Beyond the To-Do List - Productivity for Work and Life Mike Vardy on The Productivity Diet: Feeding What Fuels You
Jun 23, 2025
Mike Vardy, a productivity strategist and author of "The Productivity Diet," shares his insights on nourishing productive potential. He compares productivity to nutrition, advocating for sustainable inputs over restrictions. Vardy discusses the dangers of decision fatigue and how cognitive overload leads to burnout. He emphasizes intentional constraints to enhance focus and introduces "productivity personas" for personalized strategies. By reframing tasks with a positive language, he proposes a guilt-free approach to achieving one's goals.
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Productivity as a Lifestyle Diet
- Productivity should be seen as a sustainable lifestyle, not a series of short-lived hacks or punishments.
- Analogous to nutrition, a productivity diet includes simple, adaptable ingredients that nourish your productive potential long-term.
Avoid Absolutes, Build Flexibility
- Flexibility and adaptability in productivity systems are key to avoiding burnout and collapse.
- Absolutes and rigid structures limit effectiveness; like buildings, productivity frameworks need some sway to endure.
Nuance Over Absolutism
- Villains, like in stories, often see their actions as good for a greater cause, not evil.
- This perspective shows that productivity choices may be nuanced rather than strictly right or wrong.
