How to work like a lion

This simple productivity hack will yeet your sense of guilt into the Sun.

Hey, it’s been a while.

I haven’t made the time to write lately for the simple reason that I haven’t had anything useful to say.

And I still don’t. But I thought it might be a good idea to at least start writing to see if something turns up.

There’s a certain pressure this newsletter has created on me which, whilst jokingly titled “maybe useful” … I do strive for being very useful. And much of that energy is exerted on my actual business (thank goodness!).

But I know you enjoyed my past writing, hence why you subscribed! So I feel I owe it to you to keep posting, and to myself to allow the act of writing to surface helpful ideas.

And that leads me to the thing that’s on my mind today. Productivity. Feeling useful. Feeling productive. Often you have days where you worked awfully hard but feel like nothing got done. Or days where you hardly worked and lots of things seem to complete themselves.

Guilt is a feeling that often crops up in this area. Guilty for not doing anything. Guilty for working too much.

Then enters this goal of being maximally effective and productive with your time. Where every waking moment must be harnessed to produce. Every care must be taken with your exact movement. No context switching. Pomodoro timers. The works.

This can be helpful occasionally, but we aren’t machines. I believe that as flawed fleshy human beings, we need to be more in tune not with our calendar - but with our energy levels.

You see, crystals actually have amazing properties.

(Haha, just kidding - sorry I couldn’t help myself)

You see, we are more similar to a lion than to a factory line. A lion spends 95% of its time lazing around basking in the sun. Conserving its energy for when it needs to go ham 5% of the time to either get a kill or to ward off a rival.

My dumb advice today is this: be the lion.

Yes, have a to-do list. They are awfully helpful in knowing what you’ve got to get done. But don’t allow it to bully you. If you don’t feel like doing anything on a given day, then listen to that feeling and be kind to yourself. Just hit up the super easy items. The low-energy admin stuff. Don’t force yourself to be highly productive 100% of the time. Save your energy for the high-calorie brain activity for when you truly need it.

* * *

Until next time. (Hit reply and let me know your thoughts on this one! It feels good to be back.)