All of my calls are on Mondays.

Before, meetings were scattered throughout the week.

Team check-ins and Trends.vc Masterminds on Monday, a HeadsUp.bot demo on Tuesday, a team workshop on Thursday, a product feedback call on Friday.

The unpredictability led to context switching and general overhead.

Now, I batch calls.

• Is it perfect? No. Mondays are exhausting.
• Is it better? Yes.

It front-loads Manager Mode and preserves Tuesday through Sunday for Maker Mode.

The philosophy, not perfect but better, also applies to product development.

Last week, HeadsUp.bot users reported hitting usage limits.

The perfect solution would have been to update pricing and upgrade them. But that would have taken time.

The better solution? I just raised the limits for everyone.

It was simple and it solved the problem fast. Letting me get back to the real bottleneck of HeadsUp.

Is that the long-term fix? No. But these limits were not the bottleneck.

Perfect is a myth.

It’s unachievable. And chasing it keeps you from improving your position.

• The perfect schedule does not exist.
• The perfect product does not exist.

You just need to improve from your previous state. And these improvements compound.

🧱

What are you delaying because you’re waiting for “perfect” instead of making it better?

For a long time, I had three separate habits:

• Experiments: trying new things
• Optimization: improving existing systems
• Courage challenges: doing things that made me nervous

Then I started doing more experiments.

At 8 experiments a day, optimization tasks were naturally getting done.

At 13 experiments a day, it became hard to avoid courage challenges.

I kept all three habits for a while. Then I reflected. The job-to-be-done of courage challenges and optimization was already being handled by experiments.

Three habits meant three moving pieces. And more context switching.

One habit made the others redundant.

When you do one thing at a sufficient scale, it can absorb others.

Intensity is a path to simplicity.

💎

What’s one habit you could do that, if done at a sufficient scale, makes other habits easier or unnecessary? (h/t Gary Keller)

Early on, I learned that I couldn’t always count on the adults in my life. I adapted by building backup plans.

But backup plans aren’t free. Plan B, C and D are like insurance premiums. Those premiums blunt your “returns.” You’re forced to over-diversify when you can’t trust your primary bet.

Unreliability is a Tax.

When you can’t trust a person or system, you pay an overhead:

1. The Follow-Up Tax: You have to double-check and micro-manage.
2. The Padding Tax: You have to sandbag estimates because you expect failure.
3. The Overhead Tax: You have an “open loop” in your head because you can’t trust the promise.

I pride myself on rolling with punches. You have to. Punches are inevitable.

But you don’t have to tolerate sources of unreliability. You can lower the tax.

Here’s how I do it:

• Hire reliable people.
• Cut off unreliable friends.
• Pay attention to early signs and exit.

Cheap and unreliable is expensive.

Expensive and reliable is cheap.

🚩

Where is unreliability costing you?

I use a modified version of the Ivy Lee method to manage my days.

The classic method is 100 years old:

1. Write down 6 things.
2. Prioritize them.
3. Work on number 1 until it’s done.

It divides planning (night before) from executing (morning of).

But I made three changes to make it fit my brain:

1. Time Estimates: I add a time to every task. Not to block the day, but to force a simulation. You can’t estimate a task without mentally walking through it. It deepens the thinking before you start.

2. Input Size: I write down ~8 items instead of 6. Why? To widen the net. You need a larger sample size to catch the “Power Law” outlier. 6 is often too narrow to find the task that matters more than the rest combined.

3. The Floor (Win State): The original method has no “finish line.” Tasks just roll over. I set a hard floor. If I finish the top 2 tasks, I get credit for the day.

My current range is 2 – 3 – 5. (See: The Habit Range System)

If I finish the top 2 tasks, I get credit for the day. That’s the floor.

On a normal day, I aim for 3.

On a great day, I stretch for 5.

This solves a big problem with to-do lists: the lack of true priority.

By force-ranking, I optimize for impact.

By using a range, I allow for the volatility of life.

If I only do the top 2, I still had a successful day because those were the highest leverage items.

🪴

Do you separate planning from executing?

I used to track habits as single targets. “Meditate 20 minutes.” “Write 500 words.”

The problem: life has volatility. Some days are smooth. Some days are chaos. A single target means you either hit it or you don’t. All or nothing.

So I started tracking habits as ranges: low – medium – high.

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Here’s how it works.

Take my meditation habit: 55 – 89 – 144 minutes.

On a good day, I push toward 144. On a rough day, I hit 55 and keep the streak. On a normal day, I aim for 89.

The range does three things:

• Lets me overperform when friction is low
• Protects the streak when life is chaotic
• Removes the all-or-nothing thinking that kills habits

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There’s a rule I follow: prove the next level before raising the floor.

Right now my meditation range is 55-89-144. Before the floor goes to 89, I have to hit 233 minutes. Not just hit the ceiling. Hit *beyond* the ceiling.

You don’t get to raise your standards until you’ve demonstrated you can operate at the next level.

—

The ranges themselves are Fibonacci numbers. 55, 89, 144, 233. This isn’t arbitrary. At each level, the system has different properties. The jump from 55 to 89 feels different than the jump from 89 to 144.

Fibonacci is a useful frame for anticipating when things will feel different.

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The deeper principle: habits exist in a volatile world. Fixed targets assume stable conditions. Ranges assume reality.

Every system with a single point of failure will eventually fail. Ranges build resilience into the habit itself.

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What habit could you put on a range instead of a single target?