I took a hard look at the people I follow on YouTube and whose newsletters I read religiously. A pattern emerged: no kids, gym memberships, and online businesses built on productivity hacks that assume you have the focus time of a Zen monk.

Which got me thinking—does any of this advice actually work for parents? You know, the people whose "deep focus time" is when their toddler is distracted by a cardboard box for 3.5 minutes? Who take “silent walks” only if you count sneaking out of a room after finally getting the baby to sleep?

The Productivity Illusion

Most advice from these gurus follows the same formula:

• Wake up at 4 AM.

• Do 90 minutes of deep work.

• Take a 20-minute silent walk.

• Lift heavy things at the gym.

• Eat exactly 2,000 calories of high-protein, low-everything-else meals.

• Read 50 pages of a book written by someone just like them.

• And, most importantly, avoid distractions (like, you know, children).

If you’re a parent, you might be laughing—or crying—because this is about as realistic as a unicorn babysitting your kids while you meditate.

Real Productivity for People With Actual Responsibilities

If your mornings involve convincing a toddler to wear pants, you need an approach that actually works in the real world. Here’s how to reclaim some productivity without giving up sleep, sanity, or your last shred of dignity:

1. Time Chunk Like a Boss – You’re not getting three hours of uninterrupted work time. But 20-minute sprints while the kids are eating, napping, or watching Bluey? That’s gold.

2. Redefine "Deep Work" – Your best ideas might not come in a soundproof office. They might come while packing school lunches or in the shower when no one is screaming for you (rare, but possible).

3. Exercise Like a Parent – Forget 90-minute gym sessions. Your workout is carrying a 15kg toddler who refuses to walk. Congratulations, you’re weight training.

4. Silence is a Myth, Use Headphones – If you can’t get quiet, noise-canceling headphones can create a cocoon of focus. Just don’t ignore the smoke alarm.

5. Use the "Tired But Wired" Hours – That weird time at night when you’re exhausted but scrolling Instagram? Swap it for 15 minutes of something useful, then crash.

The Goal: Sustainable, Sanity-Saving Productivity

Instead of feeling like you’re failing at productivity because you can’t live like a 29-year-old gym bro with a YouTube channel, shift the goal. The aim isn’t perfection—it’s making small, consistent improvements that work for your life, not theirs.

Because at the end of the day, your kids don’t care if you optimized your workflow. But they do care if you have the energy to play with them. And that’s a life worth optimising for.

That's it for this week - I hope you got some value - or a laugh out of it!

If you're not getting value out of these updates, please unsubscribe via the link at the bottom of the email. There's no hard feelings at all - life is busy!

But the greatest compliment you could pay me is to pass this on to someone you know. I do a little happy dance in my head when I see someone's done that :)

For now, though, here's some things I'm doing that might be helpful for you on the journey to doing what you're wanting to do:

Online Workshop: Illustrate Your Ideas with Napkin AI

Turn your rough ideas into clear visuals with AI-powered sketching. Perfect for business owners, content creators, and anyone who wishes they could draw better than a 5-year-old. It's a free online workshop and takes just 30 minutes.
Register here

In-Person in Darwin: The Art of Focus Workshop

If your focus is currently held together by caffeine and wishful thinking, this free in-person workshop is for you. Learn how to train your brain to actually concentrate—despite life’s many distractions.
Sign up here

Free Digital Resource: Write Better Online Content

Want to craft engaging content without spending hours staring at a blank page? This free mini-course will help you write better, faster, and with less frustration.
Start learning here

New Palmerston Public Speaking Club

After selling out my Darwin club for two months in a row, it's already time to expand. So I'm taking our fun, relaxed and effective public speaking practice club to Palmerston, NT in March. Find out more and, if you're ready, book your place now.

See you next week, unless my inner toddler deletes this newsletter before I hit send.

Cheers,
Dante

Here's some of the latest tools I'm using to get my work done.­­­­

I used to spend up to 3-hours writing my workshop slides. Now it's 15 minutes.

­­I host at least three workshops a week, so writing slide decks was taking a long time. I found Gamma, and tat has changed. Dramatically! Just choose a style, copy across the content outline you want, and let Gamma turn it into an attractive slide deck you can edit and style how you like.

It's free to use here.

My new CRM, website builder and marketing system is True Blue Connect.

I just completed the transfer of all my business websites, newsletter, contact management and email automation to True Blue Connect and the results are outstanding.

And I've already picked up on so many leads I would usually miss. Not to mention the local support.

Find out more about it here.

Scheduling social media posts

­­Sociamonials has been the tool I've used to schedule my posts to FB, Insta, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, X and Google Business profiles for about five years now. And there's no monthly subscription. Find out how, here.

An AI tool that doesn't make things up

­­­­­­Perplexity is an AI writing and research tool that doesn't make stuff up (like ChatGPT often does. It's now my most used AI tool. Oh, and if you're using the paid version, you'll have access to use the most powerful ChatGPT model, o1, and the brand new DeepSeek R1 model within Perplexity without any exposure to Chinese servers or restrictions. You can start for free right here.

Becoming a better writer

­I've been levelling up my writing of blogs, articles, social posts and even the scripts for videos and podcasts using Dan Koe's Kortex app. It creates a whole new type of flow for content exploration and writing - and given that I recently hit 6 million views for my LinkedIn content recenlty, it is definitely working! Oh - and the Kortex app is free to use for basic use. Check it out here.

Getting better ideas for writing

I've also created a free GPT on ChatGPT based on Dan's principles to help you explore topics you want to write about from different perspectives. It's available here on the free version of ChatGPT.­­­­­

Creating Video

Video doesn't have to be hard. For me, it's not something I can do on a mobile phone. I use the desktop version of CapCut to easily add captions, transitions and chop and change visuals. Check it out here.

I also use OBS Studio to record my video and line up multiple cameras for different angles. It takes so setup, but once you're going, it turns your laptop into a recording studio. Get it free here.