Social media is a weird place to practise self-care, because the product is your attention.

Which means “use it in moderation” is a cute suggestion, but it ignores the more annoying truth: these platforms are engineered to blur the line between necessity, pleasure, and information. Some days you open an app to check a message. Twenty minutes later you’re doomscrolling, comparing your life to someone else’s highlight reel, and somehow you now have opinions about a topic you did not wake up wanting.

In this episode, I interviewed Cora Feldman. We dug into the messy overlap between social media and mental health, and how to stay online without letting the algorithm climb into your brain, unpack its bags, and move in permanently.

The three layers that pull us in

I shared a framework I keep coming back to: most of our social media use lives in three modes.

Necessity: work, job searching, keeping up with people, being reachable.

Pleasure: entertainment, inspiration, the little dopamine snacks.

Information: news, politics, awareness, “staying informed”.

The problem is how fluid those modes are. You arrive for necessity, stay for pleasure, and leave with a head full of information you did not consent to consuming.

Cora’s point is that the system is designed to blur those lines, because blurred lines keep you scrolling.

“High risk, high reward” is the trap

Cora describes LinkedIn and Pinterest as having very different vibes.

Pinterest feels lighter. It’s inspiration-heavy, and often less politically intense than other platforms. LinkedIn is more complicated. It’s genuinely useful for meeting other creatives, supporting friends, and finding opportunities, but it also carries a unique mental health load when it becomes tied to survival.

Job searching is not a neutral activity. For a lot of people, it’s rent. It’s health insurance. It’s status. It’s desperation. So when a platform becomes the doorway to stability, your nervous system treats it like a high-stakes environment.

That’s why LinkedIn can be both helpful and brutal.

The danger isn’t only addiction, it’s literacy

Cora is careful with the addiction label. She points to something broader than “I can’t stop scrolling”.

The bigger issue is the collision between human nature and machine incentives.

The platforms are not your friend. They are businesses. They are optimised to keep you engaged because engagement becomes ad revenue. So the feed is shaped by what holds attention, not what supports mental health.

That’s where the harm starts to creep in.

Not always from the pleasant “high” of good content, but from not noticing what you’re being fed, why you’re being fed it, and what it does to you afterwards.

Protect your personal algorithm like it’s your brain on lease

This was the most practical, reusable takeaway from Cora.

If you need social media for work, separate it.

Create a work-only account. Keep it clean. Use it for research, industry scanning, content tasks, whatever your job requires.

Because if you mix your work research with your personal feed, you don’t just “see more content”. You train the algorithm to bring work stress home with you.

Cora gives a heavy example from her work: researching sensitive topics for an article. That research changed her personal feed, which meant she started seeing difficult content in her off hours. That’s a mental health tax you don’t need to pay.

If you take one thing from this episode, take this: protect your personal algorithm at all costs.

Your feed is also shaped by other people

This is the part most people miss.

The algorithm doesn’t only respond to what you search. It responds to what your network engages with, what people send you, and what you click out of politeness.

So boundaries aren’t just about apps. They’re about humans.

Cora talks about telling friends and family not to send certain content, even if she agrees with the underlying message. Because one video becomes three more, and suddenly your feed is full of emotionally charged content you didn’t ask for.

That boundary can be awkward. It can be misunderstood. It can be necessary anyway.

Intention beats guilt

Cora’s healthiest habit is using social media with intention.

She deleted Instagram from her phone. When she uses it, it’s infrequent, and she goes in with a specific purpose. Cat videos. Outfit searches. Something light. Something chosen.

She also uses the platform controls aggressively. Block fast. Unfollow without drama. Cut off topics that spike anxiety, even if they feel “important”.

Because guilt is not a strategy. Feeling obligated to consume distressing content doesn’t make you informed, it makes you depleted.

And if you consistently feel worse after using an app, that’s feedback, not weakness.

If you need the news, social media might be the wrong pipeline

Cora doesn’t say “don’t be informed”. She says: if being informed is the necessity, social media is a chaotic way to meet it.

Incendiary content makes money. Rage bait travels faster than nuance. That’s not a moral failure on your part, it’s a business model.

So if you’re walking away consistently feeling anxious, angry, or hopeless, consider moving your news intake elsewhere. Follow specific accounts that do reporting responsibly, or use other tools designed for news instead of engagement.

Listen to the full episode

Protecting your mental health on social media (w/ Cora Veltman)

Set Status: Online · Episode

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Full Transcript

00:01
Jomiro: We’re online, and so are you. I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Cora Feldman, who is glorious, and you can find all the info about her in the episode description. In this episode, we discussed and unpacked the really complicated world of social media and mental health, and navigating social media while protecting mental health.

00:31
Jomiro: I feel like this warrants another episode, but I hope that you can get some information out of this chat. It was really cool, and I hope you enjoy it.

00:41
Jomiro: Before we started recording, we were talking about what kind of social media apps you use most often at the moment, of which LinkedIn and Pinterest seem to be two of the most prominent ones. To start off, I’m curious, could you tell me how you describe your relationship to those apps right now? What does that relationship look like?

01:11
Cora: Pinterest, because I have a creative job and because I’m a creative person, I’m constantly very hungry for lots of content. And I think that definitely comes from years and years and years of being a social media manager. I used to spend between eight and ten hours a day on social media across platforms for the brands that I was running it for.

So I have this kind of programming that needs to be filled with something. And Pinterest was a really safe space for me to use and glean from it what I was always looking for, which is inspiration.

01:36
Cora: I look at a lot of visual inspiration. I look at a lot of idea inspiration. I’m really into typography, so seeing how other people are creating art.

There’s a lot of AI art on there, which I think is both good and bad. But I do feel like it’s a good blend of content without the heavier political slant that you might find in other social media platforms right now.

It feels light. It’s brevity. And I feel like some heaviness in how people are communicating on other platforms right now is detracting from the fun of it.

02:32
Cora: LinkedIn-wise, I have a very different relationship with it, and that’s kind of how you and I met and how this conversation started.

I use it as a primary means of meeting other creatives. And I think that’s both good and bad because on one hand, I am kind of reliant upon using this platform as a means of starting the conversation or assuming that people know certain things about me because of this very public persona that has unintentionally developed.

But I also feel like LinkedIn is a means for me to talk to other creators from around the world. How is your industry going? What’s a project that you’ve worked on that you’ve been inspired by lately? I’m still gleaning that inspiration, it’s just coming in a different package.

03:30
Cora: I would also say that LinkedIn has turned into a means of me communicating and supporting my friends in the best way that I possibly can.

Whereas Instagram used to be like, “Hey girl, yeah, you’re looking good in that bikini,” posting that as a comment, the millennial soul inside of me.

That’s more turned into commenting for reach on job postings that I see and trying to get other people seeing that there are job opportunities out there right now.

LinkedIn is such a unique platform in that you can actually find opportunities that might not be as apparent on other social media platforms.

So I try to use that tool specifically to boost the signal of people that I know that are hiring, that are trying to find the right person.

03:57
Cora: But also I use it to comment for reach and keep that hope alive for a lot of my friends right now who are struggling to find a job or are in a job that they’re unhappy in.

I try to post what I would have needed when I was in that stage, which wasn’t that long ago.

I was looking for a job and using LinkedIn in that way myself, and the mental health ramifications of using a social media platform like that in your day to day, tied to trying to find a job, especially in the United States where our health insurance is so integrally tied, trying to pay rent and trying to stave off this desperation.

I was using LinkedIn in a much different way then than I am now. And I’m trying to keep that as a mentally healthy space, not just for me, but for the people that matter a lot to me.

05:25
Jomiro: You’re touching on something which I often find myself thinking about. There seem to be three main layers in terms of how we engage with social media: necessity, pleasure, and information.

We sort of move through those fluidly. But I do feel like the necessity layer is what often sucks us in.

Do you feel like you can draw a better boundary with some apps as opposed to others when it comes to limiting your time on those apps?

05:54
Cora: Yes, and I think that’s a really eloquent way of putting it. Entertainment and pleasure are interchangeable in that.

To answer your question directly, yes, I feel like some platforms are easier to draw that line. But I do think that the overall nature of social media as a system is supposed to blur those lines.

I think the intention of a lot of owners of these platforms, but also how these platforms are set up to make money, is intentionally trying to blur those lines.

And I think the platforms that blur those lines better tend to be potentially more dangerous, but also bring me some of the better things in my life.

So it’s high risk, high reward.

06:51
Cora: Some days, especially if you find yourself on the bad side of an algorithm, it can be very heavy to carry.

You might have found yourself in a very news-heavy algorithm instead of a very entertainment-heavy algorithm.

Or the necessity of staying up to date with that one aunt that you never get to talk to because she only uses Facebook, and now you’ve found yourself in the dredges of AI slop on Meta.

And you’re just kind of like, “Oh no, I’m stuck here.”

I feel like places like LinkedIn and Reddit tend to create better barriers between those three layers. So those are spaces that I feel more comfortable in.

But I also feel like I’m becoming more and more of a Luddite in that because I’m over it. I’m over the novelty of social media. I’m over some of the parasocial relationships that come from that.

07:49
Cora: I’ve found other means of communication with my friends who are also feeling this overwhelmed burnout from social media.

Instead we text each other, we call each other, or we have more in-person meetups because I feel like I’m getting more of the necessity there instead of that necessity high from opening the app or sending a DM or sending a link to a piece of content that they may or may not understand why I sent them this cat video.

By removing the necessity layer of that, that’s been a healthier way I’ve engaged with the platform, and it’s helped me sustain a better relationship with all platforms in general.

08:45
Jomiro: We were talking about it before we started recording, but social media was created as platforms to connect with each other. And I think in hindsight and over the years we’ve realised that it’s become quite an isolating experience.

A lot of people struggle with this word addiction and social media. I don’t think anyone hasn’t heard the phrase that social media is a danger to our mental health.

Is that high that you mentioned, that risk to mental health? Is that the danger to mental health when it comes to social media?

09:28
Cora: That’s a good question. I’m not a psychologist and I don’t have the data or the studies to be able to diagnose that.

But yes, social media as a whole is bad for your health, but it has a slippery slope and it definitely can be an addiction.

I think where the danger is, is the gamification of it. And yes, that’s tied to the high of it. We’re dancing around the same thing with different names.

But I think it’s the frivolity of the amount of content and the nature of how information is passed.

10:24
Cora: I don’t think that’s necessarily a high. I think it’s more, and I hate to trivialise it in this way, but gossip at its most basic core. It’s throwing gasoline on human nature.

And I think that is not social media’s fault. It’s the human element and how we’re using it, and not necessarily understanding how those human elements interact with the computerised element.

I hate to say the buzzword of AI, but algorithms have always been a part of this.

And for lack of a better term, that is a form of artificial intelligence because our content is being featured and filtered through constraints that are dependent upon what these platforms deem important or interesting.

That friction between the computer and the person is where a lot of the mental health tension comes from.

11:53
Cora: I get a lot from Pinterest boards and I use them for work and all these other things, and it feels safe for my mental health.

Where things start to go awry is not understanding what you’re being fed, how much your attention matters to these algorithms, and how that factors into the intent of what these platforms are and how they’re trying to sell you things.

And I don’t want to put the burden on the user here. I think it’s more the concealing of what the intent is.

At the end of the day they’re trying to make a buck. Meta is here to make money for Meta.

They’re selling ads.

So when people discover Meta created AI profiles, or they took money from bots, those are examples of places we start getting into more dangerous mental health and information territory.

And that’s where the human and the computer are overlapping.

13:40
Cora: These platforms are not your friend.

They might be providing positive things, like giving you ideas to start a business, or making you feel less alone if you live somewhere isolated and no one else looks like you or has the values you have.

But where the danger lies is that intersection of the platform having other intentions and mobilising their technology to prey upon human elements.

That’s where I started noticing it within myself and amongst my friends: comparing themselves, body image issues, consumerism, conspiracy holes, and then the AI-generated content that people don’t realise is AI.

Media literacy should step in, but it’s never moved at the pace it needs to move at now.

So people don’t always stop and ask, “I just spent an hour on Instagram and I feel anxious. Why?” They just feel anxious, close the app, and then come back the next day.

That cycle is where the danger is.

15:37
Jomiro: You mentioned intent, and I think that’s a big blurry black-grey box. It’s very difficult to control what the intent of these platform owners is.

But how we use the apps is fully within our control, and I think we sometimes forget how much agency we actually have.

For you personally, how do you draw a boundary and how do you use that boundary to protect your own mental health? Especially when we need the apps for work.

16:06
Cora: First, if you’re an individual that needs social media for work, I would strongly recommend creating a specific work account.

A separate account that is specifically for work-related content.

Because you might love your job, but you can find yourself slipping into an algorithm you don’t want in your personal life.

I would say protect your personal algorithm at all costs.

17:05
Cora: That came into play for me while I was working in sports. We had to research a number of cases about sexual assault amongst different players in different leagues.

Anything that I searched on my personal account started showing up in my personal algorithm.

So on my off hours, I was seeing all sorts of really tough articles.

So set up a separate account that is specifically for work.

If somebody is sending you content that you are not jamming with, you need to be very clear with the people that are putting things in your algorithm.

My mum sends me stuff all the time that is politically charged, and even if she and I agree, the way it’s delivered is such that if I watch it, the algorithm will feed me three more things like it.

And I’m just like, no, I don’t want more of that.

18:26
Cora: Be clear with yourself about the people you follow.

I’m not saying unfollow or block everyone you disagree with. Political is only one silo of a much bigger ocean.

But I had friends who worked in tech and posted a lot about AI development. I didn’t want that in my personal algorithm.

Because I followed them, the algorithm started feeding me stuff like what they were engaging in.

So I had conversations with them. Like, “You might not see me as much on LinkedIn or Instagram anymore.” Or, “Can you maybe not send me stuff? I’d rather talk about it in person.”

Sometimes that wasn’t received well. But it’s your space.

The good news is you can do an algorithm cleanse. You can reset things.

And if you’re putting down your phone and feeling anxious or depressed, or like you’re not good enough, then I would urge you to take a relook at how you’re using social media or what the algorithm is feeding you.

We are what we eat. If you’re eating a bunch of shit, you’re going to feel like shit.

21:04
Cora: I deleted Instagram from my phone. I only engage with Instagram maybe once a month.

When I’m feeling up for it, I go to it with specific intention. Cat videos. Lady Gaga in New York and what people wore. I go to it with a purpose.

That helps tell the algorithm: this is what I’m about, not that.

And I also don’t engage with other people.

Your main currency on any social media platform is your attention.

So I use that block button hard and fast. I’m like, “Ooh, that’s some shit. I don’t want to see more of this.” Block.

That could be something as light as mushrooms. I’m not a mushroom person. If someone does 30 days of mushroom recipes, not on my algorithm.

Or it could be as serious as political content.

Don’t guilt yourself into feeling like you have a duty to engage with something in that way.

If you’re consistently walking away feeling ill, social media might not be the best touchpoint for your information.

Maybe use other avenues to get news, especially when incendiary content is what makes money.

If being informed is the necessity, find other ways to be informed. Or maybe following specific accounts that can give you the information you need in a healthier manner than your Aunt Brenda posting some out of pocket stuff.

24:16
Jomiro: Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with friends and family that you think might find it interesting too. And if you’re feeling super, super nice, then leave a review. It would be super appreciated. And yeah, I’d smile a lot. But thank you and hopefully see you on the next episode.

If you live online with ADHD, the internet is not a neutral place.

It’s a buffet designed by slot-machine engineers. Everything is bright, endless, frictionless, and screaming for your attention. Which means your brain isn’t “weak” for getting pulled in. It’s responding exactly as designed.

