What if the biggest productivity upgrade isn't another app or planner, but simply changing the way you think about the future? Sana sits down with Pascal Laliberté, who spent 15 years developing and living by what he calls the future perfect mindset, a small shift in verb tense that changed how he handles perfectionism, overwhelm, and leadership.

Pascal breaks down the difference between writing a to-do list in the imperative ("create a draft") and describing outcomes in the future perfect ("I'll have finished a draft"), and why this single language shift forces clearer decisions and calmer follow-through.

About the Guest:

Pascal Laliberté is based in Ottawa, Canada. After years in a corporate role that left him overwhelmed and prone to perfectionism, he developed a future perfect language system that has shaped his thinking for 15 years. He has been freelancing for 9 years and built Read With, a tool that helps leaders run reading groups with their teams.

Key Takeaways:

• Swap imperative to-do language ("write a draft") for future perfect language ("I'll have finished a draft"), the shift forces you to define a concrete, checkable outcome instead of a vague wish
• Picture a specific future moment, noon, end of week, end of the year, and work backward from what you want to be true by then, rather than starting from an open-ended to-do list
• Some of the most important things in life, like truly listening to someone, can't be written as a to-do item, but they can be captured as a future perfect outcome ("they will have received my listening")
• Perfectionism often shows up as wanting a full inventory of everything before you start, give yourself permission to do that inventory quickly, then be ruthless about ranking what actually needs to be true by your deadline
• Use this framework at every timescale, hours, weeks, years, it's a change in the language you use with yourself, not a separate system layered on top of your to-do list

Connect With the Guest:

Website: https://pascal.works

Tool: https://readwith.app

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pascallaliberte/

Episode Chapters:

[00:00] What If the Real Productivity Upgrade Is a Change in Tense?

[01:25] Meet Pascal Laliberté and His 15-Year Experiment

[02:42] The Overwhelm That Started It All

[07:49] From "Create a Draft" to "I'll Have Finished a Draft"

[13:18] Why You Can't Put "Listen" on a To-Do List

[19:59] Perfectionism as an Inventory Problem, Not a Character Flaw

[27:42] Read With: Leading Others Through Shared Reading

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