Founder Productivity

Productivity systems won’t save you. Not Notion dashboards. Not Pomodoros. Not the latest “Second Brain” framework you half-watched on YouTube at midnight. If you’re burned out, you don’t need a better app. You need a better relationship with time, focus, and momentum. Because here’s what most founders get wrong:They build productivity systems that assume they’re […]

Here’s the thing no one tells you about crisis leadership: By the time you realize you’re in a crisis, you’re already behind. I learned that in the Air Force, leading counter-espionage operations during the early days of digital warfare. But you don’t need a military badge to lead through chaos. You need a framework. Startups

Here’s the truth: most founder morning routines are performative. Wake up at 4 a.m.Gratitude journal.Cold plunge.Meditate for 45 minutes.Write a book chapter.Do a 10-mile ruck. It looks great on LinkedIn. But try doing that on 5 hours of sleep after a board meeting, three sales calls, and a toddler meltdown. Not happening. If you want

This isn’t just a budget decision—it’s a business model decision. Founders love the flexibility of freelancers. They also crave the consistency and control of full-time hires. But where do you actually get the best productivity per dollar, per hour, and per decision? Let’s break down what really matters. Productivity: Output vs. Ownership Freelancers Best for:

Startups and military intelligence may not seem like they have much in common—until you look at how they run meetings. Intel’s operational briefings are a masterclass in alignment, focus, and accountability. No fluff. No wasted motion. Just structured communication that drives results. And founders? We need more of that. Here’s how to apply their approach

If you’re still doing everything yourself, you’re not leading—you’re just surviving. Delegation isn’t a skill founders can afford to “figure out later.” It’s how you buy back time, scale your business, and build a team that doesn’t just wait for instructions. But here’s the catch: most founders delegate too late, or too fast. They either

You didn’t start a business to manage email. But most days, it feels like that’s your full-time job. You start your morning in your inbox. You end your day in your inbox. And in between, you’re responding to pings, forwarding intros, and losing your best thinking hours to… inbox whack-a-mole. It’s not just annoying. It’s

You’ve seen it a hundred times. The productivity gurus preach time-blocking like gospel: schedule every hour, color-code your calendar, and never miss a block. But here’s the thing no one tells you: time-blocking rarely works for founders. Why? Because your day isn’t predictable. Clients shift. Investors call. Fires pop up. And your beautifully blocked schedule?

You don’t need more productivity hacks. You need a system. Most founders spend their weeks reacting—jumping from Slack fires to Zoom marathons to inbox overload. It feels like work, but it’s just motion. No strategy. No compounding progress. The fix? A weekly ops rhythm that replaces chaos with clarity. Let’s build it. What’s a Weekly

If you’re a founder in the early days, here’s the uncomfortable truth: you’re not running a company—you’re surviving one. You’re chasing product-market fit, closing your first deals, onboarding clients, building your own site, writing cold emails, and maybe trying to launch a newsletter in between Slack pings. You’re the CEO, SDR, copywriter, support rep—and sometimes