In this episode, Jason Schneider and I talk about what it actually looks like to cope with online life when distraction isn’t an occasional inconvenience, but a default setting.

The surprise is that the solutions aren’t heroic. They’re architectural.

The most useful shift is permission

Jason was diagnosed in his mid-forties. And what changed wasn’t his personality. It was the lens he used to interpret his own behaviour.

Before the diagnosis, there was a lingering sense of being broken. Productivity advice didn’t land. Deep work techniques didn’t stick. Systems that worked for other people kept failing in his hands.

After the diagnosis, the dissonance made sense. Not as a moral failure, but as a mismatch. And that unlocked something practical: permission to design different systems.

Friction beats willpower

The most effective change Jason made was brutally simple: remove social media from his phone.

No apps. No logins in the browser. Nothing that can be opened in a moment of boredom.

Then he made social media slightly annoying on desktop too. One separate browser used only for social platforms, so accessing it takes extra steps.

This is not about being extreme. It’s about understanding behaviour.

Designers know you don’t hide the buy-now button behind four clicks. You put it in front because the path shapes the outcome.

Jason does the reverse. He buries the thing he wants less of. And the added friction gives his brain just enough time to lose interest and move on.

Reclaiming attention is a settings problem

Jason’s approach isn’t a fancy app stack. It’s the opposite.

Notifications off. Badges off. No pings. No weather widgets. No incoming noise.

If something matters, he goes to it. It doesn’t come to him.

That single shift flips the relationship. Your attention stops being rented out by default. You choose where it goes. That matters for anyone, but for ADHD it can be the difference between functioning and spiralling.

One tab, one task, one window

Online life turns into chaos when everything stays open.

Jason keeps it simple: one thing open at a time. One window, one project, one tool, unless he needs two windows for the same task.

This sounds small. It isn’t.

If you’re prone to rabbit holes, a multi-tab setup is basically a trap you built for yourself. Single-tasking isn’t a productivity hack here. It’s damage control.

The best system is the one you will actually do

Jason uses a Getting Things Done style workflow, built around quick capture and ruthless sorting.

The principle is straightforward: your brain has ideas. Those ideas need a place to go. If they don’t get captured, they keep rattling around and pulling you off course.

He collects everything throughout the day, then starts his workday by clearing email fast and pushing anything actionable into Evernote. Then he tags and prioritises so he only sees what matters today, not a terrifying list of 800 tasks.

The key detail is the interface. On his phone, the capture button sits right where his thumb naturally lands. Minimal clicks. Minimal thinking. Maximum follow-through.

Because for ADHD, the hardest part isn’t doing the task. It’s the gap between intending to do it and starting it.

Why tracking apps often fail

We talk about app blockers and tracking tools, and Jason’s verdict is not polite.

They encourage a different form of procrastination: researching the perfect system, setting it up, tweaking it, abandoning it. Hours disappear. Nothing changes.

His point isn’t that structure is bad. It’s that over-structure creates resistance. If a system feels like a cage, you’ll avoid it. If it feels like a path, you’ll walk it.

That’s why “the diet you can stick to” beats the perfect diet. The same logic applies to digital habits.

The weirdest ADHD insight in the episode

Jason describes noticing his attention patterns while listening to an audiobook after using THC to sleep. The time dilation made something visible.

He could have multiple complete trains of thought in the tiny gap between deciding to do something and doing it.

That gap is where logging apps fail. The moment you pause to open an app and enter details, your brain has time to wander, and something else becomes more interesting than the tracking.

So the rule becomes brutally practical: reduce the distance between thinking the thing and capturing the thing.

Less delay, fewer rabbit holes.

Listen to the full episode

Coping with online life and ADHD (w/ Jason Schneider)

Set Status: Online · Episode

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Full Transcript

00:01
Jomiro: Hey, hello. We’re online and so are you. For today’s episode, I chatted to a good friend of mine, Jason Schneider, and I’ve put a little bio in the episode description for this episode. But Jason and I spent some time chatting about coping with online life as someone with ADHD. And I’d say we jumped straight in. Enjoy.

00:30
Jomiro: So, Jason, the first question, which I’m really curious to hear about, is at what point did you realise that ADHD was shaping the way that you live online?

00:38
Jason: Oh, there’s multiple facets to that question. One, I’m hearing the question about how does ADHD affect your life? And then two, how do you deal with it online? Because for me, I didn’t realise that I had ADHD until about three years ago.

01:00
Jason: And for your listeners, I’m 47. So I found this out in my mid-forties. And it was one of those where, when I recognised it, almost everybody close to me was like, “You’re just figuring this out now? Are you serious?”

So for me, how it’s affected my online life, I don’t know. This is the only life I’ve ever had. This is just what I do.

But what’s been really helpful is getting the diagnosis has helped me think through my systems with a little bit of a different lens, because what productivity and presence and functioning in the world, as well as online, works for a lot of people wasn’t seeming to work for me.

01:28
Jason: I’d read productivity advice, I would read how to do deep work, all of these things, and I wouldn’t find the things that worked for me. So I had to start going into ADHD forums and seeing how other people were approaching not letting their online life consume their real human life, while still being able to be productive.

01:56
Jomiro: If we zoom in a little bit to this point you made of systems that worked for other people didn’t work for you, tell me about how you experienced that dissonance.

02:07
Jason: The diagnosis helped me understand it. The dissonance, it’s been a part of my life always.

The way I would approach work and the things that I would need to do, it just never seemed to work for me, even though everybody was giving me advice and ideas and talking about accountability. And I would try all these tools, and nothing really worked, and it just didn’t make sense.

02:36
Jason: And so finally for me, the diagnosis gave me a little bit more permission to look into my own systems and recognise that I needed different ways of handling it. And in a lot of ways, it was about keeping my attention focused, because I want to focus on so many things simultaneously, and figuring out those systems for me.

So I’ve always felt there was a disconnect. And for a long time, especially somebody who gets diagnosed in middle age, I always thought or had this vague feeling that I was broken.

03:06
Jason: If I couldn’t do these things, because I’m a pretty ambitious person and pretty goal oriented in a lot of ways, and I can get them done, but it’s very organic. It’s very messy. It’s very chaotic. People hate working with me. I hate working with other people.

And that’s always been a major problem. And getting diagnosed, my personality hasn’t shifted, but the way I work has really shifted and been much easier to work with people and clients and such.

03:53
Jomiro: How did your digital habits or your life online change between pre-ADHD and post-ADHD diagnosis? In other words, how did knowing ADHD shift how you interact with online life?

04:09
Jason: That’s an interesting question. I don’t know if it was a specific shift because of the diagnosis, but I will say over the last five years, even pre-diagnosis, I realised that social media was not a great space for me to be in.

I don’t think it’s a great space for anybody to be in, but having a hard time constantly wanting to stay connected and see all the things that were going on.

04:50
Jason: So about five years ago, and it’s kind of come and gone, but more or less I’ve gotten to a point now where I have zero social media on my phone. I have no apps on my phone and I don’t have the login for the browser to those apps on my phone.

And on my desktop, I use only one browser specifically for social media. And that’s not the browser that I tend to use day to day.

Like I use Brave for most of my things, both work and personal. But then when it comes to social media, I open up Safari over here.

05:17
Jason: So it always adds an extra step or two or three in the process that makes me, while doing the steps, like, “Wait, what am I doing? I don’t have time for this. I’m not really interested in this. I don’t really care about it. Move on.”

05:46
Jomiro: So you said that making it harder by adding in steps helped in terms of reducing how often you engage with social media. But tell me what that looked like practically, because theoretically I’m thinking you could just open Safari anyway if you wanted to.

06:02
Jason: Now this is great because you’re a designer. And for your listeners that are unaware, you do a lot of government programme designs. So it’s how do people interact with things? You don’t put your buy now button three clicks or four clicks away. You put it right in the front.

And so to me, having it on a different browser is essentially burying it three or four clicks or pages away, that buy now button.

So those clicks, it kind of like, you know, a lot of people are like, just put your running shoes by the door and then just put your running shoes on, and it makes it that much easier.

To me, it’s having it a little less convenient to access is a tremendous help.

06:44
Jason: Because the way my mind works is, to let go of something that I’m doing in one space and opening up a new space, in that intermediate three seconds, five seconds, my brain has gone in seven different directions and has already decided that these other things are more important than scrolling through social media.

07:14
Jomiro: Yeah. You’re basically leveraging ADHD for what ADHD does best in that sense.

I think you alluded to it earlier, but since being online is just distracting by nature because you have everything at your fingertips and at your disposal… I start looking for a YouTube video to work to, and I end up going down a rabbit hole of saving other YouTube videos for watch later and blah blah blah.

I feel like that’s even more pronounced for someone with ADHD.

07:45
Jason: I suppose, yes. I have found ways to prevent myself from going down that path. And I don’t think it’s any hard and fast rules, but generally I try and find…

So like YouTube, I’m not even logged into YouTube. I don’t use YouTube for anything practically, except for maybe watching The Daily Show while I’m having lunch, something like that.

So it’s only having one thing open at a time. Whether it’s one window, one project, one service, one tool. I generally only, unless I need two windows to work on the same thing, I just have one thing open.

08:14
Jason: And it’s really a matter for me of prioritising and keeping the distractions as little as possible.

I don’t have a weather thing up. Nothing from emails. They don’t ping. They don’t make a sound. There’s no notifications that come across.

On my phone, I have all badges, notifications, everything turned off. I have to open the app to see if there’s anything new.

I don’t have, other than direct text messaging, I have nothing that pings me at all. I have to go to it to find it rather than being pulled in a direction. I don’t open my phone and see all the things.

09:07
Jomiro: Right. You’re very intentionally reclaiming your attention and not giving yourself the opportunity to be distracted by the notifications by simply switching them off.

That’s just a digital habit for anyone, even if you don’t have ADHD.

But while we’re talking about digital habits, walk me through what the first 60 minutes of your online habits look like each day.

09:34
Jason: This is interesting because there’s the first 60 minutes of the day and then there’s the first 60 minutes of work, which are different things.

So of my day, half the time it’s turning on a podcast while I’m having my morning coffee. Sitting around having coffee, listening to a podcast, usually something that is more on Buddhism, meditation, something that actually quiets and calms my brain.

Those are a number of days.

There’s a number of days that I also scroll Reddit to just kind of get a feel of what’s going on in the world, which, as being an American, that is probably something I shouldn’t be doing because my nation is a bit of a shit show at the moment.

10:03
Jason: So it’s really easy to go down those rabbit holes and be pulled in a number of emotional directions before the day starts. So that’s about half my days. And I try not to, but it’s still… you can’t not watch the train wreck that it is.

10:31
Jason: But on the workday, what was really transformational for me, and this was probably four or five years before diagnosis, was David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology.

It completely shifted my life and ability to focus in so many ways.

And I’m not going to get too into it, because I know we’re limited on time, but it’s really about: every idea that comes to your brain, every to-do, every project, every email you need to send, every “need to check in with mom”, whatever it is, every single thing needs to be captured as quickly and easily as possible.

10:59
Jason: So I’ve got that system. Throughout the day previous, I’m just constantly collecting all those random thoughts that pop into my brain. And I’ve got a pretty fast way of downloading those.

And then in the morning, before I do anything, what I do is I open my email.

And there’s going to be anywhere between 10 and 40 emails. And I quickly review them.

If they’re reference, they go into a folder for reference. If they’re anything that requires something to be done, I forward them into my custom-built Getting Things Done methodology, which I use Evernote for, so it just gets forwarded into Evernote.

11:29
Jason: And then after zeroing out my inbox, which is like the first 10 minutes of my day, I will zero out my inbox completely.

Then I go over to Evernote and I look at all the things that are in my inbox in Evernote, which are the ideas that I gave to it the day before, as well as any emails that have come through.

And I go through and I tag, prioritise, and categorise every single item based on how soon it needs to be done. Is it a personal thing? Is it a work thing? Is it a grocery list thing?

So that I only see the pertinent to-dos contextually. And I don’t see my list of 800 things.

11:58
Jason: I only see like three things that have to be done today. And then if those get done, then I move into the next thing, which is the next down the priority.

I’ll move a few things into today and I’ll do those.

So it automatically feeds me what I need to focus on because I’ve already pre-sorted it.

So I never, ever end up coming out of a meeting like this one and being like, “Shoot, what do I want to do now?” It’s like, “Nope. You already have a line of things. Just pick the next one and do it.”

And it has made things infinitely easier.

So that’s like probably the first 20, 30 minutes of my day.

12:27
Jason: And then I try and focus on more of the deep work side.

I look at the things that really are like, do I need to write a proposal? Do I need to write a report? What is the big chunk? And I start there.

And that’s my first hour.

13:24
Jomiro: Have you found that those apps that block apps from opening or that track your time have been useful for you?

13:31
Jason: I’ve tried them. I think they’re all junk.

I know that they work for some people. Most of these things are because people are trying to solve their own problems and it works for them.

For me, no, it really doesn’t work.

I find I can procrastinate a lot by researching apps that I think will make my life better. And I lose all this time researching the app, setting the app up, trying to use it, and then in three weeks I’m like, great, I just lost like seven hours trying to do this thing that I just don’t care about because my systems work fine.

13:54
Jomiro: Would you say that’s because the apps are just easy to break through or because your system is better? Or is there another reason?

14:05
Jason: I don’t necessarily think the system I’ve built is better.

I remember hearing somebody saying, “The diet that you can stick to is better than the perfect diet.”

And my system works for me without overly constraining. I don’t feel like I’m having to push myself to stay focused. It keeps me going.

When I try and add more structure to it, I find that I just hate structure. I don’t like to follow it. I don’t want to open the thing.

14:51
Jason: I was just having a chat with my accountant the other day about tracking hours for projects and tracking hours for ongoing projects. Like I’m not going to have a timer in the top corner and be like, “Okay, I’m now working on that.” I think, no, I’m just not going to do it.

On a personal level, I’m going through some gastrointestinal issues, and my doctor got me on an app where I could start tracking all of my meals. And I’m like, I’m going to have to enter things like 10 times a day. No, that’s not happening.

Let alone taking the time to figure out like, “Oh, I just ordered this dish at a restaurant. Let me enter every ingredient that went into it.” That’s just not how my brain works. I’m sorry. It’d be great. That’s just not how my brain works.

15:52
Jomiro: This is really interesting to zoom into for a second. We’re talking about meal tracking and food tracking in the moment, but I think it can apply to any kind of logging or tracking where you’re needing to diligently write down each and every step.

How do you deal with that?

16:04
Jason: Honestly, the reason that Evernote, the system for Getting Things Done in Evernote, works really well for me is particularly like on my phone, it is the bottom right button. It is the closest to my thumb. I hit it.

And it automatically opens the app and starts a new note and I can give a voice dictation or just a quick type and it’s captured.

I don’t have to go two or three places and I don’t have to open a calendar app and create a new… I don’t have to do any of that.

It reduces those clicks essentially.

16:48
Jason: And so to me, tracking diet, for example, or tracking hours, it’s whatever is the fastest way to capture that without me having to pause and think.

For example, last night I was out at dinner. I had a bourbon cocktail and fried chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, pretty standard American diet, but you know, with a gravy.

And I would have to enter in each one of those and like what portion.

It would be great to be able to just snap a picture of it and just have it say, “This is what I see. Are you eating it now?” Boom. Done.

And so it’s reducing the amount of effort that it takes to go in.

Because I was out with a friend. I don’t want to pause our conversation with a dear friend that I haven’t seen in two weeks to like, “Hold on, let me enter all my things.” It’s just not how I’m wired. It’s really, really hard to do it.

