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.
Plan the work. Work the plan.
|
Hello Reader, There's a word I've been sitting with lately: Prudence. It sounds old-fashioned, maybe even a little prim. But the original definition — mid-14th century — has nothing soft about it. Prudence means intelligence, discretion, foresight, and the practical wisdom to see what's suitable before you commit to action. It's one of the four classical cardinal virtues. And it's something most of us are already practicing — we've just never called it that. Laying out your clothes the night before. Prepping dinner in the afternoon before your brain checks out. Sending a quick heads-up to a collaborator instead of just hoping for the best. These aren't glamorous moves. But they're what makes a day actually work. I talked through it in depth on the latest PM Talks series episode of A Productive Conversation with my longtime collaborator Patrick Rhone. We went deep: the history of the word, why speed culture pushed it out of the conversation, what prudence looks like in the age of AI, and Patrick's perfect line from his circus rigging work ("slow is smooth, smooth is fast") which might be the most compressed definition of practical wisdom I've heard. Listen to The Wisdom in Waiting: Rediscovering Prudence The through-line in all of this: the best productivity move often isn't a new system. It's a well-placed decision made earlier than you think you need to make it. Nobody applauds the prudent choice. You just notice, looking back, that things went more smoothly than they might have. That's the whole game. See you later, P.S. If this kind of thinking resonates, TimeCrafting Trust is where it becomes a practice. New members can join for $1 for the first month — but only until June 20th. Grab the offer here. |
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 I18 | June 27, 2026 Hello Reader, A word has been following me around, and it keeps surfacing in places I don't expect. First it was Jerry Seinfeld, in a GQ video, holding up a Bic pen of all things. He called it quintessence — the quality of being perfectly, completely itself. A Bic pen can't be improved without being ruined. He was borrowing the idea from a small 1983 book that catalogued objects with that same quality: the Oreo, the Slinky, the brown...
The Lantern by Mike Vardy Vol. 2, Issue I17 | June 20, 2026 Hello Reader, Earlier this month I posted a short video calling World Productivity Day paradoxical. A man named Kevin commented on Facebook, thoughtfully, and with some heat. His argument was economic: that productivity, in a capitalist context, is really just a sophisticated way of asking the poorest people to work harder so the wealthiest can accumulate more. And that the antidote is redistribution: returning more value to the...
Hello Reader, I'm sending this to you from somewhere over the Rockies. I've been in Boise the past week for Kit's Craft + Commerce conference. Fully immersed, mostly present, doing what needed to be done. My themed days kept me focused. My attention to what mattered most kept me grounded. But my horizontal themes? Mostly set aside. That's not failure. That's what a travel week looks like when you're doing it right. The point of TimeCrafting isn't to maintain perfect consistency regardless of...