In my 2 decades of building products, teams and companies, I’ve also cycled through all of the Todo apps: Todoist, Things, Workflowy, Reminders, Notion, a complete second brain (🤮), bullet journals, Obsidian, random pieces of paper...

For those who suspect their Read-It-Later queue is a lie substack.com/home/post/p-...

The feedback I get most from facilitating TRE sessions is that a little space makes a big difference.

Today, I'm launching the new face of my coaching practice ✨ I'm combining my experience as an accredited coach with my 20 years of industry experience, offering something unique to people working in Tech. If you know anyone who you think might be interested, please pass along

A bundle of reflections from the tail-end of my last silent retreat.

I've been toying a lot, on and off retreat, with interrupting (not suppressing) narratives. This narrowing happens not just conceptually, but perceptually, as a contraction that collapses your natural openness.

“Blessing, infinite in its modes and colours, often seems to me to be the very nature of all things, of all existence.” —Rob Burbea, in one of his final emails

It's interesting how easy it is to be a real dick to yourself in the name of acceptance. Now that I facilitate TRE with other meditators, I've started seeing this pattern repeat.

Our material bodies have a place in physics, subject to its laws. Our biology has a place in our textbooks and the story of evolution. Our behaviours receive attention in psychology.

Stress is another form of narrowing, and curiosity is a way of reversing it.

You don't always need to debate a belief or "see through" it. You can, instead, expand your view so that it occupies less real estate in your experience. This feels inherently good once you get the knack of it.

🆕 This week's writing and recommendations: • The difference some space can make • How we've confused contemplation with rumination • Everything that we think of as self is made up of not-self • Painful teenage memories

I am a degenrate Daoist. I get intoxicated, take things too far and then, realising my mistake, violently careen in the other direction. After reviewing the rubble, I can see where the middle ground is. I care a lot about balance, I just don’t get there gracefully.

Meditation allows you to widen your view. The same thoughts and emotions can arise and pass, but they have more space. They've lost the narrow frame that made them feel big. Without that frame, it's easier to see them as they are: autonomic, alive & fleeting.

We live in a belief-centric society. We, as a society, think that changing beliefs is the best way to improve ourselves. I think this is a mistake for many reasons, the biggest of which is that it is blind to transformations in perception.

Simple practices can be transformative. But there aren’t many people actually doing them.

People want to be less stressed and more productive. Yet they obey a host of ideas about how productivity requires high stress. They want recognition. But they believe they’re an unworthy imposter. Instead of questioning the beliefs themselves, they work harder to disprove them.

#maddow Science break. This kayaker gets approached by an otter every time he visits a lake. The otter was orphaned after the mother was in an accident, and the man helped it throughout it's rehabilitation process to later release it back into the wild. Volume up.🔊

A few weeks ago, I sat down with Darrell from the Purpose People podcast to talk about my journey into Tech, the mess behind the success of running a high-growth startup and how I ended up coaching.

My weekly newsletter is out! I'm experimenting with a different format that includes what I've been doing, books and videos I've been enjoying, and the writings I've published this week. Check it.

Cultivating state means stepping back, temporarily. Tending to something more nebulous and having the confidence that a well-tended mind will be your best weapon in getting things done.

A conversation on AI that: • That wonders how intimate AI can buffer us against the incentives of larger LLMs. • That considers how a personal AI might help us foster integrity and wisdom.

News flash: the world needs you to consume less news.

“The loneliness of writing is that you baffle your friends and change the lives of strangers” —Richard Powers

When people are struggling with energy they often look for some hack or new signal. But your body has been giving you real-time feedback the whole time. The anxiety, fatigue, demotivation. These are the signals you’re looking for, not the hurdles you need to clear.

Physical training is very conducive to the other work I do: a run is the quickest way I know of turning a day around. My mind and body are invariably changed on the other side of it. So many new ideas also come to me whilst walking and hiking, a kind of thinking in motion.

I’ve always appreciated the spontaneous answers that pop out when people ask me questions. It leads to responses that it’s hard to manufacture on your own. But it was rare. You’d have to wait for an interview, some client work or a thoughtful friend to show up.

Someone introduced me to the idea of directional vs destinational living this week. 🛣️ Destinational living focuses on conventional outcomes that promise security and success in the future. We focus on the goal and work backwards, employing any means to justify the ends.

Undistractability is a superpower. It’s becoming increasingly rare for people to have the attentional resilience to 1) tend their somatic and emotional foundations and 2) engage in deep, single-pointed work around their passions. Blocking things out is what getting ahead looks like.

Acceptance is what we call clarity as it dawns in a person.

Struggle lets off smog. Letting go of the struggle allows the air to clear.

Publishing every day is a full-body workout. Each morning, you have to write, delete, continue when you feel like a slug, refine metaphors, tweak structures, learn what good titles look like, publish, repurpose & stay disciplined on social networks to avoid misanthropy.

How do you know if you've had a productive day? I just look down. I work in short, intentional, high-focus blocks and count them as I go. Yesterday was an 11-blocker—I got a lot done. I got this way of working from David Cain, of Raptitude fame: www.raptitude.com/2021/11/how-...

Software engineers get more confident about deploying by leaning into the scary thing and doing it every day. Likewise, the cure for writing paralysis is to publish *more* often. Publishing regularly has many wonderful side effects:

Runners keep 80% of their runs easy and 20% high intensity. They avoid the in-between, grey zone because its low return, high fatigue. I’m applying this to my writings: 80% of what I publish are low-friction, daily reflections.

I’ve owned danbartlett.co.uk for nearly 20 years now. It’s basically a fully-grown child. Thankfully, amidst many side projects, I’ve kept it alive. Today, it's where nearly all my business comes from. I’m returning to publishing on my personal website. Every day

If you're in #Bristol, I'll be talking at HUM4NS Unplugged on Apr 24. I'm excited to dive into the highs, lows—and everything in between—of founding a company. Tickets: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hum4ns-unp...

Following your sense of salience is how you build a philosophy from the bottom up. It stays open and panoramic in the short-term to create something bold and holistic in the long-term. Today's musing: danbartlett.co.uk/why-whats-in...

“We are designed to encounter this life with amazement and wonder, not resignation and endurance... The dream of full-throated living, woven into our very being, has often been forgotten and neglected, replaced by a societal fiction of productivity and material gain.” - Francis Weller

Today, I wrote about how a meditation app, a book on grief and Tyler Cowen got me started publishing daily. I asked: how do I give voice to all parts of myself? I answered: I’ll publish something every day and find out. danbartlett.co.uk/the-places-t... #writing #blogging

Yesterday I started a new challenge: publishing something every day, for 90 days. After reading a book on grief, I realised how many of my interests I still keep quiet about. New routine: wake up, write, share. Every day. Here’s Day 1! danbartlett.co.uk/im-publishin... #writing #blogging