17:46
Jomiro: Just hearing you talk now, and you mentioned a Buddhism podcast earlier, but it almost feels like a life of minimalism can be really useful, especially when it comes to living online with ADHD.

Since we’re talking about ADHD being sensitive to distraction from a multitude, trying to streamline and cut down and essentialise one’s life into singular apps as opposed to jumping between multitudes of apps can be really, really useful.

18:14
Jason: Yeah. Let me explain it this way.

When I started suspecting that I had ADHD was about four or five years ago. And in most of the States, THC, cannabis, marijuana is legal recreationally.

And I started using some specifically to help me sleep.

But the time dilation effects of being stoned before going to sleep… I’d be listening to an audiobook and I would think that I lost my place in the audiobook because I went down five, six, ten rabbit holes and I stopped paying attention to the audiobook.

And then my attention would come back to the audiobook and I’m in the same sentence of the audiobook, but I had gone down like seven different intellectual rabbit holes that something that I heard in the audiobook made me think.

19:12
Jason: And so what that told me is I can have multiple complete thoughts in between thinking I didn’t open an app and opening the app.

And being able to monitor that, I find that what happens is when I go to log something, the time between recognising I need to log it, opening something to log it, and then actually doing the logging, I’ll have 20 to 50 thoughts in different directions beyond what it is that I’m logging.

And at least one or two of them are more interesting than the logging. So I cease logging and start going down the other direction.

And so to me, that was really the indicator of like, the more I can reduce the time between thinking a thing and doing the thing, the harder it will be to be distracted by something else that pops into my brain in the process.

20:19
Jomiro: Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with friends and family that you think might find it interesting too. And if you’re feeling super, super nice, then leave a review. It would be super appreciated. And yeah, I’d smile a lot. But thank you and hopefully see you on the next episode.

It didn’t arrive with a single dramatic moment where everything changed and we all noticed. It seeped in quietly. Through recommendations, filters, predictions, shortcuts. Until one day it wasn’t a tool anymore. It was just… there.

In this episode, I start with a question everyone keeps asking and slowly realise it might be the wrong one.

Not “will AI destroy us?”
But “what have we already handed over without noticing?”

The real shift wasn’t intelligence, it was access

AI has existed for decades. Most of it lived in the background, buried in systems and infrastructure. Fraud detection. Spam filters. Autofocus. Routing traffic.

The real shift happened when AI got a user interface.

Suddenly we weren’t just moving through systems powered by AI. We were talking to it. Asking it to write, plan, translate, design, decide. That’s when it started to feel human. And that’s where things get complicated.

Why trust is the uncomfortable part

One of the most subtle risks with AI isn’t bad actors or deepfakes. It’s confidence.

AI sounds sure of itself, even when it’s wrong. And when you know enough to spot the mistake, fine. When you don’t, it quietly becomes an authority.

If more and more decisions get outsourced to systems that can hallucinate, the uncomfortable question becomes: who’s responsible when things go wrong?

Power doesn’t disappear, it concentrates

Even if AI doesn’t end humanity, it can still reshape who holds power.

Models, compute, data, infrastructure. These things tend to consolidate. And history hasn’t exactly shown that monopolies are good at protecting nuance, diversity, or human messiness.

The risk isn’t intelligence.
It’s concentration.

The upside is real and worth defending

This isn’t an anti-AI episode.

AI genuinely expands access. It levels playing fields. It removes boring work. It accelerates science. It helps people create, communicate, and participate in ways that weren’t possible before.

Seen clearly, AI is a power tool. Dangerous in the wrong hands. Transformative in the right ones.

The tension to sit with

Jobs probably won’t disappear overnight. They’ll change until they’re barely recognisable.

And before AI replaces people, people using AI will replace people who don’t.

The real risk isn’t replacement.
It’s dependence.

So maybe the challenge isn’t keeping up with AI.

Maybe it’s keeping up with our humanity, and keeping it interesting enough that it’s not worth outsourcing.

Listen to the full episode

The question everyone is answering: Will AI be our downfall?

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Full Transcript

00:01
Hey, hi, hello. We’re online. And so are you. In this episode, I’m wittily calling the question that everyone is answering. Will AI be our downfall?

00:20
I’m hoping I can dive into a little bit of where I’m currently sitting with all the things flying around about AI nowadays. Because I think it’s maybe a little bit clichéd and over-spoken about at the moment, but it has a very direct impact on both professionally and personally.

00:50
We interact with AI every day, sometimes without even realising it. Think every time Netflix suggests a show, or your email filters spam, or your phone unlocks with your face, or even Google Maps rerouting because of traffic. That’s all already AI.

And it’s not the flashy robots-taking-over kind, but a quiet background intelligence deciding what we see, what we click on, what we buy, and what we believe.

01:22
So often I think maybe the question isn’t “will AI be our downfall?”, but rather: has it already become so integrated that we don’t even notice it?

01:33
I don’t think AI will destroy us in a single dramatic event. Maybe I’m being naively optimistic, but it feels more like a slow osmosis, even if it’s happening very quickly.

01:51
Before we get into the future, I found it interesting to look at the past.

AI’s roots go way back. Around 1950, Alan Turing proposed the Turing Test. In 1956, the Dartmouth Conference coined the term artificial intelligence.

Back then, computers filled rooms and AI mostly meant teaching machines to play chess or solve logic puzzles.

02:22
By the 1980s and 1990s, expert systems started creeping into industry. Helping doctors diagnose illnesses, banks assess credit risk, that kind of thing.

AI existed long before ChatGPT made headlines. It looked more like rules and algorithms than creativity and conversation.

03:06
Most of us have used AI for decades without knowing it. Recommendation systems on YouTube or Spotify. Fraud detection in banks. Spam filters. Predictive text. Siri and Alexa. Camera autofocus.

It’s been the internet’s plumbing for a long time. It routes information, filters noise, keeps things running.

04:04
The big difference now is that it has a user interface.

We can talk to it, not just through it. And that’s the tipping point.

AI feels threatening because it feels human. We’ve personified it far more in the last few years than we ever did before.

04:34
That shift really happened when AI went public around 2020 and 2021.

GPT-3, then ChatGPT in 2022. Suddenly everyone was using it. I remember running AI-generated art events in Cape Town when DALL·E first came out. The technology felt almost dissociative in how powerful it was.

05:31
Add Midjourney and Stable Diffusion and AI moved from background process to creative collaborator.

That’s when the public imagination shifted from AI as automation to AI as identity.

06:21
Now every major app integrates AI. Search, office tools, design software, productivity platforms.

We’re in an AI-everywhere economy.

McKinsey’s 2024 State of AI report found adoption doubled between 2022 and 2024. We’re long past asking whether AI changes work. It already has.

07:49
The bigger question is how much control we have over the shape it takes.

There are obvious threats. Bad actors. Deepfakes. Scams. Manipulation.

But the less obvious one is over-trust.

AI sounds confident. And when it’s wrong and you don’t know enough to question it, that’s where things get dangerous.

09:14
Underneath all of this sits concentration.

Even if AI doesn’t destroy humanity, it can consolidate control over it. Models, compute, data. And the only thing more dangerous than AI is a human using AI with power.

10:05
There’s real opportunity too. Efficiency. Creativity. Access.

AI removes busywork, levels playing fields, accelerates science, and expands inclusion through translation, captioning, and accessibility tools.

I see AI as a power tool. Dangerous without intention. Incredible with it.

11:44
Regulation is struggling to keep up. The EU AI Act, frameworks in the US and China, all chasing a moving target.

Which is why I think literacy matters more than bans. Knowing how AI works, when to question it, and how to coexist with it responsibly.

14:58
Looking ahead, AI is becoming more agentic. Systems that don’t just respond, but act.

The real bottlenecks now are energy and data, not imagination.

AI won’t take our jobs overnight, but it will make them unrecognisable.

16:27
Dependence is the real risk.

Use AI to speed things up, but don’t outsource your thinking. If AI becomes the only way out of a problem, that’s a dangerous place to be.

17:25
Before AI replaces people, people using AI will replace people who don’t.

So will AI be our downfall? Probably not in an apocalyptic sense.

But it could quietly erode trust, autonomy, and originality.

Only if we let it.

So maybe the real challenge isn’t keeping up with AI.

It’s keeping up with our humanity.

Hopefully this is a helpful post to kick-off 2026, and prevents some difficult projects before they become difficult projects!

Most disaster clients don’t start out as disasters. They start out reasonable, curious, often well intentioned.

In my experience, the projects that go wrong rarely do so because of one big mistake. They unravel slowly, through small signals that show up early, usually in the questions clients ask and how they ask them. None of these questions are unreasonable. What matters is the posture behind them.

This isn’t about spotting bad clients. It’s about noticing early signs of misaligned ways of working, before they turn into frustration, scope creep, or work that feels harder than it needs to be.

1. “If we remove X, does the price go down?”

Why it’s fair: Of course it is. Budgets are real.

The red flag version (service mindset):

• They pre-decide what’s “optional”

• They optimise for price before understanding impact

• They treat the scope like a menu, not a system

This often turns into:

• Fragile outcomes

• “Why doesn’t this work as expected?”

• Blame drifting back to you

The healthier reframe (partnership mindset):
“How can we adjust the investment so this works for us right now?”

That question:

• Acknowledges constraints and expertise

• Invites trade-offs rather than cuts

• Keeps responsibility with the system, not individual line items

2. “How many hours will you work per day? When will I get updates?”

Why they’re fair: Visibility reduces anxiety.

The red flag version:

• Focus on time spent rather than outcomes

• Updates driven by reassurance, not progress

• An implied need to monitor rather than align

This often turns into:

• Micromanagement

• Performative updates

• Less deep work and slower progress

The healthier reframe:
“What check-in rhythm works best with your process?”

That framing:

• Respects how you work

• Shifts focus from hours to momentum

• Creates a shared cadence instead of a reporting obligation

3. “We’ll have a few people giving feedback”

Why it’s common: Work is collaborative. Opinions exist.

The red flag version:

• Multiple stakeholders

• Equal weight

• No clear decision owner

This often turns into:

• Circular feedback

• Design by committee

• You acting as mediator instead of expert

The non-negotiable:
There must be one person who gives the final yes or no.

Why this matters:

• Decisions stick

• Accountability is clear

• You are not responsible for defending every choice later

4. “Can you just try one more option?”

Why it sounds harmless: Iteration is normal.

The red flag version:

• No decision criteria

• Exploration without direction

• “We’ll know it when we see it” as a strategy (Spoiler: BAD strategy)

This often hides:

• Unclear goals

• Fear of committing

• The hope that more options will create clarity

The healthier reframe:
“What would make this the right direction to commit to?”

That question:

• Forces criteria into the open

• Turns taste into strategy

• Makes decisions possible

5. “We need this fast. It’s pretty simple.”

Why it sounds efficient: Speed feels decisive.

The red flag version:

• Thinking time is underestimated

• Complexity is deferred, not removed

• Urgency replaces clarity

This often turns into:

• Rushed decisions

• Missed dependencies

• Rework later

The healthier reframe:
“We have a tight timeline. What needs to be true for this to work well?”

That framing:

• Surfaces trade-offs early

• Aligns expectations

• Makes speed sustainable

6. “We’ll figure that out later”

Why it sounds flexible: Nobody wants rigidity.

The red flag version:

• No anchors

• No boundaries

• Decisions endlessly postponed

This often turns into:

• Scope creep

• Decision paralysis

• Frustration on both sides

The healthier reframe:
“What decisions do we need to lock now, and where can we stay flexible?”

That distinction:

• Creates momentum

• Protects scope

• Keeps flexibility intentional

None of these questions are wrong.

What matters is how responsibility is framed.

Disaster projects don’t usually fail because of bad intentions. They fail because thinking, ownership, and decision making are outsourced in the wrong places. Learning to spot that early is less about being picky and more about protecting the work, for you and for the client.

Spending time offline is supposedly good for us.
Everyone agrees on that part.

We’ve heard it everywhere. Unplug. Disconnect. Touch grass. Breathe air.
And yet, actually going offline feels strangely… difficult.

In this episode, I kept circling one question that wouldn’t leave me alone:

Why does being truly offline feel so hard now, even when we want it?

Offline, but still connected

Most of the things we call “offline” aren’t really offline at all.

Reading a book often means a Kindle.
Exploring a city means Google Maps.
Learning something new means YouTube or Skillshare.
Meditation comes with an app.
Dancing comes with Spotify.

Even when we try to disconnect, the internet is usually still involved somewhere in the background.

Which means that truly unplugging takes more effort than it used to. Not less.

Attention is the real currency

The phrase that kept coming back to me was: going offline in this economy.

We live in an economy where attention is one of the most valuable resources there is. Only slightly behind data.

Every app is designed to pull us back in.
Every notification is a reminder that something happened without us.

In that context, being offline isn’t neutral.
It’s an active decision. Sometimes it even feels like a risk.

Why leaving your phone behind feels uncomfortable

Try leaving your phone at home for a few hours and notice what comes up.

For most people, it’s not peace.
It’s discomfort.

Thoughts like:

• What if something important happens?

• What if I miss a message?

• What if someone thinks I’m ignoring them?

• What if I get lost?

That fear doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from being conditioned to be always available.

Not responding quickly starts to feel intentional.
Silence starts to feel like a statement.

Being always online isn’t sustainable

Most of us check our phones within the first hour of waking up.
Not because we consciously choose to, but because the habit is deeply wired.

Notifications, vibrations, glowing screens. Even on silent, the cues are still there.

This isn’t a self-control problem.
It’s a design problem. And a cultural one.

Being always reachable, always responsive, always online isn’t something our nervous systems were built for.

A practical experiment worth trying

Rather than trying to “quit the internet”, I suggest something simpler.

Take stock of the things you do to unplug.

Then list what you usually take with you to do them.

After that, cross out anything that relies on an internet connection.

Now ask yourself:
What would this activity feel like with only what’s left?

Some things will still work.
Some won’t.
And some might change in interesting ways.

The challenge is to try one activity this week with zero internet connection.
Bonus points if no devices are in sight at all.

Not as a detox.
Not as a rule.
Just as an experiment.

The goal isn’t to be offline forever.
It’s to stop defaulting to online without noticing.

Listen to the full episode

👉 Listen to Episode 2 of Set Status: Online
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SetStatusOnline
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Full Transcript

00:01
We’re online. And so are you. Welcome back to Set Status Online. And in this episode, I wanted to chat a bit about something I definitely feel personally. And it’s this idea of why it feels so damn hard to go truly offline. And the phrase that came to mind was like going offline in this economy, which I think is quite relevant and we’ll get to that just now.

00:31
But I think firstly, I’m pretty sure we can all agree that spending time offline is healthy. I don’t think anyone thinks that offline time is unhealthy. We’ve all heard the podcasts, we’ve read the articles, we’ve had the chats that unplug, disconnect, unwind, these are all very helpful and important habits to try build on or build into our lives.

01:02
Especially in this digital era where so much of what we do is on a device of some sort. But so many offline activities, when I started really thinking about it, are still connected to the internet in some way, at least for me. And that really makes us need to take an extra level of effort to truly, truly, truly unplug.

If you read a book, if it’s on a Kindle, you need to download the book first.

01:31
Exploring a new city or a new location. I do this all the time. I walk around with Google Maps or ChatGPT. And Google Maps or ChatGPT, I’ll see a landmark and I’ll do some research on it or I’ll look at where I am. I’ll see a cool street name and Google it to figure out why it’s called that.

If it’s an arts and crafts session, I pull up reference images all the time on my phone that I found on images, or Pinterest or Instagram.

