There was a version of me that believed if I just tried harder, I could make my brain work the way everyone else's seemed to.
I bought the planners. The ones with the inspirational quotes and the daily gratitude sections and the habit trackers that assumed I would remember to fill them in every single day. I read the books about productivity systems designed by people who have never spent an entire afternoon paralyzed by the decision of which task to start first. I listened to the advice about morning routines and meditation and journaling, and I tried. God, I tried so hard to be the person those systems were built for.
And then I would fail. Again. Because my brain does not work in straight lines. It works in spirals and tangents and sudden hyperfocus sessions at three in the morning followed by three days where I cannot remember if I ate lunch.
For the longest time, I thought that meant something was wrong with me.
It took me years to understand that the systems were not designed for brains like mine. They were designed for a world that does not account for sensory overload or executive dysfunction or the very real fact that some of us need three full days to recover from a single phone call. They were designed by people who have never had to mask their way through a conversation so exhausting that they spent the rest of the week in bed.
So I stopped trying to fix myself. And I started building things that actually fit the way my brain works.
IoanaInks is not a productivity brand. It is not here to optimize you or make you more efficient or help you crush your goals. It exists because I got tired of feeling like I was failing at being human when really, I was just trying to exist in systems that were never meant for me.
The planners here will not guilt you for skipping pages. The journals understand that some days, your biggest accomplishment is getting out of bed. The tools I make acknowledge that rest is not a reward you earn after productivity. It is a requirement for survival.
If you have ever felt too sensitive, too much, too different, too exhausting to be around, I see you. I know what it feels like to apologize for taking up space. I know the weight of pretending to be okay when your nervous system is screaming. I know the guilt of needing more time, more quiet, more gentleness than the world seems willing to give.
You are not too much. You are not broken. You are navigating a world that was not built with you in mind, and that is not your fault.
This space is for you. For the moments when existing feels like enough. For the days when your brain will not cooperate and you need permission to be exactly where you are. For the people who have been told their whole lives that they need to try harder, when what they actually need is a world that meets them where they are.
No toxic positivity. No hustle culture. No pretending that willpower can fix systemic ableism. Just tools made by someone who understands, because I have lived it too.
Welcome.
— Ioana