Lmst

**Bước lẽ:Income "Tĩnh" Không Bao Nghi!**
4 năm largeur qua tôi đã học được: active income có ổn ấp hơn. Từ công việc thườngcontre sang " arranged inxic" để trắng ngồi kiếm tiền, au sau thành công, tôi chỉ giao $50/tháng vs $40 bạn/40h/weeks. 1000 giờادم tốn ~$30k. Health? Xaquai ngủ. Bài học: Income thực sự "tĩnh" chỉ Ottawa người giàu. Mà cả "hustle culture" đã che lконом tính.
#PassiveIncomeMyth #HustleCulture #MentalHealth #CareerChoice #FinancialFreedom
#ThôngDiện #TâmTấu #TiểuDoanNL

**Title:** "The Passive Income Trap & My Mental Health Collapse"
**Content:**
Quitting my job to chase passive income backfired—$43/month after 1,000+ hours. Hustle culture lied. Passive income = constant work, marketing, and support. Burned out, depressed, saved $30k. Now, a stable job pays more & protects my mental health. Lesson: Hustle gurus sell a fantasy. Regular jobs with boundaries? Maybe not sexy, but they work.

#PassiveIncomeMyth #MentalHealthCrisis #HustleCulture #FinancialFree

Productivity as a Fetish

Looking around at the productivity gurus writing about their ideal morning routine, or showing off their amazing productivity system, it’s easy to think that we’ve got it wrong. Our system doesn’t let us live the life we see captured in moments and posted on Instagram. The task manager we use doesn’t let us flow effortlessly between tasks checking off everything we should get done in a day. We don’t have the time to get to everything and boy that list of interesting books and articles is piling up.

Modern productivity culture is obsessed with control and fetishizes the ideal day. Behind that curtain is almost always more chaos than you think. Many of the people touting their system actually have a team behind them getting most of the work done. Their only job is to show you the productivity system, not sit in the morass of expectations that most of us have around us from work and family and our own desires for life.

Today we’ll take a look at the things we think should let us win the productive game and how they fail us.

Systems

One of the first things we fetishize is the productivity system that we use. Do we use GTD or Agile or maybe the Eisenhower Matrix or how about Kanban, but don’t forget about Bullet Journal. But those systems only deal with your tasks and most tasks, certainly all projects, have copious reference material that goes alongside them, how do you organize those reference bits? Do you use PARA or Zettelkasten how about LATCH but don’t forget about Cornell Notes.

Honestly, I’ve barely scratched the surface of my brain to find all these examples of systems. I’m sure there are more of them out there and that they work for some people who will swear that the system that works for them is the best system.

Systems themselves aren’t the problem. I like PARA for organizing projects so I have a folder of all my current projects and an archive folder for stuff I’m not involved in anymore. That’s as far as I take PARA though.

GTD is good for helping you find the next immediate action on a project and Kanban works if you’re trying to limit the WIP (work in progress) so that you don’t get overwhelmed by far too many tasks.

Bullet Journal is excellent for enforcing constraints, because if a task feels like too much work to move from one page to another you’re telling yourself that it’s not that valuable. Then you stop moving it and your list gets shorter because you stopped worrying about tasks that don’t matter.

The problem with systems is that we go hunting them, and never stop hunting. The second most popular content on my site is when I evaluate a new system for productivity. Someone uses GTD, but then has a boat load of tasks sitting on top of them so they look at Agile or Kanban. Either of these systems works in the short term, but then they’re overloaded again and they start looking for another system.

Pretty much any of the systems will work, if you can stay focused on using the system. Life is going to get in the way sometimes though and you’ll need to stop after life gives you a break and clean up whatever system you’re using so that it’s back to its ideal organized state. Switching systems won’t fix this, some hard work will.

Just do the hard work and stop spending those hours hunting for the next magical system.

Tools

The most popular content on my site is a review of a new task manager. Without doing any research I know I’ve reviewed.

I’m sure there are more that I’m missing but the truth is that the tool you use mostly doesn’t matter. The reason that people switch tools is the same reason they search for a new system.

Their tasks are overwhelming them and they don’t feel like they’ll get everything done. But as Oliver Burkeman advises in Meditations for Mortals there is freedom in realizing that you won’t get everything done, that most of your tasks don’t matter and you should let them go because you’re never going to do them. They’re not valuable enough to bother with.

The problem isn’t that you haven’t found the right tool to control your tasks, it’s that you think it’s possible to control every task that flows your way1.

The reason a new tool, or a new system for that matter, feels so good is that you give up on so many of the tasks that were weighing you down in the old system. You don’t move every idea over figuring that you’ll come back to them at some point, and then you never come back.

