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.
This isn’t an easy question to ask…
Hello Reader,
Jim Vaselopolous was my podcast guest this week and I must commend him on writing his book “Clarity” in a challenging style that is hard to do well. So the idea of challenging myself, even in the simmering of the start of a calendar year, was something I decided to pursue this week. I started that pursuit on social media and I’ve decided to pursue it further here. This pursuit came in the form of a single question:
Would you rather live a long life or a full life?
Before you answer “yes” I want to say that you can’t actually choose both. One option is largely out of your control. The other isn’t… but how you define what it means is.
A friend of mine died last year at only 48 years old. So while he lived a short life, every tribute to him shared that he lived a full one. My grandmother lived to 100 and the last time I saw her she told me that she was ready to go because she had lived a “long, hard life.” She stressed the second adjective just as much as the first.
I’m not saying my friend who lived to 48 lived a short life because others have lived shorter. I’m not saying that he lived a full life because he may not have thought that he did. I’m not saying my grandmother didn’t live a full life in the eyes of others. Maybe even what she shared with me was skewed by how she was feeling that day. I have no way of knowing any of that.
What I do know is that how long we live is typically celebrated above how fully we live because longevity is quantitative and fulfillment is qualitative. Length over depth. Speed over substance. Quantity over quality. The former is easier to measure than the latter.
That question I asked might just be rhetorical. Simply food for thought.
By the way, if it’s easy to answer that you’d rather live a full life then my follow-up question is the one you really need to sit with: Is having a full life easy?
Now if you’ve got an answer to share, just reply to this email and send it my way. I’d love to hear from you.
See you later,
Mike
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.
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Hello Reader, You've probably said it. I've definitely said it. "Time is money." It's so embedded in how we talk about productivity that we barely notice it anymore. But that framing — time as currency, something to spend wisely and not waste — is quietly working against us. Because money is something you can earn back. Time isn't. And yet we've built entire systems around that metaphor. We measure, optimise, audit. We ask "was that worth it?" about things that were never supposed to have a...
The Lantern by Mike Vardy Vol. 2, Issue 11 | May 9, 2026 Hello Reader, You may have noticed this arrived a little later than usual. That was intentional. At 1:40pm on Friday, I got an email about something called the Mind Over Manuscript Challenge — a free 5-day writing challenge running this week through Pages & Platforms. It resonated immediately. I had something to say about it. So I wrote a broadcast email and sent it Friday evening, sharing three things that TimeCrafting gave me that...