Hi friends,

Happy Saturday. Did you know that yesterday was Quitter's Day? It's the second Friday of every January when most people give up on their New Year's resolutions. Regardless of where you currently are with your goals, just remember the hardest part is the day after perfect.

Embracing the mindset that something will always come up and that the real goal is getting back up afterwards has been very helpful for me this year.

For January, we're reading Atomic Habits by James Clear.

For February, we'll be reading Unhinged Habits by Jonathan Goodman

— Maneet

Weekly Discussion

One of my favorite games in the world is calendar jenga.

It’s when you open up your (digital) calendar and spend hours trying to make all your life responsibilities fit into little blocks for each day of the week, with the limited space available.

Sounds exhilarating, right?

This, my friends, is the definition of a term I’m coining called the Productive Planning Trap™. It’s based off a lesson I learned in Atomic Habits about motion versus action. Motion is when you’re in planning mode, getting ready to do things, but not actually doing anything. Action is actually doing the thing.

Can you guess which category calendar jenga falls under?

To a certain extent, I do believe planning is a necessary component in order to take effective action. All the time management books I’ve ever read place a strong emphasis on certain planning activities to ensure we’re taking action on the right things. So it’s not like we shouldn’t be planning at all. It just seems that things can get very tricky when we fall into the trap of overplanning and over-optimizing our schedules.

That’s what I’ve been struggling with for the past six months.

Ever since August, this has become a bigger and bigger challenge for me. Not only am I a full-time employee at my day job, I’m also a full-time graduate student, part-time intern, and part-time YouTuber. I’m no expert, but even I know the math ain’t mathing with all those commitments. Every few weeks, I find myself sitting on the sofa with my calendar open, trying to move little colored blocks around in a way that will allow me to do everything I need to do.

It’s become clear to me that there is no magic formula that will make it all work.

A better use of my time would be to lock in some foundations and just take action on something.

I’m the kind of person who thinks life would be perfect if only I could figure out a daily schedule that works. One that contains all the habits and deep work time I need to accomplish all my goals. These past six months have been a rude awakening, to say the least. No matter how hard I tried to schedule my time in advance, I would always struggle with actually doing the work I assigned for myself.

So lately, I’ve been trying to let go of this desire to have a perfect plan.

Instead, I’ve given myself permission to just take action on anything I’m in the mood for.

Sure, this may not be optimal or super efficient, but I’m getting way more done doing it this way than trying to force myself to follow routines that I really don’t feel like doing.

Today, I’d love to hear your own reflections about this topic. Do you struggle with getting stuck in the planning trap instead of taking action? How do you typically escape it?

Reply and let me know!

Weekly YouTube Video

​🎬 My Bold 2026 Kindle Predictions (I'm Probably Wrong)​

I just published my annual Kindle predictions video, and once again, I’m fully prepared to be wrong. I talk through what I realistically think Amazon will do in 2026, especially around the Kindle Scribe and AI features, and then share my personal wishlist for Kindle software improvements. If you’re curious where Kindle might be headed, this one’s worth a watch.

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Three ways I can help you...

🎬 Check out my latest YouTube video. My channel is all about Book Tech and using technology to live an intentional life.

📖 Need something new to read? Check out all the books I've written and support my work along the way.

📚 Check out the Presently Reading book log. It is a complete list of every book we've read in the book club since I started it.