So don’t switch tools when it looks overwhelming. Quit all the tasks that were due 3 weeks ago and you’ve never done. If they were important you would have done them when you said you would. Let them go and if they become important, they’ll resurface.

Freedom of Time

If only I had time to take 20 mile walks to think like Charles Dickens I could be a good writer. I just need the time to think that a long walk without interruptions would give me. Heck, I have three kids in sports, forget a long walk how about 15 minutes of time where no one asks me to do some random shit they think is important.

Could I get that time, without getting up at 5 am please?

For every Charles Dickens who had plenty of free time you have a Jane Austen who wrote in the sitting room and hid her writing when interrupted by family members. Ursula K. Le Guin raised 3 children and spoke of “stealing” writing time between stuff her kids required of her.

Here I love How to Write a Lot, specifically his advice early in the book that if you’re not going to make a schedule for writing then you should slowly close his book make sure it looks clean and give it to a friend that really does want to write2. Silva also says that the specific equipment you use won’t help you write a lot, only a schedule you stick to is going to help you write3.

Far from being a bad thing, constraints help you focus on what matters. You don’t have time to meander around into 7 things that don’t matter during your writing time, you must write. I write most of these between 5:30 am and 7:30 am on Friday mornings. Yes I often have an outline that came to me earlier in the week, or a few links that I found interesting, but the bulk of what you read is done in those two hours. I then take the kids to school and walk the dog before doing an editing pass and then getting the content ready on my site.

By 9:30 am I’m working my day job because I have to work to keep food on the table. While I have books for sale and a membership that earn some money, they are far from paying the bills. My bills are paid by a 20 year long career as a programmer.

Numbers

Finally, we often fetishize numbers as if the number of books you read in a year has any bearing on your quality as a person or how intelligent and thoughtful you are. Accumulate articles to read later, videos to watch later, and all manner of things that our brain thinks a good smart person like us should be engaged with4.

On the task front many systems gamify the act of doing tasks. Todoist gives you karma points for doing more tasks. But Todoist doesn’t know what tasks are important and thus deserve a point, or 300 points. As far as Todoist is concerned you can check off a task for changing the furnace filter and get as many points as getting that proposal out which keeps the house over your head.

There is so much that passes us by that has some value to read that we’ll never get to it all. Stop worrying about it and let it all pass you by like a river. Dip in and grab some stuff that you can read in the moment and let the rest of it pass you by without worry5.

It’s unlikely that I’m going to change the oil on my wife’s car, rotate the tires, change the furnace filter, read for a few hours, help with Thanksgiving dinner, and get some good bike rides in this weekend even with an extra Monday off. Instead I need to pick the few tasks that must get done, the oil change and tires, and the rest can wait a week so that I can be around the house, get some bike ride time in, and finish a long weekend feeling like I had some much needed rest.

The number of tasks I get done won’t impress my family. They won’t think I’m a better father or husband if I can show them that I did 50 things this weekend but didn’t spend any time with them. Yet so many of us look at the number of tasks we do as the best metric for our value.

Once you have a system that works, stop worrying about systems and use what you’ve got while remembering you will never be able to get everything done so you need to let some tasks go. Do you have a task management system that works for you, forget the new shiny tool and keep using the tool you’ve got in front of you. The new shiny tool will only help in the short term, the problem is likely that you don’t let enough stuff drop off your list without worrying about them.

Don’t expect that “if only” your life were different you’d get more done, or have time to focus on those things you wish were important enough to get focused on now. Set a schedule for the things that are important and do them. If life gets in the way today, pick the schedule back up tomorrow.

Stop focusing on numbers because numbers can easily lie. Do what you can every day, and let the rest pass you by. Cut the tasks that haven’t been done in weeks and stop worrying about them. The TBR piles should be put aside, read what you can and don’t worry about the rest. If it’s important enough it will come back. If it doesn’t come back, it wasn’t important.

Meditations for Mortals Pg 7 ↩︎
How to Write a Lot Loc 163 ↩︎
How to Write a Lot Loc 240 ↩︎
Meditations for Mortals Pg 27 ↩︎
Meditations for Mortals Pg 27 ↩︎

#GTD #hustleCulture #kanban #Obsidian #productivityPorn

Productivity as a Fetish
Looking around at the productivity gurus writing about their ideal morning routine, or showing off their amazing productivity system, it's easy to think that we've got it wrong. Our system doesn't let us live the life we see captured in moments and posted on Instagram. The task manager we use doesn't let us flow effortlessly between tasks
https://curtismchale.ca/2025/10/11/productivity-as-a-fetish/
#3Threads #GTD #HustleCulture #kanban #Obsidian #ProductivityPorn

It's spooky month and I originally kicked off this month with today's video: scare tactics and how they really don't work.

