Dan Bartlett

How do you know if you're investing wisely in your productivity setup? I suggested one question in my latest newsletter to help you figure it out: thetechcoach.io/newsletter/a...

The systems that worked best were ephemeral. They were adapted to my current hurricane of obligations. 6 months later, they felt rigid and redundant. That's ok. It means they served their precise focus, instead of becoming a time-wasting obsession.

It’s funny how easy it is to look back and see precisely zero correlation between my system of choice and what I was achieving at the time.

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...

Hoarding-type Scrolling A minor epiphany about mindless scrolling

For those who suspect their Read-It-Later queue is a lie

substack.com/home/post/p-...

The difference some space can make:

danbartlett.co.uk/the-differen...

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

➡️ TheTechCoach.io

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

You can read them all here: danbartlett.co.uk/solo-retreat...

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

Many meditators have a warped view of acceptance: danbartlett.co.uk/meditators-h...

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 habits garner coverage in self-help bestsellers.

Yet you, as a conscious subject—a living presence—have no place in this story.

Somehow, we have all but written ourselves out of our own story.

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.

Full post: danbartlett.co.uk/curiosity-is...

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

If your interest is piqued, I wrote more on this here: danbartlett.co.uk/widen-the-vi...

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.

Link: www.nobt.co.uk/p/nobody-is-...

🆕 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.

That could be a flash of insight in meditation or the slow cultivation of wisdom in relationships.

These profound shifts come about through full-contact living, not the adoption of a belief.

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.

I find the same when I teach people to shake spontaneously! Simple but powerful.

But when you spend so much time disproving something, you unintentionally give it a reality it does not possess on its own.