Most creative knowledge workers are trapped in a busyness cycle.

They’re searching online for a quick solution to:

• Focus better

• Earn more money

• Be more productive

• Improve their performance

• Make time for all their interests

Do you relate at all?

You’re looking through YouTube or X to scratch your boredom itch during a work meeting.

You find a decent video but it’s not quite what you’re looking for.

5 videos later…

You decide it’s too much effort, you’ve heard it all before, or the advice doesn’t fit your situation.

• “This creator got lucky.”

• “That wouldn’t work for me.”

• “I don’t have their time or money.”

• “They’re single without a family, I couldn’t do that.”

Excuses pour in.

Life outside of a screen is falling apart.

You’re overwhelmed by obligations and commitments.

You’ve sacrificed time with family that you won’t get back.

And about 9 days later, you’ve realized the house has gone to shit.

All because you’ve been hyperfocused on finding the answer that’s supposed to fix all this mess.

You’re here now.

Reading this letter but that “aha” moment never came.

Even though you’ve consumed a library of information, you feel more lost and overwhelmed than before.

I get it.

It happened to me too but there’s a better way.

Let me explain.

Quit before it’s too late…

Unfortunately, this is a vicious cycle for multi-passionate creators.

They get caught up in this endless stimulation-burnout cycle that goes something like this:

New Opportunity → Excitement → All-in strategy → Exponential efforts → Doubt → Life areas fall apart → Burnout → Confusion → Rest → Repeat

I’ve been there many times and I’ll tell you flat out, it sucks.

So what did I decide to do?

Pull the plug.

I stopped posting on X (and YouTube, and IG).

*Gasp.

Isn’t that the almighty sin of a content creator?

bUt WhAt AbOuT mUh EnGaGeMeNt?

Sure, I lost some followers here and there but you know what’s even better? I lost much more:

• The looming anxiety from always trying to keep up.

• The urgency to feel like I needed to beat the next guy in follower count.

• The feeling of failure I had as a father who put his family on hold an extra hour for ONE MORE POST.

You don’t need to follow all the advice from reputable creators online. You shouldn’t even follow mine.

Unless…you test it with an open mind.

Not too long ago, I discovered a philosophy that finally slapped me across the face.

It woke me up to the digital rat race I got caught up in.

Slow Productivity changed everything.

How to progress fast by going Slow

It sounds counterintuitive but Slow Productivity helps you make progress faster.

How so?

Your To-do(om) list is filled with things that don’t help your most meaningful goals.

Let’s take a step back.

Let’s break down why these are so beneficial for sustainable growth:

3 Principles of Slow Productivity

1) Do fewer things

We all have the same 24 hours.

And there’s only so much we can do with limited willpower before our default monkey brain takes over.

More commitments lead to what Newport calls an Overhead Tax.

The extra maintenance work of dealing with the preparation and after-effects of committing to something.

Let’s say you commit to an optional meeting at work.

• Now your collaborator wants you to speak about X project (+1). You have to prepare so you don’t sound silly.

• Then the meeting comes and you leave with several action items, one that turns into a full-blown project (+5).

• That project has additional dependencies that rely on a web of other things (+3).

Now you’ve gained 8 points of hypothetical overhead tax.

Congrats, you’ve just played yourself (bye-bye creative energy)!

The key here is to carefully select only the things that matter.

That means, saying no by default to everything that doesn’t move your biggest goals forward.

More on this process later.

2) Work at a natural pace

As a knowledge worker, your mind is your biggest asset.

You must protect it at all costs!

We’re not machines, so we can’t expect to work like them.

We need time and space to fully use our creative energy.

Humans were designed for short sprints of effort (hunting & gathering) and long periods of rest.

Historically, big achievements were built in small increments stacked over time.

Like the cliche, Rome was not built in a day.

We should pace ourselves for the “endless” game of life.

Technology has made it easier to optimize everything but at the expense of mental health and performance. As a result, our quality of work suffers.

This video on Deoptimizing Your Life is pure gold.