02:00
Learning a new skill. I will often watch a Skillshare course or a YouTube tutorial. If I’m meditating, I open a mindfulness app or play something from YouTube. Dancing, using iTunes or Spotify to play music. Even connecting with friends, it’s the easiest option to just give them a call on Signal or using cell reception on my phone.

Like so many of these apps are also designed, right? They are specifically marketing a faux offline experience.

02:31
The simple fact that we’re using an app to disconnect, like a mindfulness app, means that we aren’t truly disconnecting or unplugging.

And sometimes the truly offline activities require grabbing a physical book from the library or using a printed map, like parents used to do.

03:00
I still remember when I was a kid and we did family road trips, we always used to have a map in the car, like a book.

Printing out a reference image for an art session. Or meditating in silence. Or being somewhere in nature. Or meeting up with friends or family for a coffee somewhere to have those check-ins.

But I think back to this phrase that I think is so fitting of like going offline in this economy.

03:29
In an economy where our attention is arguably the most valuable commodity, right, only secondary to our data, we have to try really hard to set aside time for any kind of offline interaction when we disconnect. Like being offline, or trying to get away from the online stuff, nowadays requires a lot more effort than it used to.

03:58
And I think for me, at least, even putting my phone on silent or in airplane mode, it isn’t foolproof.

My phone is actually permanently set to vibrate. I think I haven’t had it off vibrate for the last five, six years, or even longer, to be honest. It’s never on loud. That little switch on the side of my phone is always down.

04:29
But I still see the screen light up on my desk or next to my bed, or I feel my phone vibrate when it’s in my pocket. There’s always this glance over to what’s just pinged, even though there’s no noise. It’s just a visual cue, or a feeling cue if it’s vibrating. But then again, it’s on my mind that something happened.

And aeroplane mode, I don’t think, really protects us from seeing the app icon or from the urge to just check something quickly.

04:59
I tried multiple app lock apps, like apps that lock your phone or stop you from opening apps after a certain hour. There’s always like an override function and I always end up overriding it. So those also aren’t foolproof.

I think there’s a couple apps actually that give no override function, but I see lots of flaws with that, especially if you’re locking things like messages or your phone’s ability to call, because I think that puts you at some sort of greater risk. But that’s another topic.

05:26
In an ideal world, we would put our devices that can connect to the internet in a drawer or in a cupboard while we take our dog for a walk outside, that it’s completely out of sight, out of mind, and even better, that it’s on silent, in airplane mode, in a cupboard, to really give us the feeling that it is gone.

05:56
But interestingly, and this sort of comes back to why is it so hard to truly be offline, leaving those things behind, leaving your phone at home when you go out for four hours, it’s kind of scary, right? It’s uncomfortable. And I hate admitting that, but I will gladly be the first to admit it.

But it does make me think why. Why is it so uncomfortable? Why is it scary?

06:25
And the things that come to mind are this feeling of FOMO, that we’re missing something that’s cool or new or exciting, that there might be an emergency, that we get lost and we have no way to check where we are, missing an important phone call, people even just messaging you and not getting a response and then they think you’re ignoring them and being upset with you.

Whatever it is.

But this all comes from this state that we’ve been conditioned to be in of always available, always online. And it really is not sustainable. Right, we cannot be always online, we cannot be always available.

07:18
I mean who doesn’t reach for their phone first thing in the morning? I’m sure there are super overachievers that have built habits around doing that, and maybe some people have better self-control than others, but I reckon within the first 30 minutes to an hour of waking up, everyone has checked their phone.

07:40
And this conditioning is partly due to the marketing of such apps. Things like Instagram, and even WhatsApp, are designed to notify, right? They ping you with news and updates and all those kinds of things. We are conditioned through design from these developers.

But then there’s also the societal thing of we have the ability to be online and things happen very quickly.

08:08
And if I send you a DM, there’s no way of me knowing if you’ve seen it. So then there’s this weird limbo state of, I assume it’s almost like Schrödinger’s cat, but like Schrödinger’s DM, right? Like it is both read and unread at the same time.

And then the assumption is: have they read it? Do they not want to respond? Are they mad at me? Did I do something?

08:37
So the urge is to respond quickly, and if it’s not an immediate response then there’s some intention behind it. It’s, oh, we’ve had the chat that I don’t respond quickly, or they’re not a close friend so they won’t have any assumptions about why I’m not responding quickly.

But practically, it’s not a healthy state to be in, I find.

08:59
And I’m talking a lot of the time from my own personal experience. I don’t think I can speak for everyone, but I do see this reflected in a lot of the people that I speak to.

But yeah, I don’t know, this online, always online thing really, really grates my tits, to put it very, very bluntly.

09:22
I try to respond to friends relatively quickly, but that’s more from a place of, you know, I’d like to maintain a connection with them and I’m excited about what they have to say and what I want to reply to them with.

But there is this guilt that comes with not being online.

09:53
And I see this as well when people take detoxes and they delete Instagram for a week, or they don’t open WhatsApp for a while. It is always the exception, right?

It’s either a case of, wow, congratulations, that’s really cool, I should do that as well. Or it’s a case of, they really need it, so kudos to them for doing it, I could never.

10:23
But it’s not a norm in culture to do those types of things, which I think is interesting. It’s interesting to think about why.

But very practically, I wanted to try and challenge myself. So I’m putting this out there for myself, but I would be very excited if you join me.

But here’s the deal. Here’s the game.

10:33
Do a stock take of what you love doing that helps you to unplug. Think about when you need time away from your screen or your phone or whatever the case is. What are those activities? Write them down.

And then, for each one, write an inventory for what you normally use or have with you when doing that thing.

11:04
So for example, if it’s going for a walk, I would say, you know, I put on my running shoes, I might take my dog with me, I’ll have my phone and my earpods, my earplugs, my headphones, whatever. Maybe I’ll take my house keys, my garage remote, I don’t know.

Write down all the things you take with you.

Then, once you’ve done that for all those activities, scratch out all the things that are in some way internet or online based.

11:34
And it doesn’t necessarily have to be the Bluetooth stuff, like if it’s a gate key, that’s quite important. But anything else that’s in some way connected to the internet, which is likely going to be a phone, a laptop, a tablet.

Those are the three things that come to mind. I can’t think of other ones.

Scratch those out.

And now, reflect on each activity again, right, and imagine what it would be like now, what it would feel like to do that thing with only the remaining inventory items.

Is it still exciting? Is it still possible?

12:23
And what I’m assuming will happen is either you’ll find something new to try out, a new way of doing that thing, and maybe it brings you closer to a truer sense of unplugging, or you might realise that you need to find some other things that help you truly disconnect.

So the challenge is firstly to do that stock take, but moreover, try something this week that involves zero internet connection.

12:54
And a bonus, do it without any devices in sight.

I think there is absolutely nothing to lose for giving it a shot. Worst case scenario, you don’t like it and that’s fine.

I think it is naive to say that being online is so bad that we have to get rid of it completely. I don’t think that’s possible.

13:23
But I do think it could be an interesting exercise, and even if it just brings a little bit more awareness into your relationship to this difference between online and offline, and through that maybe gives you the chance to go truly offline once in a while.

And I think a fun challenge might be to take a walk without your phone and without music and to just see what happens.

Could even be shopping, right, where you’re not necessarily needing your phone the entire time, or writing a shopping list on a piece of paper.

14:13
I think just trying those things out is, I mean it’s fun, but I think it’s also really useful, and I will try to be doing it more often myself.

I’m already putting some effort into those things like taking the book with me, finding a place somewhere in the park to read it, to leave my phone behind.

I still find that I’m very reliant on digital shopping lists, so that’s another easy one for me to go analog on for a while to see if it works.

14:43
But I think that distance is healthy, not only for our brains to sort of get a little bit of a break from the constant stimulation of what being online means, but also just to truly appreciate the gap between online and offline.

I think it’s easy to get sucked into online to the point where you forget what being truly offline means.

And there’s a spectrum of enjoyment, right? Different people will enjoy different amounts and that’s also fine.

There’s no reason to judge my version of offline to yours or to judge mine and compare it to yours.

15:31
But I think if each person has that awareness and isn’t just always going into default mode, I think that’s already a step in the right direction.

We’ve somehow reached a point where DMing a stranger feels safer than saying hello to them in real life.

Which is odd. Because humans did the second one first.

In this opening episode of Set Status: Online, I unpack a quiet shift most of us feel but rarely name:

Offline interactions have become “high-stakes events”.

Three ideas worth sitting with

Not conclusions.
Observations.

1. We’ve accidentally labelled face-to-face as “serious business”

Think about when we insist on meeting in person:

• “We need to talk.”

• Going to someone’s office.

• Big announcements.

• Conflict.

• Proposals.

• Reviews.

No wonder your nervous system panics at conferences.
Your brain has learnt that IRL = pressure.

2. Chat apps let us control dosage. Real life doesn’t.

Online, you can:

• mute

• rewrite

• disappear

• come back later

Offline, attention is continuous.
Your body has to track tone, posture, timing, reactions.

That takes energy.

If you mostly socialise through apps, your stamina for real-world interaction will drop.
Not because you’re bad at people.
Because you haven’t been training that muscle.

3. Feeling socially tired isn’t a personality flaw

If you hit a wall after an hour with people, that doesn’t mean:

• you’re boring

• you’re a bad friend

• you’re “doing it wrong”

It might just mean your default interaction mode has changed.

And that’s worth noticing, not judging.

A small experiment (for freelancers especially)

Next time you’re at:

• a meetup

• a conference

• a coworking space

• a vaguely social thing you didn’t really want to attend

And you feel the urge to talk yourself out of saying hi, ask:

If not, why?

That question alone creates space.
You don’t have to act on it.
Just notice what comes up.

Why this matters if you freelance

Freelancing quietly relies on things chat apps can’t fully replace:

• trust built in real time

• reading a room

• informal conversations that go nowhere… until they don’t

If we only optimise for convenience, we lose something subtle but important.

This episode isn’t anti-internet.
It’s anti-default.

Listen to the full episode

👉 Listen to Episode 1 of Set Status: Online
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SetStatusOnline
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/set-status-online/id1841267134 
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0w3vhEUZ7Z2twLY7rSknsV?si=8WHdZjz-R6mhqS9GWE5lDg 

Full transcript

00:00
Hey, hi, hello. We’re online and so are you.
Welcome to Set Status: Online, the internet show for a little bit of internet sanity for the terminally online.

This is officially the first episode of what I hope will be many. And if you’re listening to this, I really hope you do stick around. I think there are going to be some really cool conversations and topics coming up.

00:31
This will hopefully turn into a bit of a therapy session for anyone who spends time online, which I assume is everyone.

To kick off the first episode, I wanted to tackle something that’s been running through my head for a while now. It came off the back of a recent chat I had about in-person networking.

01:02
There’s this strange thing around why we find it so scary to approach another human being at a conference, a meetup, or even just a stranger in the street or at a bar.

There seems to be a significant feeling of pressure or high stakes involved. Some fear of judgement, to some degree.

And it got me thinking about how so many of our interactions now take place via chat apps or DMs.

01:33
I think we’re conditioned from a young age to see face-to-face meetings as high-stakes engagements.

Things that happen in real life are often reserved for moments that carry expectations or seriousness. Think about going to the principal’s office. Or a message that says, “We need to talk in person.” Or “Can you come to my office?”

02:01
Even things like wedding proposals, or going into the office when you normally work remotely, tend to carry weight.

And I think this is true in dating as well. Most of us would feel more comfortable sending a picture to a stranger on a dating app than walking up to someone at a bar and saying hi.

02:30
That feels interesting to me. We seem to feel safer behind a screen or an app than presenting ourselves as a real human being in person.

I think we’ve become very reliant on the comfort of being able to mute notifications, delete chats, block contacts, and so on.

When most of our interactions default to sending messages through WhatsApp, Signal, LinkedIn, Slack, whatever it is, it’s no surprise that we’ve become more sensitive to interactions that happen offline.

03:05
Offline interactions have become the exception. They’re reserved for things that feel too important to happen online.

This also made me think about social energy. After a few hours around people, my social battery can feel pretty drained.

This obviously differs from person to person, and it depends a lot on context. Time with friends feels different from a work meeting or a big family event.

03:38
But I do think there’s something cultural happening.

If we engage 90 percent of the time via chat apps, it lowers our resilience to in-person interactions.

Physiologically, interacting with someone in real life uses more energy. There are social cues, body language, tone, and timing that our senses need to track.

04:06
When you’re typing a message, your body doesn’t need to do that work.

It’s also easier to backspace, rewrite, or even ask ChatGPT to help you phrase something than it is to think on your feet in the moment.

It’s similar to not running for a month and losing cardiovascular stamina. If we don’t practise face-to-face interaction as much as we used to, it makes sense that we lose some stamina there too.

04:44
I’m not trying to judge one as good or bad. I just want to bring attention to the tension I feel between online and offline interaction.

I think it’s useful to be aware of how chat apps shape the way we approach real-world encounters.

05:10
For example, if you’re at a conference, a meetup, or a social gathering, and you feel the urge to introduce yourself to a stranger but feel scared, it’s worth asking a few questions.

Is there an actual threat here?
What’s the worst that could happen?

And maybe even: if I were DMing this person on Instagram, would I feel the same fear?

05:48
Most of us probably wouldn’t feel the same fear in a DM. There are exceptions, of course, especially if there’s a crush involved.

But generally, the fear feels lower behind a screen. I think it’s worth questioning why.

The same goes for long conversations. If you struggle to stay engaged for two hours or more, or if your rhythm drops after an hour, it’s worth asking what makes that feel so hard.

06:29
Personally, that’s something I relate to.

I sometimes wonder if I’m interesting enough, or if I’m a bad friend for feeling tired after an hour and not wanting to push the conversation further.

But I don’t think it has to mean that at all. I think it’s a pretty natural reaction for a lot of people.

06:58
With chat apps, interactions are short and controlled. We manage the dosage.

In person, it’s constant. You can’t dip in and out. You can’t step away and come back later.

There’s an expectation of sustained attention, and it makes sense that chat apps lower our resilience to that.

07:36
That said, practice matters. Content and context matter too.

I’ve had conversations that felt like an hour and turned into four, depending on the people, the timing, and the kind of day everyone had.

Still, I do think our relationship with chat apps has an impact.

08:09
As a society, I think we should place more value on face-to-face relationships again.

Most people I know wouldn’t disagree with that. But chat apps are easy. They’re always available. You can message while commuting, between tasks, or when you’re bored on the couch.

08:41
That tap-in, tap-out dynamic is appealing because we can choose exactly how much we have capacity for.

And that’s genuinely useful.

But it also means that when we’re in in-person situations, we develop unnecessary reservations about approaching people.

09:15
I sometimes wish we still lived in a world where you could sit down in a café and easily strike up a conversation with the people next to you.

It still happens, but not as often as it used to.

That makes me a bit sad, even if it’s a slightly old-school take.

09:45
I get a lot of value from looking someone in the eyes and communicating certain things offline.

Checking in with friends, sharing life updates, celebrating good news, or meeting new people. I prefer doing those things in person.

That’s just a personal preference.

10:18
I do think there’s an opportunity to be more intentional about how and why we interact online.

That “why” matters.

Intentional online interactions feel much healthier than default ones, where we do things simply because they’re easy or habitual.

10:51
I also want to acknowledge that chat apps are incredibly valuable for people who struggle with social interaction.

They’ve opened doors to friendships and connections that might not otherwise exist, and it wouldn’t be fair to ignore that.

Opening up socially doesn’t come naturally to everyone.

11:24
That said, I do wonder what the world will look like in 20 years.

How our capacity for online and offline interaction will continue to change, and to what extent.

