Ditch the Ice Bath and Do What Matters: Real Productivity Explained
Why asking yourself 'What should I be doing now?' is actually a superpower
“When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul — then my heart bleeds.
Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute can be an eternity of happiness!”
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Lit bro? More like ‘Do it’ bro.
Have you ever met the mid 20s male productivity afficionado? (You’ll know them when they drop “Atomic Habits” into every conversation. )1
Last week, he was exuberant about ice baths; next week, its onto whatever dopamine ‘hack’ Huberman brings up.
He has a morning routine. He does it every day.
It consumes every minute between 5AM and 9AM, but somehow he still just barely gets to work on time.
He thinks that doing everything successful people do is the same as doing what makes people successful.2
He doesn’t ever stop to ask which activities he should be doing; he just adds more on his plate.
Pretty easy to see the flaw in this personality, right?
Bad news: this is probably you too.
If you clicked on this headline, you likely spend a lot of time or effort working to please a boss or superior, but don’t feel like you’re getting ahead.
You’re bouncing between meetings, filling out status updates for superiors, and trying to keep the plates spinning so that your underlings are utilized correctly.
To make matters worse, you might even feel exhausted from running around all the time.
Not relaxing, not getting ahead: Its the worst of both worlds.
In this post, we’ll talk about how to slow down to get ahead.
The Busy-ness Myth: Why More ≠ Better
The guy with the ice baths, the German car, and the perfectly color-coded kanban board might look like he’s crushing it. But if all his habits don’t add up to a meaningful goal, he’s just accelerating from running to sprinting in place.
This behavior stems from the action bias: our tendency to favor doing something over doing nothing, even when the action doesn’t help.
In the workplace, this manifests as endless to-do lists, multitasking, and prioritizing doing more tasks over completing valuable ones.
Effort without strategy is pouring water into a leaky bucket—it’s busywork that distracts from real impact.
Productivity Pitfalls
Luckily (or not) people tend to make the same kinds of mistakes when it comes to getting things done
1. Filling Unnecessary Niches
With digital marketing diversifying into platforms like TikTok, Twitch, and even Discord, it’s tempting to create ultra-specific roles.
The bourgeoning boat-Tok strategist might sound innovative, but does adding a new role—and all the associated responsibilities—really get you closer to a real goal?
These roles are often so poorly or narrowly defined that they become rote acts of checking boxes on the specific platform’s admin page. These roles are constrained where you can’t prove yourself to grow, but can still fail.
Too often, teams allocate resources to unproven niches instead of doubling down on high-performing channels.
What to Do Instead:
Evaluate the ROI of new roles or campaigns. Ask, “How does this align with our core business goals?”
Consider testing niche strategies on a smaller scale before committing resources.
If you do onboard resources, make sure to think through what they actually will be doing
Example: If your company thrives on email marketing, experiment with short-term TikTok campaigns. Measure success before onboarding a specialist.
2. Taking on Unclear Requests
Ambiguity is the kryptonite of productivity.
How often have you spent hours working on a project only to hear, “This isn’t what I wanted” or “plz fix”? It’s especially frustrating when the requester often has a clear idea of what they want3 but doesn’t get that across to you?4
Whether it’s because the goal wasn’t clear or the deliverable wasn’t defined, this kind of effort drain is entirely avoidable.
What to Do Instead:
Follow the three step checklist:
Clarify the Ask: Push for specifics about the task itself.
Align on End State: Make sure you and the requester agree on what the end state should look like
Understand Intent: Determine what the purpose of this request is
[Optional] Decline or Accept: If a task does not fit a strategic goal or make sense, you’re able to push back and/or prioritize it collaboratively with your other tasks
Example: Instead of “Create a report on marketing trends,” reframe the request: “Focus on reporting out email marketing trends with at least 3 key conclusions for Q1 campaigns; I want to show a report to our media buyer that proves that email is superior to direct mail w/r/t CPA .”
3. Overloading Your Calendar
Meetings, brainstorming sessions, and endless check-ins can make your day feel full—but are they meaningful?
Research shows that excessive meetings waste time and lower workplace satisfaction.
But more importantly, you intuitively already know that.
What to Do Instead:
Push for agendas in every meeting. If there isn’t one (and you’ve set the standard), it’s likely not worth your time. Don’t attend
Create “focus blocks” in your calendar to protect deep work time.
Challenge meeting scheduling by asking: “Can this be resolved via email or a quick conversation?”5
Reclaiming Control: Smarter, Not Harder
“The pose (or stretch) you avoid the most is the one you need the most.”
—Common Saying in Yoga
Once you recognize productivity traps, the next step is to figure out what gets you closer to your goals.
It’s very simple
Luckily your brain has a hack for productivity.
Ask yourself: “What should I be doing right now?”
I’m not suggesting that it’s easy or fun to follow through with those items, but you probably have a pretty good idea already of what you should do.
And if you really don’t know what to do, you can always ask for help.
By filtering tasks through this question, you’ll start to prioritize what matters most.
A New Definition of Productivity
Being productive isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing what matters most. As author Greg McKeown puts it in Essentialism, productivity is the art of “doing less, but better.”
So the next time you’re tempted to fill your morning with every trending “success habit,” remember: true progress comes from doing what you already know is important—you just have to listen to your brain.
Skip the ice bath, ditch the rote checklists, and ask yourself ‘What should I be doing today”. You probably won’t like hearing the answer; but that’s where you should start.
Don’t even get me started on people who are into using Notion…
Its like a statistician tasked with tracking the habits of Fortune 500 CEOs. Without thought, he would ‘conclude’ that driving a german car to a corner office is what made them successful—not realizing that those are ancillary to the original features that made them successful.
and maybe even a template!
I am guilty of doing this myself to those I delegate to
But don’t think that synchronous time is useless! Especially for imparting culture or training up newer resources, they need the real-time connection. Be intentional about setting it up, don’t just let your calendar fill up