Hi friends,

Happy Saturday. I hope you had a wonderful week :)

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

— Maneet

Weekly Discussion

Even though I often feel overwhelmed with work, there’s an argument to be made that life is great.

Being overwhelmed is usually a sign that we’re trying to do too much. But we’re trying to do too much because we are genuinely interested in everything we’re doing. Life is SO good that we want to do all of it: our job, spending time with family, personal hobbies, that side hustle, and everything in between.

At least, that’s what the book is arguing.

This month, we kick off a newly published book titled Unhinged Habits by Jonathan Goodman. I’ve only read the first couple of chapters so far, but I’m enjoying the contrast between this and Atomic Habits from last month. It’s funny how two books about habits can have wildly different views on how to integrate them into our lives.

James Clear wants us to focus on building small, consistent habits that compound each day.

Goodman wants us to embrace seasonality instead.

There’s a lot going on in Unhinged Habits in the short amount I’ve read so far, but one lesson that particularly stood out to me was embracing seasonality. Goodman argues our bodies aren’t wired to focus on everything all the time. Instead, we should be comfortable spending a few months intensely focused on one area of life we want to build up, while giving ourselves permission for everything else to fall down to a baseline. The goal is to use seasonality to break ceilings and raise the baseline of the focused area, repeating this process one thing at a time.

Let’s take reading as an example.

Say you love reading and are trying to improve this habit. If you take the Atomic Habits approach, you may start by reading a few pages a day and making 1% improvements over a long period of time. The Unhinged Habits approach would be to make reading your central focus for a period of a few months. Make it the “season of reading” and prioritize it above all else. By the end of your season, you will have finished several books and will hopefully have a reading habit with a new baseline that far exceeds just a few pages each day. You’ve broken the ceiling of what you thought was possible because you focused on it intensely, and you’ve also raised the baseline of what your bare minimum looks like.

This approach has really got me thinking, so I’ll share a personal example that I’ve been reflecting on.

One of my goals this year was to produce one new YouTube video every week. I came up with this goal based on Atomic Habits and the idea of focusing on systems instead of outcomes. The system of producing a new weekly video will naturally lead to growth in other areas. However, what do you do when you aren’t able to focus on the system? That leaves you in a rather awkward position.

You see, I’ve been feeling stuck because I have so much going on in life. Even though I technically have the time to work on YouTube if I’m very efficient with my time, it just feels mentally taxing. I feel like I’m trying to do too many different things all at the same time.

If I take the seasonality approach, it would look much different.

What if I gave myself permission to focus solely on grad school for the next few months as my top priority? What if I intentionally said no to YouTube and came back to it when I have time to make it into its own season? My baseline for YouTube is maintaining this weekly email, so I can continue doing that in the interim. But I’d let go of this goal of publishing new videos, at least for right now.

Truthfully, that feels good. The idea of seasonality sits right.

At the same time, there are so many other factors I need to consider, like paying rent for my YouTube studio and not letting the channel die by not uploading anything. There’s also the risk of never coming back, even though I’m saying I will. I’m still a bit skeptical, to say the least.

I’d love to hear from you.

What are your thoughts on focusing on life in small seasonal chunks? Have you ever tried that before?

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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