Again, I’m not trying to label this as good or bad. I just think it’s worth being aware of and reflecting on in our own lives.

12:05
If you have thoughts on this, I’d love to hear from you.

As promised in the trailer, these episodes are meant to be short and succinct. Easy to listen to on your way to or from work, on a lunch break, or while walking the dog.

12:34
I know I don’t always have an hour for a podcast, and sometimes a short moment of listening is enough to get the creative juices flowing.

I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I really hope to see you back here again.

Thanks for listening.

A clearer look at the year you just lived as a freelancer.

You know Spotify does that cool “wrapped” thing at the end of the year? I did a similar one for freelancing last year and I really enjoyed it. So, I did another for 2025.

Partly just for fun, but I also hope that it might be a useful map with regards to what actually changed in the industry this year, how the numbers moved, and what it all quietly signals about the future of independent work.

Cheers to ChatGPT for helping me gathering all the data in record time (not sure why I didn’t use it last year, but here we are!), and cheers to you, dear reader, for indulging me in my cheesy delights.

Enjoy!!

Your top genre: Independent workforce goes mainstream

Hey ho! Freelancing stopped being the alternative this year! It’s going more like… pop music, if we’re extending the music metaphor.

With around 73 million independent workers in the United States alone, almost a third of the workforce, freelancing became one of the dominant ways modern work gets done.

This is no longer a trend curve. It is infrastructure.

What this signals:

Institutions and clients now assume freelancers are a permanent part of the labour market. Expect more long term collaboration models, not one offs.

Your surprise trend: Market growth and volume

The global freelance economy grew by roughly 14.5 percent and projections continue upward.

More opportunity, yes. But also more people stepping into freelancing, especially mid career professionals leaving full time roles.

What this signals:

Differentiation matters. The market reeaallyy rewards clarity, and not generalism.

Your most-liked collab: Human + AI

Artificial intelligence made a huge impact last year already… this year, it really took center stage. It reshaped the foundation of independent work (and I have teeny tiny feeling we’ll be saying this every year for a while).

AI-related freelance roles increased significantly, and client searches for these skills rose sharply. This did not push freelancers out. It pushed us forward.

What this signals:

AI fluency is becoming a baseline professional skill. The advantage lies in how you integrate it, not whether you resist it.

“Always-on-repeat”: Originality, originality, originality

As automated content flooded the internet, clients really sharpened their preference for human nuance and human touch.

The world saw an interesting demand for writing, editing, design, strategy, and any work requiring interpretation, taste or emotional intelligence. Yes, lots of people use AI. But there’s still a chance to carve out a niche as a human-first freelancer.

What this signals:

Creativity did not diminish in value. It became the differentiator again.

Your profit snapshot: Upward drift for specialists

Europe saw an average freelance rate of roughly 100 Euros per hour.
Germany reported averages around 91 Euros per hour in tech and IT.

But this rise was uneven: Generalists saw pressure; specialists saw lift.

What this signals:

Clear positioning enables stronger pricing. Raising your rate works best when the value is unmistakable. Double-down on that.

Your most-used work style: The portfolio career takes shape

Around 29 percent of freelancers also held a traditional job. Many built parallel streams such as products, workshops, consulting or teaching.

This is not indecision. It is modern independence.

What this signals:

Freelancing is shifting from a single service identity to an ecosystem approach. Income diversification is becoming standard.

Your location tag: Borderless… with preference

Roughly one in five full time independent workers now serve international clients.
Freelancers increasingly choose lifestyle hubs over corporate centres.

What this signals:

Geography matters less for access and more for quality of life. Freelancers design their environments rather than inheriting them.

Your energy graph: Busy, productive, and slightly overextended

Freelancers averaged around 43 hours of work per week. About 30 percent worked more than five days consistently.

(Guilty)

The freedom to choose your schedule does not automatically create rest. It creates the option. But the two are not the same.

What this signals:

Sustainability is becoming a skill. The freelancers who thrive build structure around their autonomy.

Your satisfaction score: Steady, at 81%

Despite the complexity, 81 percent of freelancers reported being satisfied this year.

Not because the work is simple.
Because the work is chosen.

What this signals:

Autonomy remains the central driver of freelance satisfaction.

A 2026 Preview: The themes are gonna get louder

Based on this year’s patterns, expect the following shifts to continue gaining strength.

• Originality will become even more valuable.

• AI fluency will quietly determine who remains competitive.

• Clear positioning will matter more than ever.

• Burnout prevention will shift from hope to system.

• Portfolio careers will become the norm.

• Creative independents will continue to shape conversations about meaningful work.

Freelancing is not settling. It is evolving. This year gave us a clearer picture of what the next chapter will require.

If 2025 was about understanding the landscape, then 2026 is about choosing your direction inside it.

Onwards and upwards, ye old creatives!

This is an excerpt from my book, How Birds Learn to Fly. It’s not published yet, but I wanted to share a chapter I think is quite relevant for a lot of people right now. As more and more AI technologies force their way into our work, across all industries, we are quickly needing to adapt and shift not only the way we work, but also the way we think about working.

And one of the most difficult parts of this process is trying to keep up with new tech, new tools, and new workflows. Learning has become a key survival skill (more-so than ever), and being a good learner will inevitably be the thing that sets success apart from failure.

Personally, learning has always started with copying. Whether it’s languages or changing a tyre, I’ve learned the fastest by simply doing what someone else does first. From there, you start unpacking what’s actually going on, and then reconfiguring it to make it fit your “style”, and what works for you.

This chapter is called “copying the flock” (bird-themed, in line with the title of the book), and it looks a little deeper into why copying is not just a useful skill, but a fundamental part of learning.

Copy the flock

I really enjoy cooking. And I love following a recipe.

 My partner also really enjoys cooking. But they, on the other hand, prefer to cook intuitively: A dash of this, a splash of that, tasting, adjusting on the fly, vibing with the food as it sizzles. And I totally get the appeal of that. Honestly, I really do. There’s something freeing about throwing things into a pan and letting your senses decide the outcome.

But not always. At least, not at first.

For me, personally, there’s something deeply satisfying about having a recipe open in the kitchen while I cook. A recipe that someone else has already tested, tweaked, and perfected. A set of instructions, a field-guide, a set of notes and lessons and tips. I don’t have to think, so much as simply enjoy the process laid-out for me.

 I’m sure part of it is the structure a recipe provides. I like knowing what’s coming next. And there’s a rhythm to it that makes me feel like I’m doing something right. Another part of it is likely the pure satisfaction of weighing things out exactly—grams and millilitres, timing down to the minute. (Yes, I am absolutely the kind of person who preps everything in little bowls before I start. Mise en place is my cooking heaven.)

 But the real reason I love a recipe?

 Recipes gives me a starting point. And they give me permission to begin.

 A recipe, to me, is like a LEGO™ instruction booklet. I grew up sitting in front of LEGO™ box, with a mish-mash of pieces from every set I ever had, and just building Frankenstein things for hours.

 But the first time I open a new LEGO set? You bet I’m following those little illustrated steps to the tee.

 There’s something thrilling about building it exactly as it was intended. Seeing the final shape appear out of chaos. Understanding how the parts fit together before you go rogue. Following someone else’s plan gives you a kind of creative vocabulary. It shows you what’s possible. And once you’ve seen that—once you’ve really seen it—your own ideas start to multiply.

 And then, each time I broke apart and rebuilt the LEGO set, I remixed something. I tweaked. I adjusted. I made it my own. And that’s what this chapter is about.

 Let’s go back to cooking for a second, and take lentil curry for example, one of my all-time favourite dishes to prepare:

 1 cup dried lentils (green or brown),
400ml full-fat coconut milk,
400g canned crushed or diced tomatoes,
3 cups water,
1 diced onion,
4 garlic cloves (crushed),
1.5 tbsp minced ginger,
50g unsalted butter,
2 tbsp curry powder,
½ tsp turmeric powder,
½ tsp cayenne pepper,
1¼ tsp salt, and ½ tsp black pepper

The first time I made this, I followed it religiously. I used the exact ingredients, and the exact amounts. I timed everything. I even tried plating it like the photo. I wanted to recreate the entire experience. Almost like I was trying to become the person who wrote the recipe—standing in their kitchen, tasting what they tasted. It was a process of embodiment.

 But the second time around? I skipped the coconut milk. Delicious, but a bit too rich for me. I wanted something lighter, and I was leaning more on naan to round it out.

 By the third round, I started experimenting with the lentils—mixing red, yellow, and brown. Each one cooks differently, so I had to adjust the water and timing. But by then, I wasn’t guessing. I knew what I was working with. I understood the baseline well enough to riff off it.

 And that’s what copying is. That’s what learning looks like. It’s not stealing, and it’s not cheating: Copying is how we figure things out.

 As kids, we constantly copy. It’s actually all we know how to do. 

 We mimic sounds before we speak. We clap because someone clapped for us. We smile because someone smiled back. We watch, we try, we adjust. We copy.

 But somewhere along the way—usually around school—we start hearing a different message: Don’t copy. It becomes synonymous with laziness. With a lack of intelligence or creativity.

 In school, it’s called cheating.
In university, it’s called plagiarism.
On the playground, it’s called mocking.
In the creative world, it’s called unoriginal.

 And that association sticks.

 We grow up thinking that copying means failure. That if we don’t come up with something entirely new, totally from scratch, all on our own... then, it doesn’t count. It’s not real. It’s not “worthy.” It’s not a true achievement.

 And, to be honest with you, that’s a darn shame. Because copying—really good copying—is one of the most powerful tools we have. Not just as humans, but especially as freelancers.

To extend the cooking metaphor a little bit more (sorry): Before I ever made my first sourdough starter, I copied someone else’s process completely. Not just roughly; exactly. I used the same ratio of flour to water. I fed it on the same schedule. I compared my dough to their photos. I watched their starter rise and fall on YouTube before mine ever did.

 Only after I’d done that could I start making decisions on my own: Adjusting for my room temperature, trying different flours, tweaking the feeding times.

 And I’m not alone in that.

 As teenagers, we put together our wardrobes by copying people we admire: Musicians, actresses, people we pass on the street. We start with near replicas. Then, slowly, we personalise. We swap a colour. Layer something unexpected. Suddenly, it’s us.

 And as an artist, I do it too. Literally all the time. If you want to learn how to draw like a Renaissance painter, the best way to do it is by copying a Renaissance painting. Go and try to recreate the Mona Lisa. Not because you want to be Da Vinci—but because you want to learn like Da Vinci. You want to feel what the brush felt like in his hand. You want to understand the rhythm, the flow, the application of the paint on the canvas.

 Woodworkers follow pre-set plans for their first bench. Sewers cut their patterns from clothes they already own. Musicians play cover songs long before they write originals.

Copying is not a flaw in the creative process. It is the process.

 And honestly? I really wish someone had told me that earlier.

 When I started freelancing, I felt guilty about how much I borrowed. I’d look at other designers’ websites and think: “I really like how they describe their process. I really like how they designed their banner. Should I do mine like that? I wonder if I can use a similar layout. Is it wrong to price my packages like theirs?”

 At first, it felt like cheating. Like I wasn’t being authentic. Like I hadn’t “earned” my identity yet.

 But at some point I realized: Of course I hadn’t.

 I actually remember that moment really well: It was about two years after COVID became “the new normal”, and I was about one year into freelancing. I had clients, I had some income, things were OK. I was moving forward. I couldn’t complain.

 But I kept itching to do more. Be more. Level-up. Learn more. Earn more. It felt like the rite of passage to earning the freelancer badge. And I was consuming everything there was on freelancing.

 No, really: I was in a phase of getting 4-5 email newsletters a day that I often struggled to read; listening to every podcast under the sun while running, while cooking, while showering; signing up for every free meetup or conference I could... It was intense.

I was essentially rubbing Chris Do’s videos onto my gums, and liquidising pages from James Clear’s, Simon Sinek’s, and Mark Manson’s books into syringes I could then shoot directly into my veins. I was actively etching quotes, ideas, and frameworks into the soles of my feet—all in the hopes of achieving what they had achieved.

 But the conundrum I kept hitting was: I’m just copying them. None of this came from me. And it felt fake. I felt like a total phony.

 Then, one day, I read this line by Jean-Luc Godard:

 For the first time, I realised that I might not actually be a fraud after-all. It dropped the thought that I might simply be in a stage of processing. Of turning all of those inputs—the borrowed phrases, the echoed structures, the recycled ideas—into something new. Something shaped by my experiences. My voice. My clients. My weird little way of seeing the world.

 I was in the middle of learning. And that’s the part no one really talks about.

No one openly celebrates the phase where their work sounds a little too much like someone else’s. Or when their portfolio looks like a patchwork of borrowed styles. Or when they’re quoting people so often it feels like their personality is just a highlight reel of other people’s wisdom.

 But honestly? That’s just the messy, in-between bit. The part where you’re absorbing. Testing. Collecting ingredients. Trying on other people’s aprons until you can stitch your own. The baby that just starts saying any word they hear their parents say, so that it learns how to make sounds with its mouth-parts.

 And when I started thinking about it that way—not as fakery, but as foundation—everythingchanged.

 I was still learning. Still trying. Still figuring out what worked for me. And copying (respectfully, deliberately, and thoughtfully, of course) was helping me do that faster and better, than if I were pretending, I had it all figured out.

 My first newsletter was basically a carbon-copy of James Clear’s 3-2-1. I loved his format of short, poignant quotes as opposed to long-form writing, and I wanted to become that. I wanted to emulate that.

 At first, I did it daily. I was collecting quotes and phrases and sayings from all the articles, books, podcasts, and newsletter I consumed. And I was collecting all of those in something else I copied: Ryan Holiday’s Commonplace Book method. Essentially, a single organisation structure for bits and pieces of collected knowledge.

 And it worked. Until it didn’t.

 I ran out of momentum—not because I suck, but because it wasn’t me. It isn’t me. I copied what worked for James Clear. Other than the fact that he’s way more intelligent and experienced than I am, he’s simply a totally unique individual. He probably couldn’t copy much of my lifestyle, either, because we’re just different people.

 And I tried sending it out once a week, and then once a month, and then sporadically. Still, none of it worked. However, I learned so much from it, that I ended up creating a rhythm and a format that fit me perfectly. And that, funnily enough, ended up being long-form, and totally irregular. As and when inspiration hit me. Literally the complete opposite to Clear’s newsletter.

 I would not have had the know-how I needed if I hadn’t first tried to copy Clear. It took imitating, falling, and “flapping my own way” to create my own version that worked for me. We all fly differently.

 The same happened with pricing as a freelancer: I started by copy-pasting Chris Do’s method—and even copied his conversation with clients to explain his pricing. He always priced himself much higher (to quote: “Double your rates until someone says no.”). And he based that price on willingness from clients to invest in risk and value. I used the same model, and explained it to clients almost verbatim to how Chris said it. I literally tried it out for myself, word-for-word, until I realised what worked and what didn’t.

 Now, years later, my pricing model looks totally different to Chris’. But I had to start there. I needed a blueprint, a baseline, a lentil recipe to follow.

 That’s a huge part of learning how to fly.

 And “learning” is an important word here: Failure is an integral part of learning... and, by extension, an integral part of copying. We aim, we imitate, we land somewhere else—and the distance between where we tried to go, and where we ended up, becomes our growth.

 We need to go through that cycle a few times (aim, imitate, land, improve) before we learn that we actually want to aim for something slightly different... and, by the time we decide where “there” is, our aim has become much, much sharper.

 Freelancing, as with flying (and everything else), starts with imitation: You follow someone else’s recipe. You copy another bird’s wingbeats. You aim at someone else’s target. You cook it their way. You fly the way they do. You try hit their bullseye... and then you see what works, and what doesn’t.