#hustleculture #selfpromo #Youtube
https://youtu.be/V39yteJelpU

Happiness researcher explains how making a 'reverse bucket list' can change your life

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/arthur-c-brooks-reverse-bucket-list

Rethinking Overwork: Why Extreme Work Cultures Like ‘996’ Harm People and Productivity

In her opinion piece, Emma Beddington criticizes the resurgence of the '996' work culture — a schedule demanding employees to work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week — particularly in Silicon Valley and the tech industry. She traces the historical struggle for fair working hours back to Robert O... [More info]

This national holiday, I decided to not "be productive" or "try to catch up on todos" 🙅

Instead, I dedicate my day off entirely to sorting my #MagicTheGathering collection and building new #Commander decks. Both meditative and creative, yet following no goal other than having fun.

#HustleCulture...

Keep working, have NO gaps in your resume even at the 94-101 year age range.
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/29/nx-s1-5556972/russell-m-nelson-head-of-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-dies-at-101
#HustleCulture #LinkedIn

I just sent an email to a client to tell him I can't work with him (purely because of time -- the client is lovely and his story is great).

I feel so guilty but I've found a really good editor to work with him (a friend and colleague) who can start right away. Hopefully they'll click and it works out for both of them.

I know the hustle is just bad for my mental health, and I need to sleep more and rest more, and I really truly don't have the time with the family obligations, but omg it is so HARD to reject work and money (even when the work is going to make life even more chaotic than normal and the money will not make up for that)

Sigh

#HustleCulture #SlowDown #reflection #work #ChoosingTheRightThing

Constraints are the Antidote to the Toxicity of Hustle Culture

We live in an age of abundance. An age where you can order almost anything you want online and have it delivered in a few days to your doorstep. If you live in a major city you don’t even have to wait a few days, your momentary desire for longer metal straws can be fulfilled in an hour without needing to leave your house.

Chase Jarvis notes that this love of abundance leads to the toxicity of performance culture.

“More” is the favorite mantra of hustlers, and bigger and better are the constant aims of those enmeshed in the toxic culture of performance. – Never Play It Safe Pg 13

This abundance maps into the mantra of so many popular gurus. If you just get up at 5 am, have their favourite power smoothie, and schedule your day, you too can be as productive. If that doesn’t work, they’ve got three other steps you can add to your day so that you can have 12 productive hours in a day.

Constraints though are often the key to making progress on the items that are important to you. Parkinson’s Law states that work will expand to fill the time available. But infinite time doesn’t help you become a master. Infinite time merely encourages procrastination disguised as perfectionism to creep into your work because if you just have “a few more days” whatever you’re working on will launch without flaws.

On a recent Cortex Casey Newton of Platformer noted that one big thing Bullet Journalers get right is that they have to manually copy a task to the next day for it to stay on your list. That means they have to vote daily if a task is worth doing. The second it feels like too much work to move that task to another day you’ve just voted that it’s not worth doing. Recognizing this, Casey changes task managers regularly because the effort to move tasks to the new system means he abandons a bunch of tasks he was never going to do anyway.

The constraint of effort means he drops tasks that sounded good in the moment, but will never be important enough to become a priority and get accomplished.

Instead of looking for a life that’s free of constraints, impose them on yourself so they can act as a forcing function to bring out your best work. To write these book posts I give myself about an hour for the first draft on Friday morning before I get the kids to school. Knowing I have limited time to write, I’m thinking about what I want to tackle some time on Thursday. When I’ve had the entire day free I still get the writing done, but I don’t bother to think deeply about it until later in the day and then instead of having thoughts percolating through my brain I’m rushing to find something, anything to write about.

I have an hour to train for cycling on Saturday morning. I pick the workout Friday night so that I’m not wasting time trying to figure out what I’ll do in the precious moments I have to focus on cycling.

Dr. Seuss used the constraint of 50 unique words and a bet to write the children’s classic Green Eggs and Ham.

Lever 4 in this month’s book, Never Play it Safe, is all about constraints and how they help us get good work done, without falling into the hustle culture mantra of overwork which leads to burnout.

Don’t long for a life without constraints as if it’s a mythical world where you’ll finally get everything done. Set some boundaries on yourself and work inside those boundaries so that you can get stuff that matters to you done.

#abundance #bulletJournal #constraints #hustleCulture

Constraints are the Antidote to the Toxicity of Hustle Culture
We live in an age of abundance. An age where you can order almost anything you want online and have it delivered in a few days to your doorstep. If you live in a major city you don't even have to wait a few days, your momentary desire for longer metal straws can be
https://curtismchale.ca/2025/09/21/constraints-are-the-antidote-to-the-toxicity-of-hustle-culture/
#BookClub #abundance #BulletJournal #constraints #HustleCulture