The smallest possible planning system that produces compound results is two artefacts and a Sunday review. Daily Focus Sheet. Brain Dump Page. Thirty minutes on a Sunday. That's it. Run those for a year and the year compounds. Run them for a decade and the decade compounds. Add more artefacts only after these two are reliably running.
This essay is the case for the minimum-viable version. What the two-artefact system contains. Why most people start with too much and abandon everything. The build-up sequence that lets you add the rest of the Groundwork ecosystem one artefact at a time once the foundation holds.
The two-artefact minimum
The Daily Focus Sheet runs every morning. Five minutes. Three priorities, one Must-Not-Do, a Stoic prompt, a schedule grid. The day has a shape.
The Brain Dump Page runs Sunday evening as part of a thirty-minute weekly review. Six minutes for the dump, six for processing, six for the debrief, six for the cascade (with whatever quarterly intentions you have, even if rough), six for the week ahead.
That's the minimum-viable system. Two artefacts. Total weekly time investment: about 35 minutes for the Sunday review plus 35 minutes for the five-minute morning routine across seven days. 70 minutes per week. The single highest-return 70 minutes available to a working adult.
Why this is the right starting point
Most people who buy into a planning system buy too much, too soon. They get the complete bundle, the annual workbook, the quarterly planner, the strength log, the reading log — all at once. The first week is enthusiastic. The second week is intermittent. The third week, the elaborate system has produced exactly nothing that compounds, and the abandonment begins.
The minimum-viable version avoids this by starting with the irreducible core. Two artefacts. Eight weeks. By week eight, the Daily Focus Sheet is automatic and the Sunday review is a settled ritual. Now — and only now — add a third artefact. The Strength Log, the Stoic Journal, the 90-Day Goal Planner. The third artefact attaches to a stable two-artefact base. By week sixteen, you have a three-artefact system that's reliably running. By six months, four or five.
This is the same principle as habit stacking (see how to build a habit that sticks). Each new artefact is stacked onto the previously-stable artefact. The foundation has to hold before the next layer goes on.
The free version
The 7-Day Focus Sprint is the literal free version of the minimum-viable system. Daily Focus Sheet and Brain Dump Page, sent immediately, no upsell wall, no email drip. Seven days of running the two-artefact version to see whether the methodology fits.
If after the seven days it doesn't fit, you've still done a useful thing — you've run a serious daily and weekly practice for a week, with no obligation. If it does fit, the build-up sequence is straightforward: add the Weekly Review sheet (£3.99) for a more structured Sunday, then the 90-Day Goal Planner (£3.99) for the quarterly layer, then whatever Compound or Constraints tools fit your specific year.
Start with two · expand as the foundation holds
The free 7-Day Focus Sprint is the two-artefact minimum-viable system, sent immediately. After eight weeks of reliable running, expand into the rest of the ecosystem one artefact at a time. The complete Groundwork bundle at £54.99 contains all 28 artefacts. The Groundwork OS at £19.99 holds them inside a connected Notion workspace. But none of those are useful until the two-artefact foundation is running.
See the Groundwork OS →The honest next step
Go to the 7-Day Focus Sprint. Sign up. The two artefacts arrive. Run them for a week. Decide what's next based on what happened in that week.