I’m Mike Vardy, and I help people build a better relationship with time — not by controlling it, but by working with it. Through my writing, courses, and community, I explore how intention and attention shape a more meaningful life — one rooted in the original idea of productiveness over productivity.
Another room
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Hello Reader, A few weeks ago my daughter Grace sat me down in a studio in New York and asked me questions about Productiveness that nobody else has asked. That conversation has become the most-watched thing on my YouTube channel in months. It also made something hard to ignore. I've been slack on YouTube. For a long while, the only thing happening there was a Wednesday livestream. That changes tomorrow. Starting Friday, October 2, there's a new video on the channel every Friday at 8 AM Pacific. Here's what took me so long. Over the last couple of years I've sat through Podcast Movement and video summits, the message I kept hearing was: put your podcast on camera. I'm still not going to. A Productive Conversation stays audio, because audio goes with you on the walk, in the car, while you fold the laundry. It stays close. What settled it was a talk Rob Walch gave at Podcast Movement this year. He laid out what each medium asks of you. Audio rides along with your day. Video asks for your full attention, with nothing else going on. If I'm going to ask for that, I'd better make something worth giving it to. So the Friday videos are their own thing: thinking out loud about TimeCrafting and Productiveness. They're the questions I'm still working through, not a list of tips. Tomorrow's video is a reply to Grace. She asked a few things I didn't finish answering, and a viewer pulled one line out of our conversation that I keep turning over: "Data can change your rate, but it won't change your state." That's where I'm starting. One question before then. If Grace sat me down again, what should she ask? Hit reply. I'm keeping a list. See you later, P.S. One more date for your calendar: next Thursday, October 8, at 11 AM Pacific, I'm going live on YouTube with Tiago Forte to talk about how to actually learn from your life. Tap the link and hit "Notify me" so you don't miss it. |
The Practice of Productiveness
I’m Mike Vardy, and I help people build a better relationship with time — not by controlling it, but by working with it. Through my writing, courses, and community, I explore how intention and attention shape a more meaningful life — one rooted in the original idea of productiveness over productivity.
Hello Reader, When I started writing Productiveness, I knew what it wouldn't be. It wouldn't have exercises in every chapter. It wouldn't hand the reader a system. It wouldn't end with a 30-day challenge or a downloadable worksheet. I said so on page fourteen, because I thought the reader deserved to know what kind of room they were walking into. The room is a quiet one. The book explores nine principles, humanness, grace, prudence, nuance, tolerance, efficacy, cadence, trust, and will, not...
The Lantern by Mike Vardy Vol. 2, Issue 30 | September 26, 2026 Hello Reader, Lorne Michaels has a line I can't shake: "Fatigue is your friend." He wasn't talking about deadlines. In the documentary about writing SNL at night, he explains what he actually means. When you're depleted, the conscious mind (the careful one, the one protecting your reputation) clocks out. The unconscious takes over. You take bigger risks. You start to make yourself laugh. Read that again. Fatigue doesn't lower the...
Hello Reader, I’ve done a lot of talking about Productiveness this month. None of it went quite like this. My daughter Grace took over A Productive Conversation and interviewed me about the book. She didn’t ask the questions an author expects. She asked what she wanted to know: why I think productivity got corrupted, what changed in me while I was writing it, and what being productive looks like at home, not just at work. That last one landed. A while back, a therapist helped me flip how I...