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.
Personal growth spurts aren’t like the other kind
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Hello Reader, Most of us remember what a physical growth spurt felt like. Awkward. Uncomfortable. A little disorienting. Your clothes didn’t fit. Your coordination was off. You needed more rest than usual. And crucially—you didn’t cause it. You didn’t hustle your way into it. Your body just grew, and you had to adapt. A personal growth spurt works the same way—but we often treat it very differently. Instead of accommodating it, we try to capitalize on it. We add goals. Announce intentions. Raise expectations. We confuse growth with acceleration. That’s the mistake. Here’s how to work with a personal growth spurt instead of fighting it:
Growth spurts aren’t moments to exploit. They’re phases to respect. Handled gently, they change you for good. Handled aggressively, they collapse under pressure. See you later, P.S. If you’re feeling slightly out of sync lately, that may not be a problem to fix... it might be growth asking for room. |
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, Over the past little while, something interesting has been happening inside the TimeCrafting Trust community. People have been sharing how they use other productivity methods alongside TimeCrafting—not instead of it. One member mentioned using it in conjunction with the Time Sector System from Carl Pullein. Others have talked about borrowing pieces from systems they’ve trusted for years and letting them live comfortably next to TimeCrafting. That matters to me more than you...
The Lantern by Mike Vardy Vol. 1, Issue 49 | January 31, 2026 Hello Reader, I was talking with a friend recently when they said, “I just need to get better at managing my time.” I didn’t interrupt, but I did eventually offer this: You can’t manage time. But you can manage your calendar. Time moves whether we engage with it or not. It doesn’t respond to effort or intention. What does respond is our relationship with it—and the calendar is where that relationship shows up. If time is on one...
Hello Reader, A few days ago, I had one of those sideways realizations—the kind that doesn’t arrive with a bang, but settles in and refuses to leave. It happened while I was thinking about LEGO. Not as a toy. Not as nostalgia. But as a system. LEGO works because it does something deceptively simple: it gives you structure without prescribing outcomes. There are pieces. Constraints. A logic to how things connect. But what you build—and how you build it—is up to you. That’s when it clicked:...