3) Obess over quality

Let me modify this principle a bit:

Obsess over quality (without obsessing over perfection).

The most remarkable people became great at 1-3 things in their lifetime.

Once you find your craft, get good, and leave everything else behind. There isn’t enough time or energy to excel at everything.

You don’t want to be stuck being average at 10 things that help no one.

Scott Adams, the founder of Dilbert Comics, explains this well in this short clip:

Now that you understand the principles, let’s talk about action steps.

The 5-Step Slow System

1) Lifestyle Deflation

If you have more than 5 big goals, you’re probably overworked and underperforming.

Even when you know you’re capable.

So you need a system to deflate distractions in your life.

Dedicate 1 week to tracking your time in 30-minute increments.

Every half hour after you wake up, write down what you did during that time. Then categorize the type of activity (i.e. work, distraction, admin, family, errands, etc.).

After 7 days, you can look at where you’re overstretched.

Now you eliminate at least one of your biggest distractions to make room for things you care about.

The next step will help you figure that out.

2) Build your Dream List

95% of the pain we feel lies in the gap between where we are and where we want to be.

Spend 15-20 minutes writing down every important habit, project, or goal you want to accomplish.

Include personal and professional goals.

See my last letter for some prompts to help you paint a picture of your ideal life.

You want to focus on the right levers.

Then here comes the hard part.

Pick the top 3-4 you care about most and get rid of the rest.

Like I told the guy on YouTube, nothing is set in stone.

You can implement seasonality into your routine and swap out your goals once you’ve made progress.

Plug those 3-4 things into your week after you’ve set up your primary obligations like work and meetings that can’t be missed.

Then build in buffer time.

Humans are bad at measuring how long things will take.

So add 25-50% more time than you expect (i.e. if you plan on a 45-minute workout on Monday, block out 90 minutes).

3) Declutter using Digital Minimalism

Distractions are your worst enemy.

And trust me, willpower or silent mode doesn’t last.

You need to retrain your mind to get rid of distractions like social media.

At least 40% of your screen time could be spent on your Dream List.

Cal Newport in his book Digital Minimalism (highly recommend), promotes a 30-day digital declutter to rewire your brain for slower and more fulfilling activities.

Hint: use your Dream List to replace social media scrolling.

I recommend 14 days for a full declutter.

Then you can try what I call, Slow Sundays.

Where you don’t use social media on Sunday (or any day of the week), and limit your social media use 6 hours after you wake up - 3 hours before bed.

4) The Project Queue

Newport recommends creating a project queue.

A list of projects that have been assigned (in the case of a 9-5) or projects you’ve committed to using 2 columns.

1. Active

2. Waiting

The idea is to have no more than 2 projects active to keep your focus high and the rest under Waiting.

When a project is done, you can pull in the next project to work on.

Now you can justify why you can’t take on additional work that leaves you overcommitted once again.

5) Ritualize Your Workday

Last but not least, create rituals around all of your major life categories.

• work

• business

• exercise

• food

• family

• etc.

Meaning, don’t let them cross over each other to the best of your ability.

When you’re at home with family, you don’t want to be thinking about work.

So use a shutdown ritual for when work is done for the day.

Here’s an example:

At 6 pm when you’ve done your review for the day and planning for tomorrow, check a box that indicates you’re DONE.

☑︎ Shutdown complete

Use Notion or a journal to physically signal to your mind that it’s quittin’ time.

Recently, Slow Productivity has changed my life for the better.

I used to get anxiety from looking for answers online, overworking myself, and overcommitting to things I didn’t care about.

I hope that you can use these strategies to do the same.

If you’d like some help, send me a message and we’ll figure out a plan together.

Or you can fill in the quiz below and I’ll get back to you.

See you next week!

When you're ready, here are two ways I can help you further:

1) Fitness Clarity Coaching — Get 100% clarity on your next fitness and performance transformation in one week.

2) Performance with Purpose Quiz — 5-minute quiz to understand your deep life goals so we can create a sustainable success strategy.