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.
What's your leg drop?
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Hello Reader, The leg drop. Not as a wrestling move — as a metaphor. Hogan performed that move thousands of times. Night after night, city after city. The crowd loved it. It always got the pin. And by the end, it had required multiple back surgeries. His wife said in the documentary that he never fully got back to himself after the last one. The move that built his career quietly dismantled him. Here's the part that haunts me though. He had those arms the whole time. Enormous, iconic, capable. He admitted he could have finished matches a dozen different ways. But the leg drop worked — and when something works, when it's expected, when it's become part of who you are, questioning it starts to feel like questioning yourself. So you don't. You just drop the leg again. I've been sitting with this question all week: What's your leg drop? Not what's failing you. The thing that works — that people expect from you, that you've built a reputation on — that might be costing you more than you're accounting for. And the harder one: What are your arms? What's already in your toolkit that you've been underusing because you've been too busy dropping the leg? I'd genuinely love to know. Hit reply and tell me... what's the move you keep running that might be time to audit? See you later, |
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,A lot of what I teach in TimeCrafting is about your relationship with time. But underneath that? It’s really about your relationship with yourself. Because you can have the cleanest system in the world — the right tasks, the right times, the right tools — and still find yourself stuck. Still find yourself restarting the same habit for the fourth time this year. Still find yourself wondering why knowing what to do isn’t the same as doing it. I’ve known Steve Kamb for years. And...
The Lantern by Mike Vardy Vol. 2, Issue 9 | April 25, 2026 Hello Reader, I'm writing this a week ahead of when you'll read it. I just got back from several days of travel and I know another trip is coming. So I'm using the window while I have it. That's exactly what I want to talk about. Getting ahead feels like a win. And it is — for a moment. But here's what I've noticed more than once: the further ahead I get, the easier it becomes to stop maintaining the lead. The urgency that drove the...
Hello Reader, Episode 654 of A Productive Conversation is live — and this one's a solo episode. Just me, thinking out loud. It starts with a question: What if being busy is the biggest lie you're telling yourself? Not a small lie. A lie you've been telling so long it feels like identity. Over a thousand podcast conversations about productivity have taught me that the number one thing people get wrong isn't their system, their tools, or their habits. It's this: they've confused motion with...