Monk Manual: Shedding the Skin

Reflecting on the last 7 Years

The Shift Beneath the Surface: What the Monk Manual Was Always Really About

When I first started the Monk Manual, I was deep in the productivity genre.

Not just the tools — but the values underneath them.

I’d fully bought into the underlying formula: that achievement, efficiency, and optimization were the key to fulfilling one’s potential. So I asked all the standard questions:

• How do I get more done?

• How do I fit it all in?

• How do I become more effective?

• How do I essentially turn myself into a better machine?

And for a while, it seemed to be working.

Except that underneath all of it… I didn’t feel at peace.

Productivity Was Never the Goal — Peace Was

That unrest led to a sort of revelation for me: what I was really chasing wasn’t success. At least not the formulaic one-sided version of success I saw many pursuing around me.

It was peace.

But I’d mistakenly adopted a model — productivity — that I thought would lead to peace.

And instead, it produced the opposite.

It wasn’t until I remembered something I learned studying philosophy in college — that a perfect argument built on the wrong premise will still lead you to the wrong place — that I started to see the issue clearly.

The problem wasn’t how I was answering the questions.

The problem was the questions themselves.

The problem with productivity thinking is it gives great answers - to all the wrong questions.

The Monk Manual Was a Premise Shift — Not a Planner

That’s what the Monk Manual was born from: a deeper challenge to the questions our culture was asking about time, work, and life.

I saw monks — East and West — not just as anomalies, but as carriers of an ancient operating system for flourishing. Their lives weren’t optimized for productivity. They were ordered around meaning, rhythm, presence, and interior integration.

At the same time, I saw parallels between monastic living and the findings of positive psychology. And I thought, what if there was a way to bring this into modern life — not as a fantasy, but as a living framework?

The Monk Manual planner was my first attempt to do just that. And for the most part, it worked. Over the years, tens of thousands of people have used it and found real benefit.

But even in the early days, there was a subtle ache.

The Side Dish Problem

The ache was this: most people didn’t really get “it.”

Not because they weren’t smart, or thoughtful, or sincere — but because they were still working from the same cultural premises I was trying to challenge.

It’s like offering someone a carefully prepared meal, with a beautifully crafted main course — and watching them only eat the side dish. The thing that really matters, the part that holds the most nourishment, gets passed over.

That’s what it’s felt like for me, for years.

Like people were engaging with the tool, but missing the deeper shift underneath it.

And to be honest, it’s taken me a long time to fully own the shift myself — and to accept that what I’m actually trying to do is something much bigger than selling a product or running an e-commerce company.

Starting Over — But Not From Scratch

So we’re shifting.

We’re redirecting the energy of the Monk Manual away from being a product-first company…

…and toward being a transformation-first company.

That means we’re becoming education-first — but not in the sense of “how-to” content or productivity hacks. That kind of teaching lives at the level of tactics and arguments. But true change doesn’t happen at that level.

What people need isn’t more advice.

It’s a new direction. A new imagination. A new premise.

We’re no longer going to be operating as a better mousetrap in the productivity genre.

We are challenging the productivity genre, and all its assumptions, entirely.

Bigger Than Me

Another shift is happening too: I’m working to empower others to carry this forward.

Whether it’s through our community or our team, this has never just been about me. I’ve never wanted to be a guru or influencer. If you know me personally, you know I’m not particularly interested in self-promotion.

I just want to build things that matter — and help people find their way to what matters most.

I know the cultural impact we want to make isn’t possible through a person, or even a small team. It has to be bigger than just us.

I’m confident that if we really lean into this vision for a way of being and doing in the world - it will resonate with the right people who have also recognized that the Emperor Wears No Clothes.

Sharing More of the Journey

And finally — I’m going to be sharing more personally.

More of the ideas that haven’t yet made it into the Monk Manual ecosystem.

More of what I’ve learned over the past seven years — not just about time, but about meaning, self-discovery, self-gift, and becoming.

Each month in the Monk Manual there’s a prompt to reflect on personal growth.

And for seven years now, that reflection has been maxed out month after month. I’ve grown, deeply. I’ve asked questions I wouldn’t have even known to ask when I first started. And now, it’s time to begin creating new solutions for new, deeper problems.

A Year of Shedding

This is a year of shedding skin — like a snake stepping into a new form.

We’re entering the next phase of this work, and the next evolution of the Monk Manual.

You’ll see some of that unfolding over the next few weeks.

What we’ve created so far has just been the start.

What comes next is the real meal.