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.
Why I Gave Myself Fewer Choices
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Hello Reader, I’ve noticed something lately: the more tools I have to see the big picture, the less clear that picture becomes. I’ve got systems that map projects, tasks, themes, priorities—all the things. But there’s a point where visibility becomes noise: you see too much, and nothing stands out. That tension is exactly why I built TimeCrafting — to narrow the field, to choose themes, to define pathways of attention. Time theming, attention paths, and even the Spheres of Attention aren’t about limiting your potential; they’re about giving it direction. Steven Pressfield once shared a simple trick: use a single sheet of foolscap paper to outline your entire project. If it can’t fit, you haven’t yet distilled your focus. That idea has been echoing in my head as I work on my current writing project. If your map isn’t compact, you haven’t clarified what actually matters. So lately I’ve been giving myself fewer choices—reducing decisions, cutting cruft, locking in on a few things that really count. No more dozens of tasks competing for attention, just a handful that earn it. One of the tools I’ve been testing in service of that is Bento Focus. Its promise is simple: pick up to three priorities, work those, and let the rest fade into the background. It’s not about cranking harder. It’s about choosing where to really lean in. I've long been a fan of what Francesco and the team at Keep Productive do, and Bento Focus is another extension of their efforts. And it's a pretty solid extension. Would love to hear: how many priorities are you trying to juggle these days? – Mike P.S. If you want a clean experiment in narrowing, Bento Focus is worth trying. I’ll be reporting back on how it shifts the way I work. |
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. 1, Issue 37| November 8, 2025 Hello Reader, There’s a kind of wealth in caring — not in the Hallmark sense, but in the sheer fact of having the bandwidth to care about something deeply. I was talking with a friend this week about energy, attention, and effort — those things we protect in the name of focus. But the conversation took a turn toward care. We don’t often think of care as something that needs guarding, but it does. There’s only so much of it to go...
Hello Reader, The latest monthly essay I write for Medium — The Sound of Time — started as a small reflection on why vinyl feels better than streaming. But beneath the surface, it became something else: a meditation on how time behaves when we stop trying to control it. Then there’s this week’s episode of A Productive Conversation with James Kimmel Jr. — an episode we recorded months ago that finally drops in audio format today. (Want to watch the full, unedited video interview? Here you go.)...
The Lantern by Mike Vardy Vol. 1, Issue 36| November 1, 2025 Hello Reader, October always feels like a month in motion. The days quicken, the light shortens, and the world seems to collide with itself — baseball finishing, basketball and hockey beginning, football and soccer in full stride. It’s a season of noise and momentum. And then November arrives. A quieter month. A slower breath. It starts with no — but I like to add a W. For me, that turns it into NOWvember — a reminder to shift from...