 Only after allll of that, do you start figuring it out for yourself: You swap the spices. You move that feather around and flap a little slower here and there. You add something new. Leave something out.

 And, soon enough, it’s your dish. It’s your flight pattern. It’s your target.

 Birds don’t invent flying from scratch each time. They watch their parents, their siblings. They try, they fall, they flap some more. They mimic the movement. They get back up. They try again.

 Originality doesn’t come second, and definitely not first. Maybe even not third. And realising that is the difference between falling and flying.

 If you’re just starting out, or feeling like you’ve hit a wall, or wondering how other people seem to “just know” how to do it… then copy someone. Really. Find someone you admire, and copy them carefully. Thoughtfully. With purpose.

Copy the flock. And, when you’re ready, fly your own way.

Here’s something nobody tells you when you start freelancing:

Your biggest wins won’t come from finding the “right” thing to do.
They’ll come from doing something long enough for it to matter.

We’ve all been sold this myth — that success is a moment. A revelation. A breakthrough.
As if one clever pivot, one viral post, one smart service offering will be it.

But that’s not how any of this works.

Success isn’t a lightning strike.
It’s sediment.

Layered. Compounded. Boring.
And completely within your control — if you can commit to the rhythm.

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Most freelancers are obsessed with time.

“How fast can I grow?”
“When will I make it?”
“How long until this pays off?”

The better question is: How often can you show up?

You can’t plan timing. You can’t forecast luck. You can’t control when someone finds your work and says, “Yes.”

But you can plan your cadence. You can control how many swings you take. And you can build a system that lets you keep swinging — without breaking your wrist.

The people who win aren’t doing better things. They’re doing things better.

That is: they’ve figured out what they can sustain.

Not what looks impressive. Not what someone else does. Not what works on paper. But what they can keep doing, week after week, without burning out or falling off.

They’ve traded in “what’s optimal” for “what’s repeatable.” Because they know that consistency is what makes momentum possible — and momentum is what makes success inevitable.

I used to think I needed to do everything every day. Daily writing. Daily posting. Daily hustle. But I couldn’t keep it up. And when I dropped the ball, I’d spiral: “I’m lazy. I’m undisciplined. I’m not cut out for this.”

Except… that wasn’t true.

The moment I stopped chasing intensity and started designing for consistency, everything changed.

I no longer try to do the same thing every day. I just try to do something every day.

Some days it’s a blog. Some days it’s client work. Some days it’s rest — and yes, rest counts if you’ve planned for it.

What matters is that I’m in motion. That I stay in the game long enough for the game to change.

Here’s the hard part.

Consistency looks stupid in the middle. It’s invisible, unsexy, and uncelebrated. But it's also the only thing that compounds.

You don’t get praised for the reps — only the results.
You don’t get likes for showing up — only for what comes out after years of showing up.

And that’s why most people quit too soon: Not enough praise, no immediate satisfaction, no reason to keep going… but the work is working, it just needs consistency to show up.

Here’s the real work.

Forget the perfect offer.
Forget the “right” idea.
Forget what everyone else is doing.

And instead, ask yourself one question:

It doesn’t have to be huge. If it’s writing for 5 minutes a day, then that’s perfect. You always scale it up later. The key is to find the minimum amount you need to make it a repeatable habit. One that doesn’t rely on willpower. It should be so easy, you can’t ignore it.

And if you can do that honestly—and build a freelancing system around it—you’ve already outpaced 90% of people in your field.

Success doesn’t come from what you do. It comes from how often you do it.

And the only way to get good enough to win… is to stay in the game long enough to matter.

We trust strangers every day with our lives.

Every time you get in a car and drive, you're trusting that the people in the cars next to you won’t swerve into your lane. That they’ve passed a driving test. That they’re sober. That they’re paying attention. You don’t stop to verify any of this. You just drive.

We call it "trust," but it's actually survival. You can’t function if you’re second-guessing every driver on the road.

Same thing happens when you buy groceries. You trust that the food is fresh. That it won’t poison you. That someone is checking expiry dates and maintaining the fridge. You trust the supply chain, the standards, the systems.

This kind of trust is invisible. It's constant. And it's what makes modern life even remotely functional.

… which brings me to freelancing.

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Freelancers don’t get System Trust

Unlike supermarkets or road laws, there’s no built-in system telling your clients you’re legit. No certification. No government license. No physical storefront. Nothing but your word and your work.

And that’s why trust isn’t just important in freelancing. It is the work.

Referrals? That’s trust.
Repeat clients? Trust.
Someone looks at your portfolio and hires you? Still trust.

Your work is proof, sure. But your reputation is what closes deals.

So let’s dig into what trust actually is, psychologically. And, more importantly, how you can build it on purpose.

The psychology of trust

Trust might feel abstract. But it’s one of the most well-studied and useful tools we’ve got in the freelancer toolbox.

1. Trust is a shortcut (and you can design for that)

When someone trusts you, their brain gets to take a break. No need to micro-manage. No need to understand every detail. They get to move you from the "worry about this" category to the "safe to ignore" pile.

For clients, this is gold.

If you can reduce their cognitive load, you become valuable. Not because of what you design or write or build. But because of how easy you make it to trust you.

Trust saves your client’s brain from decision fatigue. And that makes you the safest possible bet.

2. Trust = Competence + Warmth

Harvard researcher Amy Cuddy found that when we meet someone, we’re subconsciously scanning for two things:

• Do I like you? (warmth)

• Can you do the job? (competence)

This is important to really understand. Like, really understand: Clients need both to feel safe hiring you.

Too friendly without clarity? You’ll feel flaky.
Too competent without warmth? You’ll feel cold, rigid.

The best freelancers sit right in the middle. They speak with clarity but also care. They make people feel seen andsupported. They show up like a human who knows their stuff.

Which (spoiler alert) is what the best trust tactics are built to signal.

3. Trust is reciprocal – so start it first

Neuroscience has shown that when people are trusted, their brains release oxytocin. That lovely little hormone that makes us feel safe, cooperative, and, crucially, trustworthy.

That means trust creates trust.

If you treat a client like they’re difficult, they’ll act difficult. If you treat them like a pro, they’ll act like one.

Freelancers who give trust early often get it back, tenfold. It's not always guaranteed. But it is contagious.

Micro-tactics to build trust

Enough theory. Let’s get practical.

These are small, designable moves that build trust invisibly and reliably. None of them are huge. But together, they make you the kind of freelancer people want to come back to.

1. The Micro-Promise Principle

Make one small promise early. Then keep it.

Example: "I’ll send you that article after the call."
Then send it within ten minutes, along with a bonus resource they didn’t ask for.

You’re not just being helpful. You’re training their brain to trust you.

2. The ‘You’re Not Alone’ Nudge

Echo what your client is probably feeling.

Say things like:
"A lot of people feel overwhelmed at this stage of the project."
Or:
"Most clients don’t have this figured out before we start."

This makes them feel understood, which makes them feel safe.

(Note: This is easy to make sound “fake.” So, be careful. It should be intentional, but authentic. Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.)

3. Trust by transparency

Say what you’re not good at.

Example: "This isn’t my strongest area, but I know someone great who can help if we need it."

Being honest about your limits makes everything else you say feel more credible.

4. Calm competence

Speak clearly, with intention. Avoid rambling. Avoid rushing.

Confidence isn’t about being loud. It’s about being grounded. People hear the difference. And they trust the person who sounds like they’ve done this a hundred times before.

5. Consistency over genius

Be the same person in every call, email, and deliverable.

Show up when you say you will. Reply with the tone you set in the first call. Meet the expectations you set. That’s it.

Consistency builds trust faster than brilliance. And it lasts longer too.

Final thought: Trust is the real deliverable

You might think you’re selling logos. Or websites. Or words.

But what you’re really selling is the feeling a client gets when they hand something over to you and know, deep down, they don’t need to worry.

That feeling is worth more than any design.

And the good news?
You can build it.
You can bake it into your process.
You can become the kind of freelancer people trust with their brain space.

Which means you become the kind they hire again. And recommend. And remember.

And that, my friend, is how you build a freelance business that lasts.

There’s a moment—somewhere between finishing your last client email and brushing your teeth—when your brain whispers:

So you stay up.
Even though you’re fried.
Even though you’ll regret it in the morning.

You're not lazy. You're just stuck in what psychologists call revenge bedtime procrastination.

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What Is Revenge Bedtime Procrastination?

The term originated in China as a way to describe a phenomenon where people with very little control over their daytime schedule delay sleep to reclaim personal time at night.

For freelancers, the irony is thick:
We technically have control.
But between clients, deadlines, and the pressure to be “always on,” we burn our daytime autonomy on work—and end up stealing time back at night.

This isn’t procrastination.
It’s a power grab.

Why It Happens to Freelancers

Let’s break down what’s really going on here:

1. You confuse freedom with availability.

Many freelancers equate “being a good freelancer” with being endlessly responsive, hyper-productive, or always optimising something. The boundary between your time and client time gets fuzzy, and the whole day becomes performative.

2. You delay pleasure to prove you deserve it.

You finish your work.
Then you do the admin.
Then you post on LinkedIn.
Then you tweak your website.

Only after all that do you maybe let yourself rest or play.
Except… by then it’s midnight and your nervous system is still in spreadsheet mode.

3. You crave decompression, not sleep.

We don't stay up late because we want to be tired.
We stay up because it’s the only time we feel like our lives are ours again. Even if it’s just to binge a show or scroll apartments we’ll never afford.

The Cost of This Behaviour

Delayed sleep isn’t just a quirky personality trait.

Studies show sleep deprivation reduces creativity, decision-making quality, and emotional regulation—all critical for freelance life.
Plus, the cycle feeds itself: poor sleep leads to poor boundaries, which leads to less satisfying work, which leads to… more midnight scrolling.

How to Fix It (Without Becoming a Morning Routine Influencer)

I’m not here to tell you to take cold showers or meditate at 5am.
But here’s what does help:

🛑 1. Name the behaviour when it’s happening.

The moment you notice that “one more scroll” itch, say it:

Naming it interrupts the autopilot and gives you a shot at making a different choice.

🧠 2. Switch the reward, not the routine.

You want decompression? Cool. You need it.
But make it intentional:

• Replace doomscrolling with a comfort show or book.

• Switch from endless web browsing to journaling for 5 minutes.

• Play something tactile or analog before bed: doodle, knit, fidget.

Make rest feel rewarding, not like punishment.

🪩 3. Schedule “unproductive” time earlier.

Block out an hour mid-afternoon or early evening for “unproductive joy.”
Watch dumb videos.
Make weird playlists.
Lie on the floor and vibe.

If you start filling your days with some pleasure, your brain won’t try to steal it all back at night.

😴 4. Protect your sleep like it’s a client.

Freelancers never miss deadlines for clients. But we bail on ourselves constantly.

What if you treated sleep as non-negotiable as a Zoom call?
Put it in your calendar. Build a ritual around it.
Create wind-down alarms. Make your room boring and dark.

Protecting your rest is protecting your business.

TL;DR

If you’re staying up late even when you're exhausted, you're not failing.
You're trying to reclaim something.

But revenge is a short-term win.
Boundaries, joy, and rest?
Those are long-game strategies.

There comes a moment in every freelancer’s life when the thing that once saved you… starts to suffocate you.

You built a business that pays the bills.
Maybe even one you’re proud of.
But now? It just feels tight.

You’re still getting work.
Still delivering.
Still hitting your income goals.

And yet…
Something feels off.

Not broken.
Just misaligned.
Like you’re wearing a version of yourself that no longer fits.

This isn’t failure.
This is evolution.

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Your old business model isn’t wrong.

It’s just too small.

When you started freelancing, you built what you needed:

• Survival income

• Consistent projects

• Something that felt safe

That version of your business got you here.
It worked.

But now, the very things that made it safe are making it feel… stifling.

• The niche that once gave you clarity now boxes you in.

• The retainers that once gave you stability now feel like golden handcuffs.

• The “yes” that once opened doors now clutters your calendar.

And the scary part?

From the outside, it still looks successful.
Which makes you feel ungrateful, or guilty, or confused.

But you’re not broken.
You’re just ready for your next shape.

The Business Molt Model™

A 3-phase process for when you’ve outgrown your old business

Freelancers don’t pivot overnight.
We shed slowly.
Here’s the map:

1. OUTGROW → “This isn’t working like it used to.”

Symptoms:

• Quiet dread before client calls

• Avoiding your inbox

• Jealousy of people doing what you secretly want to try

• The idea of more clients makes your stomach drop

This is where you realise:
You’ve built a business that solves past problems, not present ones.

🧠 Question to ask:

2. UNEARTH → “If not this, then… what?”

This is the scary limbo.

You’re still doing the work, but it feels performative.
Like you’re playing a version of yourself you no longer believe in.

This is your research era:

• Saying no more often

• Trying tiny experiments

• Reconnecting with what lights you up

It’s messy. But it’s where clarity is born.

🧠 Question to ask:

3. REBUILD → “This feels like me again.”

Eventually, you start making bolder moves:

• Updating your offers

• Raising your prices

• Working fewer hours with more intention

• Saying things out loud that you used to whisper

You’re not burning your business down.
You’re rebuilding it around who you’ve become.

🧠 Question to ask:

A business model should evolve as you do

You don’t owe your past self a lifetime subscription to work that no longer fits.

You’re allowed to change.
To pivot.
To grow into something bolder, weirder, truer.

Even if the old version still “works.”
Even if people don’t understand.
Even if you don’t have the full plan yet.

Because staying small just because it’s safe?
That’s the slowest kind of burnout there is.

You’ve tried everything.
Blocking your calendar.
Batching your tasks.
Using that productivity app everyone swears by.

But no matter what you do, the feeling creeps back in:

You’re exhausted.
Mentally, emotionally, even physically.

But here’s the thing.

It’s not the work that’s draining you.
It’s the switching.

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The hidden tax of being a modern freelancer

You wake up thinking about Client A.
Spend the morning revising Client B’s pitch.
Jump into a midday call with Client C.
And end the day answering DMs from someone who’s not even paying you (yet).

That’s four different mental arenas in one day — sometimes in one hour.

This isn’t multitasking.
This is context-slamming.

And it’s wrecking your clarity.

Your brain hates switching gears

Every time you move from one project to another — especially across different clients, platforms, or brain states — your brain pays a toll.

This toll shows up as:

• Decision fatigue

• Forgetfulness

• That vague buzzing sense of dread

• The feeling of being busy all day without getting anything meaningful done

This is cognitive overhead.

It’s invisible.
It’s constant.
And it’s the main reason your to-do list feels like a treadmill instead of a finish line.

You don’t need more time — you need one mind

Enter: The One-Mind Method™
A low-overhead structure to reclaim your energy and focus without blowing up your business.

The One-Mind Method: A focus-first way to run your week

This isn’t about rigid routines or time-blocking your soul away.
It’s about grouping the right work together to reduce mental thrash.

1. Assign each day a mental mode

Instead of juggling 5 modes per day, pick one:

• Creative (deep work, concepting, design, writing)

• Collaborative (calls, co-working, live reviews)

• Admin (invoicing, emails, Zapier black magic)

You can still work across clients — just don’t mix mental gears.

2. Bundle your clients, not your chaos

Assign clients to different days or half-days.

Example:

• Monday = Client A

• Tuesday AM = Client B, PM = Creative Time

• Wednesday = Admin / Buffer

• Thursday = Client C

• Friday = You

The goal is to minimise mental tab-switching.
(Actual tabs too, let’s be honest.)

3. End your day before your energy does

Give yourself closure.

