April 28, 2025.
Zen Productivity: How to Get More Done by Doing Less
Read time - 4 min.
Traditional productivity pushes us toward mastering more skills, working faster, and following more rules, all for the sake of being more efficient. But rarely do we pause to ask: is this draining our creativity? And no matter how hard we try, it always feels like there’s not enough time.
On the flip side, there’s zen productivity. It’s chill. It’s creative. It trusts the universe’s own mysterious flow, which understands true discipline better than any system we could invent.
Story
On his way home, Solomon bumped into Shade, an old buddy.
“Hey Solomon,” Shade said. “We should catch up! There’s a party tonight and I’d love for you to come.”
Seeing Solomon wasn’t too sure, Shade added, “Come on, it’ll be a blast. There’s this guy we dress up in women’s clothes, and when he starts dancing, the crowd goes wild. You’ll have fun.”
Solomon shook his head. “Nah, that’s not really my thing.”
Shade grinned. “It’s not his either, that’s why it takes six of us to get him there.”
Align with yourself, not with the crowd.
It doesn’t matter where crowd wants to pull you or what the latest trends are – zen productivity should align with who you truly are. It should move at your pace, bring you real joy, and make it easy to show up in your life every day, to learn, explore, and share with others.
The hustle mindset tells you you’re never doing enough to earn your freedom. Zen productivity says, You’re already free. It invites you to keep coming back to that place where you feel most yourself, living with meaning and ease.
We often believe we need to perfect so many tools and skills before we can feel truly free. But we forget something important: perfection already exists within us, here and now. You can master every rule out there, and still feel like something’s missing. Because even when you reach the top of one mountain, there’s always a higher one.
We’re already free. We just have to return to that truth every day, so we never forget it again. You don’t even need the top of the mountain. You’ll burn out quickly, and might not even get that far from where you started. But if you keep moving, little by little, through the landscape of your own soul, you’ll go much farther.
Zen productivity doesn’t mean doing more, it means getting things done by doing less.
Just look at the Mark Rise brand—it’s a great example of that.
You’d be surprised how just one post a week can fill your entire content calendar — and it can feel light and meaningful, with a focus on depth over quantity.
It’s not about producing more, but about showing up consistently. The deeper your expression becomes, the more powerful your impact, like the universe doing its thing. That’s the kind of productivity that actually feels good. That’s when you know you’re doing what you’re meant to do.
Let’s break it down
Let’s break it down with some simple math from the Mark Rise Brand idea:
Posting once a week = 52 times a year = 520 posts in 10 years.
Now imagine each post leads to 7 short videos—that’s 3,640 short clips or 3,640 chances to share your thoughts with the world!
And those 520 posts? They could easily turn into a few books someday.
Over time, what once felt like hard work can be simplified into a single day’s effort—leaving space in the rest of your week for peace, self-discovery, and community.
Becouse this isn’t about quantity alone. These posts are rich with insight and meaning.
