and determining what needs attention first.
We also address both sides of sustainable change: building infrastructure around your reality and understanding your own patterns well enough to keep using it when that reality changes. Your Operating Manual captures what we learn and build so the work doesn’t disappear when the engagement ends.
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Both.
The consulting side brings diagnosis, operational judgment, recommendations, and infrastructure design. The coaching side helps you examine patterns, make consequential choices, and change how you operate.
I won’t hand you a generic system and tell you to implement it. I also won’t simply ask reflective questions while leaving you to construct the solution alone. We build it together.
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It can — but with honesty on both sides.
I’m not an ADHD specialist, and I won’t pretend to be. What I can do is design around your actual patterns rather than forcing you into a framework that assumes neurotypical focus and energy.
What I can’t do is substitute for the work of learning to manage your own brain. If ADHD or other health issues are significantly unmanaged, the infrastructure we build together will only go so far.
Come in knowing that, and we’ll figure out what’s actually possible.
Ready?
You’ve been keeping everything afloat long enough.
Let’s build something that can hold your actual life — even when life gets hard.
Get in Touch / Stay in Touch
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