Wrap up tasks before they wrap you up.
Write tomorrow’s top 3.
Close the loop. Log off.

Ending your workday clearly helps your brain reset.
Which is the whole point of this.

Less switching = more clarity

You don’t need a dopamine detox.
You don’t need to delete all your apps.
You just need a business that respects your brain’s actual limits.

Because freelancing shouldn’t feel like mental whiplash.
It should feel like freedom.

And freedom starts with focus.

I can clearly remember my first experience with commercially available AI. It was 2020, COVID lockdowns had become routine, and then came the app that quietly changed the course of my career:

OpenAI’s DALL·E.

The first image I ever generated was a risograph print of a cat. Nothing groundbreaking by today’s standards—but back then? I was speechless.

Looking at that image now, five years later, it’s wild to realise how far things have come. I went from low-res cat prints to coding websites with my voice.

That kind of leap doesn’t happen often. Usually, you need a world war or a new invention (like, light-bulb-level) to get this level of disruption.

But here we are. Five years. And it’s not slowing down.

The feeling between 2020 and today is comparable to finding a 1MB USB stick in a drawer, while holding a 256GB iPhone. Back then, we were mesmerised. Today, it’s laughable.

And that feeling? Yeah. It’s really time we get used to it.

_{SPOILER: There’s a future-planning worksheet at the end of this post!}

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The Age of AI: A million miles an hour²

Hardware moves slowly. There are physical constraints, like materials, manufacturing, and distribution. Every step requires physically moving materials around, and then there’s waste production, human power, and time.

Software, however… That’s pure logic. Ones and zeros, baby. Everything takes a click, a drag, or a key-press, and bam. New version. New update. New app.

And when we add AI to that mix? AI doesn’t just evolve fast; it accelerates its own evolution. Better AI helps you build better AI.

And suddenly, things don’t move fast. They move exponentially fast.

Fundamentally, this ^ is an exciting prospect. With so much shittery in the world right now? Yeah, I’m genuinely thrilled that there’ll be ever-more-advanced opportunities (maybe even daily) to solve the world’s problems. Win.

However, the pace at which AI / tech / the world is shifting means three things:

1. We don’t know when,

2. we don’t know how well, and

3. we don’t know how safely

…these “new shiny things that will change our lives forever” will proliferate.

And that introduces an “interesting” question for all of us Homo sapiens, namely:

How the f*** do I plan anything???!!??!?!?

Very. Fair. Question.

Here’s how I like think about this conundrum:

Imagine trying to cook dinner, except someone swaps-out one of the ingredients at random intervals, and someone else replaces one of your utensils at random intervals.

Starts getting difficult to make dinner, right?

Right.

And this is a daily experience for me at the moment:

Me: “Maybe I’ll offer AI-assisted branding services.”
OpenAI: [launches Agents that can run entire client projects.]

Me: “OK, cool. I’ll focus on prompt engineering then.”
Google: [releases Gemini with voice + image context.]

Me: “Maybe I’ll niche into AI education for creatives?”
Microsoft: [announces Copilot is now embedded in everything from Word to your fridge.]

Me: “What if I build a Notion template to help freelancers adapt?”
Every startup ever: [releases 500 AI Notion templates by the time I finish breakfast.]

So… what do we do when our entire industry, our entire mode-of-working is a moving target? When strategy starts to feel like trying to staple jelly to a whiteboard?

Enter…

How to plan f***ing anything

Gone are the days of creating 1-year, 5-year, and 10-year goals.

Heck, gone are the days of creating roadmaps for the following month.

So, what now?

• You stop trying to predict.

• You start building systems that help you respond.

• You stop relying on to-do lists.

• You start relying on principles.

Not rigid plans. Not “2025 goals.” But filters, loosely held hypotheses you can update as the world updates itself.

Because here’s the thing: Freelancers are not corporations. We don’t need 5-year forecasts or 80-slide decks.

We need to make decisions this week about which offers to test, which tools to learn, and which client emails to ignore. And we need to do that without spiralling every time AI releases a new feature.

And this is when my mind exploded:

In freelancing, everything is always changing. So actually… nothing’s changed?

If, at the heart of freelancing – with or without AI – we’ve always had the same challenge: How do I make smart decisions with limited information, limited time, and zero guarantees?

Then, if anything’s true, we’ve always been prepared for exactly this kind of modus operandi. AI just made that dilemma louder. Faster. Loopier.

And in a weird way, that’s kind of comforting.

Because it means the answer hasn’t changed either:

So, recently, I’ve stopped treating my business like a blueprint. Instead, I treat it like an operating system. A piece of software I can update as I go.

Here’s what that looks like for me:

• I work in moments, not years: Every few days, I check in: What's working? What's dead weight? What’s killing my vibe?

• I build modular offers, not fixed ones: Every service I offer is remittable. If one stops landing, I reshuffle the pieces.

• I keep a principle list I check before I say yes to new things: Stuff like, “If I can’t explain it in 10 words, it’s not ready.” Or, “If it depends on one fragile platform, it needs a backup.”

• I track energy and momentum, not just income: If something makes me want to throw my laptop out the window, it’s not worth the invoice. Out.

And, more practically, I’ve built my business on frameworks that stand the test of time.

I created a worksheet that you can use, save, print-out, stick on your wall… whatever helps! But it forces you to think in terms of principles rather than specific actions that will inevitably get thrown out when OpenAI releases ChatGPT+++++.

🔥 HERE IS THAT WORKSHEET 🔥

So yeah: Planning still matters. But adaptability matters more.

You say you need a break.

Your body’s tired. Your brain feels foggy. You’re doomscrolling between deadlines. And the idea of a holiday feels... irresponsible?

Because how dare you rest when there's so much left to do.

But here’s the paradox:

The longer you wait to rest, the more you need it.

And the more you need it, the harder it becomes to justify.

So you convince yourself you’ll rest when the inbox is clear.
When that invoice is paid.
When the “quiet month” arrives.

But let’s be honest.

You’ve been saying that for three years.

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The Freelancer's Dilemma

When you are your business, everything feels urgent.

If you’re not working, nothing’s working.
No emails. No income. No progress.
It’s a mental tax that salaried folks don’t always understand.

So you push through.

You take micro-breaks that aren't real breaks — a walk where you're still thinking about deliverables. A bath where you're writing an email draft in your head. A weekend "off" where you're just catching up on admin.

And slowly, invisibly, something starts to fade.

Your joy.
Your spark.
Your sense of enoughness.

What burnout actually looks like

Burnout doesn’t always come in flames.
Sometimes it looks like:

• Feeling inexplicably annoyed at good clients

• Dreading the work you usually love

• Clicking between tabs like you’re looking for an exit

• Finishing a task and feeling nothing

• Constantly wondering if you're doing enough

There’s a version of you that’s vibrant, creative, excited to start the day — but that version can’t survive on crumbs of rest and sips of joy.

You don’t earn rest. You need it to earn.

This is the dangerous belief freelancers internalise:

“Once I finish all of this, then I can rest.”

But rest isn’t a reward.
It’s the fuel.

It’s the thing that gives you the clarity to make better decisions.
The energy to spot new opportunities.
The confidence to say no to the wrong clients.
The presence to actually enjoy the life you’re building.

So here's the shift:

Try this: Micro-Rest for Macro-Impact

You might not be able to vanish for 2 weeks in Bali right now.

But you can still pause meaningfully.
Here’s how:

1. Declare a non-negotiable day off
   One weekday a month where you don't open your laptop. No errands. No "catching up". Just rest.

2. Create a ‘nothing slot’
   Block out 90 minutes per week with no plan. You’re not allowed to use it productively. It’s free time to sit, stare, nap, journal, exist.

3. Set an OOO mindset
   Even if you’re working, pretend you’re away. Mute Slack. Ignore DMs. Delay replies. The world will keep spinning. (Promise.)

4. Celebrate stillness like a milestone
   Rest is part of the project. Not a distraction from it. Track your rest days like you track income. They both matter.

What would change if you truly rested?

What ideas would come through if your mind wasn’t cluttered?

What clarity would you gain if you gave yourself space?

What kind of client — what kind of work — would you attract if you stopped working from survival mode?

You don't need a retreat in the mountains.
You need permission to pause.

And here it is:

You’re allowed to stop.
Not when it’s done.
Not when it’s perfect.
But now.

Even for just a moment.

Because breaks don’t slow you down.
They help you come back clearer, faster, stronger.

And that’s what makes you dangerous in the best possible way.

Freelancing is… a bizarre paradox. You’re the boss, but also the underpaid intern. The strategic thinker, but also the one stress-Googling "how to write a good invoice."

We set the deadlines, the rates, the expectations, and then proceed to sabotage ourselves with the worst management techniques imaginable.

And two of the biggest culprits? The words "always" and "never".

(Sidenote: How crazy is it that language a) can impact how our neurons form and b) exists at all? I make a sound or draw a shape and you know what that it means the letter “a”? Shook.)

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The freelancer mindset trap

Your brain loves telling stories, but it’s got the fact-checking skills of a tabloid.

Say "I’ll never land high-paying clients"enough times, and your brain just assumes you’re right. No investigation. No cross-referencing.

This hit me hard at some point. I caught myself thinking, "Dammit, I always seem so dumb and over-eager in discovery calls with clients." (Cue dramatic sigh.)

When I actually looked back, I realised that the more I prepared, the less anxious I felt in discovery calls. And the more positive I felt about the call afterwards. I also noticed that the more excited I was about the project itself, the less I felt like I evolved into a walking pimple during the call.

If you decide to stop reading at this point, here’s your takeaway:

The moment I stopped using absolutes, I saw patterns. The “meh” discovery calls generally came from unprepared or unexcited Jomiro. The difference wasn’t luck. It was my process.

How absolutist thinking sabotages your success

Pricing & negotiation

Saying "Clients never pay what I’m worth." makes it easier to believe that pricing is out of your hands. Some clients genuinely won’t pay high rates, but many will if you position yourself well. Market conditions matter, but so does how you present your value.
Instead, "Some clients don’t, but many do. I need to find them." Now you’re thinking in solutions, not roadblocks.

🔥 I used to believe "I’ll never be able to charge more than €X for a logo." Then one day, a client did pay more. The problem wasn’t them. It was me, not asking for it. Awkward, but also life-changing.

Skill & imposter syndrome

"I always mess up client calls." convinces you that you’re bad at communication.
Instead, "I sometimes struggle, but I can improve with practice." That leaves space to grow.

🫠 A real moment of clarity: "I always sound like an idiot in discovery calls." Turns out, not true. Sometimes I’m a mess, sometimes I’m great. The difference? Preparation.

One time, I walked into a call completely unprepared, fumbled through my own services like I had never heard of them before, and thought, "Wow, I am terrible at this." The next time, I wrote bullet points, anticipated questions, and boom—the client signed on the spot. It wasn’t about me, it was about preparation.

Project rejections

Saying "I’ll never land a dream client." makes you stop trying.
Instead, "I haven’t yet, but I often get better at outreach with each attempt." See the shift?

🤡 The first time I pitched a client I really wanted, I sent an email so awkwardly formal, they probably thought I was AI-generated. Instead of deciding "I’ll never be good at this", I refined my pitch. Clients started saying yes.

Rejection isn’t a sign you’re bad at freelancing. It’s a sign you’re doing it right. The people who never get rejected? They aren’t taking any shots. The more you cringe at your old work, the more you’re evolving.

The Fix: Rewrite your script

Every time you catch yourself thinking never or always, pause. Flip the script.

• "I never get referrals." → "I haven’t yet asked my past clients for referrals. Maybe I should start?"

• "I always get bad clients." → "Some clients aren’t a fit, but I can refine my onboarding to attract better ones."

• "Freelancing is always unstable." → "There are ups and downs, but I can build systems to make income more predictable."

Most freelancers don’t fail because they’re bad at their work. They fail because they reinforce the wrong narratives. The more you do this, the more freelancing stops feeling like a chaotic, unpredictable nightmare. It starts feeling like something you can actually control.

Cool, so now what?

Here’s a challenge: For the next week, catch yourself whenever you think always or never about freelancing. Write it down. Challenge it. Reframe it.

You’re not in a dead-end. You’re in a plot twist. And the best part? You get to write the next scene. You’re just in the middle of figuring things out. And that’s exactly where you need to be. 🚀

This post is not revolutionary.

This post is a reminder.

A reminder that your perspective is your superpower.

That your perspective — not some fancy new tool, not an AI assistant, not a perfect website, not the perfect pipeline — is your superpower.

"Superpower???"

Yeah, I know right? How crazy is it that your superpower is "simply" how you choose to see things? Wild.

And that mindset shift? Pwoah. That’s what turns freelancing from a constant, uphill battle into a passion-fuelled, growth-filled, fun journey.

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The constant practice of reframing

Freelancing is often sold as this expansive freedom from the 9-to-5:

"Be your own boss. Work from anywhere. Choose your schedule. Earn 10 times more."

And yeah, it can be. It really can be.

But it's also lonely AF sometimes. There's no team lead, there's no sick leave, there's no watercooler chat when shits gets real. All the things we lean on for support when it's difficult aren't there, and we become our own support system.

We have to face the empty inbox, the client-ghosting, and the anxiety of hitting "send" on a proposal that we really need to land, all on our own.

We are the person we go to when we lie awake at 01:30 in the morning thinking: What if I have no idea what I’m doing?

And no, this isn’t about pretending those things don’t exist. Oh boy, they do.

It’s about recognising that these things — these "weaknesses" we believe we have "get over" — are signs that we're doing everything right.

That we're pushing past what’s comfortable. That we care enough to want to do better.

Weakness reframed as strengths.
Roadblocks reframed as inflection-points.

This isn't revolutionary. I'm not proposing that I've discovered something holy.

This is simply a reminder.

What is a "weakness"?

Weaknesses are commonly associated with a deficiency of some kind: A weak immune system lacks white blood cells; a weak acid lacks certain compounds; a weak foundation lacks structural integrity.

These are all things we can arguably classify as "not up for discussion, because science."

Fair.

But weakness has become a social currency, too. And that's where things get dangerous...

Let's imagine a "weak" person for a second: What comes to mind for you? Think first, then read on.

...

Now, if we apply the weakness formula from above: What do they lack, that makes them weak?

(Don't be shy, no one is judging you, this is a thought-experiment)

• If you imagined a person without muscles, they might lack strength or physicality.

• If you imagined a scared child, they might lack bravery and poise.

• If you imagined a pushover, they might lack self-confidence.

But notice how these are all context-based assessments.

• Put the un-muscular person onto a horse, and you've someone with great potential to be a jockey.

• Put the scared child into a colourful play-room, and you've oodles of creativity.

• Put the pushover into a therapist's seat, and you've got someone with endless empathy.

“Right, Jomiro. Fair enough — but what does this have to do with me?”

Great question, and the point I'm trying to make is that weakness-based judgements on character are... well, weak at best.

In other words: Things like being afraid, having doubts, and holding insecurities — all those things we usually label as “weaknesses-to-be-defeated/overcome/avoided” — aren’t actually weaknesses at all if given the right context. And that context is a mindset-shift.

Let’s make this more concrete, and start with “fear”…

Fear: Do it scared

Psychologists say fear exists to keep us alive: See scary thing, run away from scary thing (thanks fear!), survive.

In this context, fear is pretty great if you ask me.

But this only really makes sense if you're running from a bear. It makes a lot less sense if you’re trying to send a client proposal.

The trick, however, is learning to tell the difference between "this will f***ing kill me" and "this is just uncomfortable."

In her TED Talk, Embracing Fear, Shai Markwardt talks about how avoiding fear keeps us small. She always thought she needed to be brave in order to achieve her goals. So she waited until she felt brave.

