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Hey Reader,

Last week at the gym I took a tiny beetle step to becoming the type of irritating person who makes the most of every moment.

You know the type — they have to fill every spare second with something productive or what’s the point of them.

Standing in line at the post office (does anyone do that anymore???): don’t just stare into space, use that time to read a wanky article from Forbes about the top 5 habits of billionaires that imply it was their 5am ice bath and kale smoothie that catapulted them to power, not their daddy’s trust fund.

Waiting around for your kid while they play excruciating “music” on their too-large saxophone that you spent the GDP of a minor island on? Stop doomscrolling and write another LinkedIn post called “business lessons I learned from listening to my kid play the saxophone — everyone starts somewhere!!!”

Stuck in traffic? Put the latest Tony Robbins audiobook on, get out a notebook, and watch your soul claw its way out of your body in a desperate attempt to distance itself from that suntanned cyborg.

Here’s what happened because I know you’re on the edge of your seat.

I had to be back for a Zoom call at 6pm, so I knew I didn’t have enough time to do my full workout. It was upper body day, so bicep curls were on the menu and I hate bicep curls with the kind of passion I usually reserve for runny egg whites.

It was the perfect excuse: I don’t have time for everything, so there’s no point in even going at all.

It’s that kind of all-or-nothing thinking that’s made me who I am today, kids.

But wait.

I remembered something.

I want to be able to stride around purposefully, do handstands, and still be able to wipe my own butt when I’m 95 years old. And if I want to be able to do all those things, I needed to hustle my bustle to the gym and do as much of my workout as I could manage in an hour.

So I did.

And let me tell you — I’m glad I did because I lifted 100kg! Not quite a pb, but getting back to it again.

Would I have done that if I’d flaked out of going because “it’s not worth it”? I would not.

There’s definitely a middle ground between “make every spare second productive bro” and “if I can’t spend hours on this I won’t do it at all” right?

There’s a lot of value in doing absolutely nothing in those spare moments. It’s often where ideas come from but more importantly, it’s rest, and we don’t have to earn rest.

And we can do a lot in shorter spaces of time than we’d ideally like.

Like lift 100kg.

So my Monday suggestions are:

1. Put your phone away during those spaces between things and instead notice stuff. Or just stare into space, maaaan.
2. Accept that sometimes you won’t have hours stretching away that you can fill with writing… but that doesn’t mean 20 minutes is useless. You can do a lot of meaningful writing in 20 minutes.

Which is why I built my Book Breakthrough: Unlocked around unblocked time. We work with what you’ve actually got — 10 minutes, 37 minutes, 4 hours, whatever — and build a plan specific enough that you can write meaningfully in it. No “find a month to hibernate in a writer’s cabin” nonsense.

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

p.s. An apology. I’m dreadfully sorry but on Friday I accidentally clicked “send” instead of “schedule” and so you got two emails from me that day. Normal behaviour might resume but honestly I don’t really trust myself to click buttons anymore…

p.p.s. Know someone who might enjoy this email? Please forward it to them and get them to sign up here.