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 to do when trying harder stops working?
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Hello Reader, 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 when I read what his new book, How to Try Again, is actually about, I knew I had to have him on. It’s not about doing more. It’s not about doing it better. It’s about something that most productivity and wellness systems skip over entirely: how to begin again — without dragging the weight of every previous attempt with you. We’re going live today at 2 PM PT, and we’ll be talking about:
This is one of those conversations that isn’t really about productivity. It’s about the person doing the producing. And I think if you’ve ever felt the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it — this one’s for you. 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.
The Lantern by Mike Vardy Vol. 2, Issue 12 | May 16, 2026 Hello Reader, I went for a walk this week through the kind of noise that usually makes you want to find the quietest room in the house. Café sounds. Voices. The ambient hum of a city mid-afternoon. Somewhere in the middle of all that external noise, the noise inside my head started to settle. Not because the world cooperated. Because I moved through it anyway. We spend enormous energy trying to control the conditions around us. The...
Hello Reader, You know the moment. You sat down to work. The intention was real. The task was clear. And somewhere between opening your laptop and the thing you actually needed to do, your hand moved to your phone. Not because you decided to. Just because it did. That's not a discipline problem. That's not a focus problem. That's an initiation problem — and it happens in the space before the work begins, in the half-second where habit is faster than intention. I've been saying for years that...
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...