Mitch Schwartz | Life/Work

I overdid it on my AI-code production line. So often, designing things is overdoing them and then bringing them back down… once the suffering has been noticed. I wanted to solve the problem where: I ask AI to do a thing → …bleep bloop… AI says the thing is done. But it’s not done. And now I play AI whack-a-mole. In this case I wanted AI to write tests, then fulfill them with code—which sounds great. But it went wrong. What went really right were the first 2 steps: 1 - where Claude interviewed me to create a ‘job spec’ following a template we had designed together. 2 - where Claude reviewed the spec against a set of ‘checks’ we also templated. Amazing. What went wrong? All the test writing. It went nowhere and made the AI dev dumber. The tests were overkill and the Dev was designing to pass tests instead of being smart and looking at greater context. (There’s a parallel to our school systems here but I’ll leave you to parse it out.) So after that suffering, what did I do? I skipped the ...

Thought I would share a few recent breakthroughs. It's been said that finding inner peace isn't about doing something new but rather doing less and connecting with what we already are.  It's described as a wordless experience that can't be described so much as pointed to. A teacher of mine, Joe Hudson's favourite pointer is to 'Drop the resistance'. While the phrasing 'drop the resistance' is a great pointer. I've been missing a piece needed to more fully with his teaching. I've recently noticed myself spinning in resistance loops. I came across Adyashanti's framing of meditation as simply 'not trying to change anything' and It's been amazingly powerful. It feels exactly how I would expect 'dropping the resistance' to feel. It also reminds me of 'the great perfection' that so many Buddhists have referred to, Naval Ravikants preferred 'drop the intention' meditation, and the state I get into when I medit...

Welcome! If you're anything like me, you're looking for a system that helps you feel focused and on top of things.  Many productivity systems create resistance and get in our way. Our habits break, we feel shitty. There's a stress loop that forms and we stop enjoying what we're doing.   If you're feeling anxious about your productivity, your organization, your focus, or your habits, Leo Babauta's modified version of GTD — Zen-to-Done , is a great place to start.  I recommend starting with the minimal ZTD and building from there.   Though his ebook isn't long (77 pages) I've done my best to condense them into actional steps and tips. To read those notes, click here

How I use a few minutes each day + ~30 minutes each week to make sure nothing falls through the cracks Two or three weeks ago, I rebuilt my tasking setup. I had let it break and decided to be ok with that.  I chose to be comfortable with the broken state of things and simply observe the consequences. With that knowledge, I could rebuild my system with only what is valuable.  Being among the second brain community helped motivate me but what really hit me was this note: What it feels like to be disorganized There is always a low level background anxiety that there is something important undone Chaos, lost, frazzled, overwhelming, messy, reactive. It feels normal until you experience the clarity that organization offers. Without ever experiencing organization, a scatter brained, stressed, and tired state is just "normal" and a consequence of working. It was all true.  My daily routines were going well, but I felt like tasks and projects were starting to pile up...

I used to think my wants needed to be explained. Like all of my feelings. Like most western people, I've appointed my brain as the judge and manager of my entirety, and of everything around me. I want whatever my brain says. My mind is logical. It knows what is rational and what isn't. It knows when something is dangerous. Millions of years of evolution have created my brain. It prevents me from following paths that could lead to destruction. It filters all of my wants and decides which ones are valid. It finds out why I want things so I can explain it to others so that they will see me as rational. My rational mind keeps me safe. It helps me know what is about to happen. it separates me from the animals. It separates me from the underclasses and the unsuccessful. It separates me from the people around me. It separates me from my feelings. It separates me from myself. In return, I get to think I feel like things around me are controlled. Each week, in the AoA course,...

An arrangement of notes I took during the Art of Accomplishment Course: Artistry requires self awareness; Your consciousness comes through in every product you create. When we use a product, we are consuming also the consciousness of it's creators;  Consciousness is part of creation, this is what makes it an art form. If a product is made in scarcity and fear, we'll feel that when we use it. Software developed by a team with poor communication, running around trying to complete a huge backlog, will bring this level of consciousness into the product. Trust your full expression. Trust what's coming through you. When we see this full expression in others, we want to follow it. If we're judging and questioning ourselves, we can't be in a flow state. The only way we will see that we're inherently good is by knowing who we are; Artistry comes from this place. I know what I am and I'm committed to fully expressing it Is the state which drives the purest creation. T...

For the better part of the past 2 years, I was the Flow Manager at a company that guided clients through digital transformation, helping each of them move into the future of work. Many people have asked me: "Mitch, what the F*** is a Flow Manager?" Good news: while there, I wrote a post: What my goals were What I learned while fulfilling them The good people there were kind enough to let me use that post for my post-employment posting, and now I'll be sharing it with you. Below is my short manifesto: what I learned about teams, people, systems, and overall management, while working as, essentially, the internal productivity manager for a team of productivity consultants.

The mind trap is simple:  The way to "solve" emotional issues is to let them go but this isn't actionable advice; they seem to come right back

How to Get to Your Goals Today I wanted to talk about achieving our dream lives, but I'm not just here to philosophize (maybe we'll go back to that next week).  I'm going to show you how I started with my dream life and broke it down into high level focuses, and areas where I will exert my energy. This process should be done at least annually; quarterly high-level reviews are a great idea as well. First, though, I will philosophize a little bit, but only enough so you know why you should care about this, so... Why Does Life Need to be Broken into Areas? Because if you don't have a clear vision of where you spend your time and energy, you'll feel like you have to be doing way more; this is both stressful and unproductive. Won't this make my life rigid and restrictive? No, this is designed to give you high-level guidance and quick reference as to why you're doing what you do throughout your day.  This is actually a g...