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.
In Praise of a Boring Breakfast
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Hello Reader, Every weekday morning, I eat oatmeal. Steel-cut oats, cooked in the Instant Pot ahead of time. Nothing fancy. Nothing Instagram-worthy. On a recent call with my mom, I mentioned this in passing. Her response was immediate and unfiltered: “That’s gross.” I laughed. Because... that's fair. Oatmeal isn’t exactly thrilling. And no, it’s not my favourite breakfast either. But that’s kind of the point. Here’s the thing: oatmeal is foundational. It’s the default I don’t have to think about. I know it’ll be there. I know it’ll do its job. And I know it’ll get me through the morning without requiring a decision before I’ve even fully woken up. What does change is what I add to it. Different berries. Sometimes nuts. Occasionally something unexpected. The base stays the same, but the experience shifts just enough to keep it from feeling monotonous. That’s the balance I’m after: consistency without boredom. Working from a default removes friction. No scanning the fridge. No debating options. No “what do I feel like today?” first thing in the morning. The decision has already been made. And here’s the quiet truth: once you remove friction, you make room for variation where it actually matters. Oatmeal may not be my favorite—but it tastes better than a lot of alternatives. (Soylent, anyone?) More importantly, it respects my energy, my attention, and my time. It does what it’s supposed to do. That’s how I think about a lot of things now—not just breakfast. Defaults aren’t about settling. They’re about supporting. You build something reliable, then layer novelty on top by choice, not by necessity. And that’s how small, unremarkable decisions stop draining you... and start carrying you instead. See you later, P.S. Tomorrow I'm facilitating a workshop titled The Strategic Journal: How Reflection Becomes a System for The Grand Connection's Grand Productivity Group and it'd be great if you would join us. Click here to make that happen. |
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.
The Lantern by Mike Vardy Vol. 2, Issue 4 | March 21, 2026 Hello Reader, I spent part of this past Tuesday in a state of flow. The kind where you look up and realize hours have passed and something meaningful has moved forward. In my case, it was podcast work—episodes reviewed, refined, and pushed ahead. By the time I stopped, I’d carried things nearly to the end of June. On paper, that’s a win. But in practice, it gave me pause. Because while I was doing important work, I wasn’t doing the...
Hello Reader, One of the ideas that stuck with me years ago from Getting Things Done by David Allen is simple: if something goes on your calendar, it’s a commitment. Not a suggestion. Not a possibility. A commitment. That’s why GTD (David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology) encourages us to reserve the calendar primarily for appointments — things that must happen at a specific time. Most tasks belong somewhere else. But over the years I’ve noticed something about the handful of things I...
Hello Reader, I watched One Battle After Another the day that it won the Oscar for Best Picture, and one line has stayed with me ever since. “Time doesn’t exist, yet it controls us anyway.” In the film, the resistance uses it as a code phrase. That alone is interesting — a sentence about time acting as a kind of signal between people trying to move freely within a system that seeks to control them. But the line stuck with me for another reason. If time doesn’t exist in the way we often...