I wrote most of this in 2020 but got stuck. I’m publishing it today, 03/17/26, with light revisions. The title is an allusion to this earlier post.
At the Monastic Academy, we have a traditional focus on silent meditation as a contemplative practice, but we also emphasize service to others. We go back and forth between silent retreat, and project work—between online and offline access, between connection and solitude.
Earlier this year, this theme reached a new extreme for me. I did an extensive meditation retreat this year, including a 100 day solitary meditation retreat in a cabin on our property at the Monastic Academy.
This period of practice enabled me to go deeper into my meditation and spiritual practice than I’ve ever gone before. I was extremely grateful for this opportunity. But it also required me to push my limits of my productivity skills, and how that integrates with my spiritual practice.
During that time, I was without a computer or phone; I had little to no communication with the outside world; I had pen and paper, but went through long stretches with little to no writing; similarly, I could read books but usually didn’t.
These constraints are highly conducive to deepening one’s contemplative or spiritual practice. Much of my time during this retreat was dedicated to learning and practicing the skill of not thinking, which is useful for advanced meditation, especially in the monastic settings. Setting aside interaction with others, in person or online, allowed the noise in my mind to diminish, and my concentration to develop.
Due to these constraints, I was unable to work on my blog – doing research or writing at my computer. I published no new blog posts in the first six months of this year. And yet I still felt called to serve the world in that way. I still had thoughts about posts I might write, about topics I might learn about. And while I was working on developing my ability to not think, when I was thinking, I found my thinking to be renewed and reinvigorated. I was surprised that it was an intensely creative and fruitful process for me.
During this time, it seemed useful to record some of my thoughts and plans. On the one hand, recording my thoughts allowed me to set them aside. And on the other hand, it prepared me to serve the world, to emerge from my retreat with a fiery dedication to using my skills for the benefit of others.
During the retreat, I effectively made a physical Zettelkasten system. I used looseleaf paper and a 3-ring binder. This system was extremely useful for tracking ideas, projects, ideas, journal entries in an organized way without a computer. I intended to digitize my tasks and notes when I had access to a computer again.
youtube.com/watch?v=4ev5sRhxKh4
Productivity Systems in the Monastic Context
At MAPLE, we use project-based learning to develop skills and serve the world through our non-profit organization. I’ve played a number of roles in the non-profit, including Assistant Director and Fundraising Director. I’ve found digital productivity skills to be invaluable for succeeding at these roles.
In the monastic setting, you can’t always use a computer or digital device. But you do need to get things done. In a modern monastery, digital productivity skills are invaluable, but incomplete. I’ve needed to complement my reliance on digital productivity skills with a newfound respect for analog productivity.
I also have a number of personal side projects—like my writing this blog, or running the Digital Productivity Coach. I move these projects forward over the months and years, despite only having 2.5 hours each day and an average of one day a week to do so.
I am also frequently offline and without access to the Internet or a computer for research or collaboration: I regularly go on silent retreats for a week or longer. And when I am off of retreat, I am still offline for roughly half of each day, from the evening until the next morning.
This rhythm of going between being online and offline, between being able to work at a computer and setting that aside, is my normal. I can’t always use my computer or smartphone, and yet I have to remember thoughts, tasks, project ideas when they come to me. This is true regardless of what context these thoughts are about: whether they are for my work for our non-profit, or they are about one of my personal projects.
Monastic training has required me to refine and develop my productivity skills. I’ve had to develop existing, well-known skills to a high degree. I use systems like Getting Things Done (GTD) and Building a Second Brain (BASB) extensively. I’ve learned and internalized principles like mood-based productivity and just-in-time project management. And I’ve learned to collaborate with my friends and allies through asynchronous work. But I’ve also had to develop new skills and systems, pushing the envelope past what I’ve learned from people like David Allen or Tiago Forte, into uncharted territory.
Conclusion
Monastic training has given me a unique perspective on productivity skills. The unusual constraints of monastic training have required me to develop new skills and ideas about what productivity can look like.
Thank you to David Howell, James Stuber, Christina Luo, and Jay Dugger for reviewing this blog post and for discussions about this topic.
If you enjoyed this post, give the Digital Productivity Coach a try. It's an interactive coach for digital productivity, available 24⁄7 to give you a feasible next step to improve your productivity skills.
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