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ATTN: From The Outbox of Mike Vardy

by Mike Vardy

Every week Mike Vardy (aka The Productivityist) shares ideas, insights, and inspiration designed to improve your relationship with time and help you stop "doing" productive and start being productive.

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Featured Post

How to Do Everything You Want in 7 Steps

Hello Reader, David Allen’s quote, “You can do anything but you can’t do everything” is popular in productivity circles…. but it’s misunderstood. He’s not saying you can’t do everything you want to do, just that you can’t do it all at once. Not to mention that “everything” can mean something to one person and something else to another (and another). So how do you actually do everything? Well, if you actually want to do everything, then I’ve put together a 7 step process that you can follow...

5 days ago • 2 min read

Hello Reader, As you continue to refine your productivity practices, I want to introduce a concept that might transform the way you think about your workday: Tolerance. Often, we equate tolerance with enduring less-than-ideal circumstances, but when applied to productivity, it offers a powerful framework for dealing with the natural variability in our work performance and planning accuracy. Tolerance in productivity involves acknowledging and planning for the natural discrepancies in both the...

9 days ago • 1 min read
yellow and white 10 card

Hello Reader, I hope this message finds you well. Today, I want to explore a concept that goes beyond traditional ideas of productivity. It’s about reaching the quintessence in our tasks, projects, and overall approach to being productive. Quintessence, a term rich in history and meaning, originated from the medieval Latin ‘quintessentia’, which itself descends from the Latin ‘quinta essentia’, meaning “fifth essence”. Historically, this concept was pivotal in ancient and medieval philosophy,...

11 days ago • 1 min read

Hello Reader, Did you know that we’re smack dab in the middle of National Procrastination Week as I send you this? Indeed, this week serves as a timely reminder that none of us are immune to the allure of procrastination. Interestingly, the term ‘procrastination’ originates from the Latin ‘procrastinare’, which literally means ‘to defer until tomorrow’. Historically, this wasn’t always seen in a negative light; it was simply part of planning and prudent delay. However, over time, the concept...

2 months ago • 1 min read
purple happy birthday neon light signage

Hello Reader, “Oh, no… I want to do that trip solo.” That was what my daughter said to me after I suggested we all go to Southeast Asia as a family. This was after she declared that area of the world was the next place she wanted to experience. She’d literally just returned from a four-month “gap year” trip to Europe with two of her closest friends, so I’m not surprised that she’d caught the travel bug. I’m not surprised she wants to do the Southeast Asia trip solo, either. But I was...

4 months ago • 2 min read
a blue question mark on a pink background

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...

4 months ago • 1 min read
Closed signage

Hello Reader, The song “Closing Time” by Semisonic is a tune I heard countless times when I’d go out to a club in my mid-twenties and early thirties. Even in recent years, it’d echo in a bar as the last call was declared by the bar staff. I’d always thought is was just about getting out of the joint because it was closing time. But it turns out there’s a deeper meaning to the song. The song subtly touches upon the concept of birth and new beginnings. It was was written by lead singer Dan...

5 months ago • 2 min read
red and white UNKs building during nighttime

Hello Reader, 2023 is about to end, with only a couple of days left in its cycle. But I’m not celebrating the start of a new year once December comes to a close. No, I have started my new year on September 1st for a long time. But I don’t know how much longer that will be the case. You see, I’ve been thinking more about the dynamic aspects of time compared to its static aspects, and I’ve adjusted the start of my year to coincide with the start of the school year for my kids. But my daughter...

5 months ago • 3 min read
woman holding her face in dark room

I’m writing this at 12:26 in the morning. I’ve just finished writing several other pieces, spent time working on my Daily Theme tasks already, and I’m about to head off to bed after a really productive day. That’s why I’m sick and tired of people saying that night owls aren’t productive. Whether it’s imperative to align your body clock with the magic hours of sleep or night owls simply not existing, there is a stigma against night owls and their ability to not just be productive but to...

5 months ago • 1 min read
grayscale photography of elephant

Hello Reader, On November 29th, Evernote announced on their blog that they were placing limitations on free users: 1 notebook, 50 notes. I wonder if this is the first you're hearing from this... other than if you're a free user who tried to add a note anytime after December 4th. Reply to this email if you're hearing this new limitation set here first. I only discovered this new set of limits from a Facebook post from the team at Tool Finder. And I believe they only found out about it from...

5 months ago • 1 min read
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