Her lesson? Do it scared. Because growth requires discomfort, and fear can be a catalyst for insane momentum — ifharnessed correctly.

The first time I pitched a client, I was convinced they’d laugh me out of the room. (Spoiler: they didn’t.)
The first time I raised my rates, I was convinced no one would ever hire me again. (Spoiler: they did.)

The fear was still there. But I did it anyway. And I did it better because of it.

So next time fear shows up? Ask yourself: Is this fear actually warning me of danger, or is it just my brain freaking out because I'm stretching past what’s comfortable?

Nine times out of ten, it’s the second one.

(Follow-up question: How can I use this fear to my advantage, and what is it helping me do better?)

Doubt: Do it (especially) if you're unsure

"Don't doubt yourself!"

PING!

An email lands in your inbox:

"Hey! I heard from someone you do copywriting, and I was wondering if you could help us level-up our blog posts on intermittent fasting? We’d need about 3 blog posts a week, and our budget is pretty big for this."

Uhm... Gulp. You've never written on that topic before. You’ve never written that many pieces in a week before. You've never even fasted intermittently. Are you at all capable of taking on this gig? Are they going to ask for a refund? Are you even a real copywriter???

...

Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory explains that when we hold two conflicting thoughts — for example, "I want to be a successful copywriter" and "I don’t know if I’m good enough" — our brain forces us to reconcile them. It doesn't like imbalance, so it seeks an answer. It needs equilibrium.

Doubt causes two conflicting ideas to come into question. It lets us interrogate whether one or both are true, and how they coexist with one another.

Think of doubt like a systems check: It forces us to ask better questions, refine our approach, and — if only we let it — become a sharper, more intentional freelancer.

Without doubt, we don’t uncover our blindspots. Without doubt, we become indifferent to anything other than what we already believe.

When I started freelancing, I doubted a lot: My rates, my skills, am I even a designer if I don't have a niche... Yada yada yada. That doubt paralysed me. It left me feeling stuck.

But at some point, I exited the doubt-coma. I had run the equations in my head and my brain had forced me to refine my message, my work, and my confidence.

Doubt isn’t the enemy. Indifference is. Let doubt guide you towards a clearer understanding, and sharper perspective.

The Goldilocks Zone, and the other superpowers

This all really comes down to one over-arching principle, which can then be (theoretically) applied to any other “weakness.”

The Goldilocks Zone: Too little, or too much, and it doesn’t work; but juuust the right amount is where the gold is at. That’s where we want to be. That’s an awareness we can learn to develop. An awareness about when we reach that zone, and how to stay there.

When we learn to leverage fear, doubt, insecurity, loneliness, frustration, stress — you name it! — as strengths and opportunities, we stop fighting ourselves. And we start using them to get sharper, stronger, and more resilient than most freelancers out there.

Fun aside:

I’ll be speaking at Freelance Unlocked (Berlin, 14-15 May 2025), and will be diving deeper into this topic. I’ll be breaking down exactly how to shift your perspective and use these "negative" emotions to your advantage. Let me know if you’ll be around, and make sure to follow me to if you’d like to stay abreast of my experience there! 😉

You’re grinding. Hustling. Fixing things left and right. Always improving. AlwaysBut somehow, you’re still stuck.

Here’s why: You’re solving the wrong problem.

Most freelancers fall into first-order thinking—patching up the obvious issue without questioning what’s really going on. We treat symptoms, not root causes. And then? We do it all over again.

If you want to level up, you need second-order thinking—the ability to zoom out, anticipate the ripple effects, and fix problems before they start.

Here’s how.

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The Science Behind Second-Order Thinking

This isn’t woo-woo. It’s brain science.

Richard H. Thaler, Nobel Prize-winning economist, studied how we default to lazy thinking—quick fixes instead of real solutions. It’s also linked to The Einstellung Effect, where your brain clings to familiar solutions, even when they suck.

Freelancers do this constantly. We undercharge, overwork, and chase clients instead of fixing our positioning. The result? We stay trapped.

Second-order thinking is the escape hatch. It forces you to ask:

• What happens after I solve this?

• What chain reaction am I setting off?

• What’s lying at the centre of this?

• What do I ask after I’ve asked 10 other, surface-level questions?

First-order vs. Second-order Thinking

🚫 First-order thinking: Slap a bandaid on it. React fast. Feel productive. Repeat the cycle forever.

✅ Second-order thinking: Step back. Look at the domino effect. Fix the problem before it snowballs.

This is the difference between freelancers who grind forever and those who build real, profitable businesses.

Freelancing traps that keep you stuck (and how to escape)

1. "I need more clients."

🚫 First-order move: Post random content. Hustle for likes. Pray for DMs.

✅ Second-order move:

• Do I need more clients or just better ones?

• What’s blocking referrals from existing clients?

• If I get 5 clients tomorrow, can I even handle them?

Better play: Charge more, work less, and turn past clients into marketing engines.

2. "My prices are too high, no one’s biting."

🚫 First-order move: Lower rates. Look "affordable." Attract nightmare clients.

✅ Second-order move:

• Am I even talking to the right clients?

• Does my branding scream "cheap and flexible" instead of "premium and booked out"?

• Would raising prices actually attract better buyers?

Better play: Fix positioning. Create demand. Make them chase you.

3. "I need to work harder to make more money."

🚫 First-order move: Take on more projects. Work longer hours. Burn out.

✅ Second-order move:

• Am I selling time or outcomes?

• Can I package what I do and sell it without more effort?

• How do I make money while I sleep?

Better play: Stop trading hours for cash. Sell results. Build scalable income streams.

🛠️ Second-Order Thinking Cheat Sheet

Before you act, ask:

✅ What happens after I solve this? (Am I creating a new problem?)
✅ Am I treating a symptom or attacking the root cause? 
✅ What would someone earning 3x my revenue do?
✅ How do I get the same result with half the effort?

TL;DR: Play Chess, Not Checkers

Most freelancers don’t have a workload problem. They have a thinking problem.
Stop slapping bandaids on bullet wounds. Start solving the real problem.

Second-order thinking is the difference between freelancing as a grind vs. freelancing as a business.

Your move.

You are in a game.

Not an easy one. Not a fair one. And certainly not one you signed up for knowing all the rules.

This is freelancing—the most open-ended, least predictable, highest-risk, highest-reward game you’ll ever play.

But here’s the catch: Most freelancers don’t even realise they’re playing. They stumble in, blindly grinding away, thinking it’s about working harder, taking every gig, and somehow hoping they “make it.”

That’s like playing chess by only moving your pawns. Like speed-running Mario without knowing the shortcuts. Like trying to win Monopoly by collecting only the utility properties.

What if you stopped playing like an NPC (a non-playable character)? What if you started playing like a game designer?

The best games aren’t won by brute force. They’re won by understanding the mechanics—how points are scored, how obstacles are placed, how players get ahead. And freelancing is no different.

Soooo… let’s stop grinding and start strategising. 😃

1. The XP illusion: Why you’re stuck on level 1

Most freelancers measure progress in events—getting a big client, hitting six figures, launching a product. But real progress doesn’t happen in jumps. It happens in micro-movements, stacking like invisible XP points.

Game designers know this. That’s why even the most mundane actions—breaking a block, collecting a coin, solving a puzzle—earn you something. Because if progress isn’t visible, players quit.

But not all XP is equal.

• XP that moves you forward: Sending a cold pitch, raising your rates, testing a new offer, learning a skill that improves your work.

• XP that’s just motion disguised as progress: Tweaking your website endlessly, researching for weeks without action, refining your logo for the third time this month.

Freelancing isn’t a level-up event. It’s a long game of compounding wins. If you don’t track them, you’ll never know if you’re progressing.

👉 Track meaningful XP with Habitica—a task manager that turns real-life goals into a game (#notspon)

2. Side quests will ruin you (unless you master them)

Here’s where most freelancers get stuck: They confuse motion with progress.

They feel productive—redesigning their website, tweaking their logo, fine-tuning their Instagram aesthetic—but their business isn’t moving forward.

The difference between great and struggling freelancers? Great ones know how to ignore bad side quests.

• Main quest: High-value work, marketing, skill-building.

• Side quests: Things that are fun but not necessary.

• Distractions: Anything that keeps you busy but not moving forward.

Every great RPG forces you to make choices. You cannot do everything.

The Freelance Quest Map (A Better Eisenhower Matrix for Freelancers)

Your tasks are quest: Some lead to the final boss, some just keep you grinding for no reason.

Here’s a quadrant system to decide what’s actually worth your time.

How to Use It

• If a task is in 🏆 Main Quest, do it now—this is your core work.

• If it’s in 🎯 Strategy Quest, schedule time for it—this is what builds long-term success.

• If it’s in 🔥 Fire Drill Quest, eliminate the cause—if something is constantly urgent, fix the process.

• If it’s in 🚫 Distraction Quest, just stop—these tasks trick you into feeling productive, but they don’t move you forward.

👉 Use this as a daily filter. If 80% of your time isn’t in Main or Strategy Quests, you’re stuck in side quests.

🚀 The Freelance Quest Map

3. Grinding is a myth. Power-ups are real.

Freelancers love to wear “I work hard” as a badge of honour.

But let’s be real: Hard work is the default. It’s the entry fee. It doesn’t win the game.

What wins? Leverage. Shortcuts. Power-ups.

Game designers make sure players get tools, skills, and power-ups that change the game. Because if you’re still using the same rusty sword 30 hours in, the game sucks.

In freelancing, your power-ups are:

• Automation—anything that lets you do more with less effort (Zapier, ChatGPT, smart templates).

• Pricing strategy—not just raising rates, but restructuring offers so you work less and earn more.

• Saying no—because every bad client or underpaid project slows down your real progress.

👉 Set up automation with Zapier so you stop wasting time on repeatable nonsense. (#alsonotspon)

4. Difficulty scaling: If it feels too easy, you’re undercharging

Games get harder as you progress. If they didn’t, they’d be boring.

Freelancing works the same way. If your work feels too easy, it means you’ve outgrown your rates.

Think of pricing like difficulty scaling:

• Beginner level: Work-for-hire, set rates, taking what you can get.

• Mid-level: Custom pricing, packaging services, selective clients.

• Expert mode: Value-based pricing, productised services, multiple income streams.

The challenge should always match your skill level. If it doesn’t, you’re not playing at the level you should be.

👉 Watch this TED Talk on negotiation to start raising your rates with confidence.

5. What’s your endgame? (or are you just running in circles?)

Every game has a goal—beat the final boss, collect the legendary item, save the world. But what’s your freelancing endgame?

Most freelancers never think about this. They get caught in an infinite loop of gigs, projects, and paycheques, assuming that “more work” is always the goal.

But is it? Or are you just collecting XP with no real purpose?

• Do you want financial independence?

• Do you want more time, not just more money?

• Do you want to build something bigger than yourself?

If you don’t know your endgame, you don’t have a strategy—you have a hamster wheel.

The Freelance Endgame Map (Clarify Your Final Boss Battle)

Most freelancers wander through gigs like an open-world game with no main quest—just chasing side missions with no clear endgame. This framework turns your freelance career into a well-defined, winnable game.

How to Use It

• Fill in each row with your actual answers.

• Keep this visible—don’t bury it in a Notion folder you’ll never open.

• Before taking on a project, ask: “Does this get me closer to my Final Boss?” If not, it’s a side quest. Ignore it.

🎯 The Freelance Endgame Map

The final boss: You vs. Playing small

Most freelancers will keep grinding. They’ll keep treating this like a random series of gigs instead of a game they can actually design.

But not you.

Now you know the mechanics. Now you know the cheat codes.

The only question left is: Are you going to keep playing like an NPC, or are you going to take control of the game?

We’ve all heard the same regurgitated shite about newsletters: Write consistently. Use catchy subject lines. Know your audience.

Yawn. What does that actually mean to me, as a freelancer, as a writer? Sure, write consistently… and then what?

If you’re like me, you’re tired of advice that feels more like “this sounds smart!” and less like “this is practical, I can use this right now.”

So, I dug deeper. I found five pieces of advice from creators who actually get it. Each one flips the script, tossing convention out the window and delivering the spark you need to make your work feel alive again.

Enjoy.

Don’t call it a newsletter

Tobias van Schneider doesn’t send a newsletter. He sends a “secret weekly dispatch.” That’s not just branding fluff—it’s a mindset shift. The word “newsletter” feels stiff, corporate, and transactional. Tobias wanted to create something that felt personal, exclusive, and a little bit mischievous.

Why it works:

• People don’t want to feel like subscribers; they want to feel like insiders.

• It’s not about what you send—it’s about how you frame it.

Your Move: Rename your newsletter to reflect its vibe. Call it a “love letter,” a “creator’s log,” or a “scribbled manifesto.” Make it a place people brag about discovering.

Find your voice by rejecting the norm

Alexandra Franzen, an acclaimed author and newsletter creator, embraces the power of saying no. When she started her newsletter, she focused on rejecting traditional advice and staying true to her unique writing voice. Instead of chasing trends or trying to please everyone, she doubled down on what made her work stand out—authenticity and specificity.

Why it works:

• Readers want something that punches them in the gut—real, raw, and far from cookie-cutter.

• By focusing on your strengths, you naturally attract the right audience.

Your Move: Identify one piece of conventional advice you’re tempted to follow—and reject it. Instead, lean into what makes your perspective unique. For example, write shorter, deeply personal pieces instead of long-form content, or share something that feels vulnerable instead of polished. Frame it as a solution or tool that rethinks how newsletters should be done. Bonus points if you create a buzz-worthy “hook” (e.g., “The 5-minute newsletter that reprograms your brain”).

Ask a good question in your welcome email

Dan Oshinsky, founder of Inbox Collective, swears by the power of a killer welcome email. His secret? Asking subscribers an oddly specific question that begs for a reply. For example: “If you had to describe your life’s mission in three emojis, what would they be?”

Why it works:

• It creates an instant connection. (People love talking about themselves.)

• You’ll get insight into what your audience cares about.

Your Move: Ask a question that makes your reader stop scrolling and actually think. If you’re writing about design, ask: “What’s the ugliest font you secretly love?” Make it fun. Make it human.

Subtract, don’t add

When people think about improving their newsletters, they often add more: more content, more images, more “freebies.” Dan Oshinsky’s advice flips that on its head. He suggests stripping out the excess to amplify what truly matters.

Why it works:

• Simplicity = clarity. When you subtract noise, your message gets louder.

• Readers are busy. They’ll thank you for being concise.

Your Move: Audit your newsletter. Cut anything that doesn’t serve your core purpose. Could you remove an entire section? Trim your intro? Kill a feature that’s just… there? Subtracting isn’t simplifying. It’s sharpening your edge.

Treat your first 10 subscribers like VIPs

Josh Spector knows the power of the first 10. His advice? Treat your earliest subscribers like royalty. Reply to every email. Ask for their opinions. Make them feel like co-creators of your work.

Why it works:

• These early adopters become superfans—and superfans spread the word.

• Genuine connection is rare and priceless.

Your Move: Start small and go deep. Ask your first 10 subscribers what they love, what they want more of, and what they’d change. Build something that feels like a handwritten note, sealed with care.

Let’s burn the playbook

Here’s the truth: The world’s inboxes are drowning in sameness. Don’t add to the pile. It needs creators who dare to rip up the rulebook and start fresh.

So rename your “newsletter.” Launch it somewhere unexpected. Ask your audience weird, wonderful questions. Strip it down to its essence. And pour your heart into the first 10 people who give a damn.

You don’t need to follow the rules. You just need to follow what feels right.

Now go. And make something impossible to ignore.