For freelancers
Every client has a tool. Your week doesn't have a home.
Mustard is where the whole week lives, their work and yours, with just enough structure to tell you what actually fits before you agree to it.
Get early accessThe Friday problem
Overcommitment is invisible until it isn't
See the whole week before one more small thing breaks it.
Monday you take on “a small thing” for the retainer client. Tuesday another client's genuinely quick fix arrives. Wednesday you promise to do your invoicing on Friday. On Friday you do not do your own invoicing.
Nothing was unreasonable alone. Nobody saw the total. Each yes happened in a different tab, inside somebody else's tool, measured against no shared number.
You need the sum, on Monday, in one place. Not a stricter work ethic.
One week, one owner
Their work and yours, side by side
All your projects share one honest week.
Three client portals each show a tidy list. None shows your week: the other two clients, the tax filing, the unwritten pitch, or the site saying “coming soon” since March.
In Mustard, Acme sits next to Retainer, My Site, and Admin. Thecycle is the week, it has one owner, and the owner is you.
Type “invoice ~acme friday 5pm”. Mustard reads the ~project, date, and time, then puts it in the right place before the thought evaporates between calls.
Honest math
Commit to a number, not a vibe
Plan 13 against the 12 you usually finish.
Before you say yes, allocate the week across projects. Six points to the redesign, four to the retainer, three to your product: 13 planned against a velocity of 12. That's a week.
Add a “quick” five-point favour and you're at 18, a fifty percent overrun visible Monday instead of felt Friday. Mustard will not stop you. It will make sure you knew.
Velocity comes from cycles you actually closed, so it includes the calls, revisions, and two hours lost in someone else's staging environment.
- See the total before the client sees your reply.
- Point estimates take seconds. No timesheet fiction required.
- Unfinished work rolls into next week's math, not a pile.
See the week's total before the client sees your reply.
Get early accessSaying no
“No” lands better with arithmetic behind it
Capacity turns a personal no into two practical options.
Turning down work feels personal. Moving a deadline feels like an admission. Both get easier when the answer is about the schedule, not you.
“This week is full: 12 points of capacity, 12 committed. I can start Monday, or drop the newsletter to fit it in this week. Your call.”
That is not a boundary speech, it is a calendar. A number and two options are harder to argue with, and the options keep it from sounding like a refusal.
Client access
Invite them into their project. Only theirs.
Share one project without exposing the rest of your week.
Share one project with a client or collaborator. They get that project's tasks, not your other clients, “Chase unpaid invoice,” or “book dentist.”
So you can stop maintaining a tidy version for them and the real one for you. There is one list. They see their slice live, without a Sunday export.
The project itself is the boundary, not a setting to remember. That makes it safe to keep your messy life beside your paid work.
Early access
Next Monday shows up either way. Show up to it planned.
Join the list and two things happen today, not at launch. You get the week-shaped method in your inbox (it works on paper, before the app exists). And you're first in when it opens, while we're still two people who read every reply.
One email now with the method. One at launch, maybe two if something big lands. No newsletter.