table of funtents

1. 👋🏼 hello + hny

2. 🤖 the productivity myth

   1. 1. keep it simple, stupid

   2. 2. strategy should hurt

   3. 3. perfection is the enemy of progress

👋🏼 hello + hny

Happy 2025, misfits! ✨

Hope you had a restful festive period and the transition back to work is kind to you. I can’t wait to catch up with you as per our regular Wednesday programming.

In classic Persian girl fashion, today’s episode won’t mention resolutions, new year, new me (or same me, even). IMO, the real new year starts on the Vernal (Spring) Equinox.

The Persians were onto something, amirite? Who wants to make resolutions (somehow always involving health and requiring endless motivation) when the sun’s up at 9 AM and back down at 3 PM?

Winter’s the time to sleep more, ease into mornings and channel your inner hermit (try and tell me otherwise, I dare ya).

For now, put on those extra thermals and let’s dive into our first episode of ‘25!

🤖 the productivity myth

No one intentionally builds a messy, chaotic, reactive or hectic business. 

Yet every founder has - at some point - felt all these feelings. Some feel it SO often they end up despising the thing they built.

Now, let’s talk the overload of productivity advice out there. Ya know, those manual frameworks and complicated systems that make us (falsely) feel like we’re masters of our own time?

Believe it or not: I don’t rate them.

No 5 AM ice baths. No Pomodoro or Eisenhower’s matrix. No time management apps.

My issue with productivity advice is it implies you can work faster, with less lift and less resources by simply using a shortcut.

In reality, you’re distracted by design: productivity hacks require you to trial multiple methods and attempt new habits to work differently - so much so, you end up not doing the actual work.

Some misfits think I run keshty like a well-oiled machine. I’m always flattered when someone calls me a “productivity / systems genius” who “gets shit done” 🥰

But here’s the no BS scoop:

1. I’m not doing anything special

2. You have everything you need, right now, to do the same

The only “special” thing I do is think in systems, rather than simply build them.

We live in a world where structures already exist, and we’re left to find ways to conform around them.

Today, I’m going to show you how to do the exact opposite with your biz: establish your thinking as the epicentre and build everything else around it.

The 3 mantras I’ll introduce that consistently keep me in check are:

1. keep it simple, stupid

2. strategy should hurt

3. perfection is the enemy of progress

1. keep it simple, stupid

Here’s a real-life example I’m sure you’ll relate to.

Most operators have worked with every project management tool out there. If you’re not in Ops, think to your own field and consider all the shiny platforms offering to make your work easier, faster or more streamlined.

Teams are QUICK to shun a free Trello board or Excel spreadsheet (what they know best) in favour of monday (“my mate said it’s slick”), Notion (“everyone else uses it”) or Jira (“our data IS as important as Palantir!”).

Then we pay (!!!) for an external consultant to build the best templates with a bunch of back-end code for a pretty penny. These tools promise to save us time and money, yet we’re spending both just to grasp the basics.

How in the world did we get here?

Because it does NOT matter what you build - it matters that you’ve built around your thinking. And the easiest way is to think basic.

That’s where KISS: keep it simple, stupid comes in.

With keshty, for example, I simply wanted:

• To get work done

• People to know how to reach me

• People to know what I do and how I do it

Once I thought through these simple things, I then started to build around them:

• I cut all noise keeping me from completing work, sticking to what I already know vs. new, shiny distractions

• I consistently tell people how to reach me: LinkedIn via DM, keshty via “get in touch” and here via direct email

• My website is frill-free and straightforward

2. strategy should hurt

Productivity advice promises to help you get more shit done. It teases you with a dopamine hit from ticking off a long to-do list.

But there’s nothing glamorous about consistent multi-tasking and endless checklists because there will always, always be more to do.

Whether you call it a north star or the main thing, condition yourself to think of the word “priority” in its pure, singular form. Then get ruthless.

I learned the importance of ruthlessly prioritising when I started leading mega departments, my last one being 100+. Some might disagree, but I don’t believe appearing busy and producing loads of micro-outputs is true leadership.

Ticked boxes don’t equal impact.

True leadership is moving a committed collective of people towards one common goal; even if everyone’s contribution looks different, we’re still focused on one finish line.

If you’re wondering where this plays out well in context, just look at your favourite sports team. Everyone plays a position / for one team at a time / in the same sport over and over again in pursuit of consistent wins.

Strategy should hurt, and I’d argue the pain is essential.

In practice, I segment each day as one MAIN thing (e.g. support X client, write this newsletter etc.) and one handful of necessary to-do’s (e.g. reply to 3 emails that require a response today).

It doesn’t mean I do one task a day. It means the TOP focus area that’ll truly move the needle gets my attention that day.

Everything else directly competes against the definition of priority.

3. perfection is the enemy of progress

51%.

That’s all we need to make a decision: 51% confidence, data and information supporting you in a direction.

Businesses need to move quickly, and only those constantly adapting without getting derailed stand a competitive chance.

Consider this: while you’re perfecting version 1 of your offer, your competitor’s completed 3 iterations, received regular feedback from users and pushed ahead.

It’s not to say their offer is necessarily better, but it is more informed, reflective and bespoke to what their customers want.

As a recovering perfectionist, I was devastated to learn perfection will never come: it’s too subjective and ever-evolving.

Conversely, progress by definition is moving forward.

In theory, this is simple to adopt: let go of perfection. Fail fast, improve incrementally and value progress that can only happen by actually doing the work.

In practice (harder, I know): remind yourself no one cares as much as you, your 50% is a most people’s 100% and that progress is the only true direction.

That’s a wrap, misfits! Thanks for joining ‘25’s first episode 🫶🏼

Remember: do what’s needed to do the actual work. Keep it simple, ruthlessly prioritise and ditch perfection in pursuit of progress.

Think in systems, build around your thinking and watch your business start to run itself. No distracting productivity hacks required.

Before you go, let me know what you thought of this mini episode with the pulse check below! Good intent feedback is always welcome ⬇️

PS: I’m only ever an email away for thoughts and questions!

xo, Neds