New system makes things worse

Tiago Forte built an entire career around the idea of a “Second Brain”.

For those who don't know him, he's a productivity expert who's spent years studying and teaching people how to organize their knowledge, capture their ideas, and build systems that work harder than they do.

Personally, I think his stuff is brilliant.

Which is why I’ve modeled my own productivity systems after his.

But there's something he doesn't talk about enough when it comes to productivity.

Every time I pull up my Notion workspace on a call and show one of my clients the backend, the databases, the way everything connects, I almost always get the same reaction.

"You're the most organized person I've ever met."

Which is funny, because I used to be chronically disorganized.

Anyway…

The thing is, I rarely teach this system outright to anyone. Not because I’m precious about it. But because asking someone to adopt a brand new organizational system is asking them to do something genuinely painful.

Think about it like this.

You’ve got a bike.

Every morning you hop on, scoop up your to-do list, and start riding around town checking things off. Maybe that's all happening at your desk. Maybe you're literally riding from place to place like a newspaper boy or girl. Doesn't matter really.

The point is, you've got a vehicle, it works, and you don’t even think about it anymore.

Now someone comes along and says, "I've got something better, faster, and more efficient!”

You get on the new machine. The controls are backwards. Turning left makes you go right. There’s a new pedaling sequence. Every few feet, your hands are instinctively reaching for where the old brakes used to be.

And the first time you try it, you fall off.

Studies on system adoption in the workplace consistently show a 20–40% drop in productivity during the transition period, with most people needing 3 to 6 months just to get back to baseline. Which is why most people don't switch until the old bike becomes unbearable.

Not until the chain is rusty, the tires are flat, and you’re pedaling so hard you’d honestly cover more ground just walking.

That’s fine, there’s wisdom in that.

But there’s another way to think about it.

And that’s where today’s lesson, and today’s offer, both come together in a way that I have to admit makes me feel pretty clever.

I just used metaphor to explain all of that.

Which is important, because our entire reality is shaped more by metaphor than most people realize.

Time is money:

• “I’ve invested a lot of time into this…”
• “How are you spending your time lately?”

Ideas are food:

• “Let me chew on that for a while…”
• “That’s a half-baked idea.”

Understanding is sight:

• “I see what you mean.”
• “That really clears things up.”

Metaphors aren’t just pretty decorations that you bolt on top of language.

Metaphors are the language itself.

Try to speak about something abstract like time, ideas, or understanding without the use of metaphor. You’ll find it nearly impossible. And one of the world’s greatest living copywriters, Gary Bencivenga, put it this way:

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"Just as the God of Genesis breathed life into man's nostrils, metaphors will breathe life, color, and power into everything you write."

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So if you want to breathe more life, color, and power into everything you write…

Use metaphor.

Now, onto the offer.

Today's offer isn't about how to use metaphor. It's about getting on a better bike, one that you already know how to ride. More specifically, it's a writing dashboard built inside Notion that does three things:

• It's intuitive. I've spent three years designing it to feel as close to the natural human writing process as I could get. So instead of learning a brand new workflow, this already works with what comes natural to you.
• It schedules your content. Posts go out automatically, without you having to babysit a third-party tool or copy-paste anything.
• It tracks the numbers that actually matter. Such as which posts actually generate new email subscribers, and it’s all synced back into the same place where you write.

Rather than using AI to outsource your writing or your thinking, AI can do the boring stuff. The stuff you'd normally hire a VA for, or just avoid altogether because you never seem to have the time.

Which is a long way of saying:

I've already done the painful part of making it feel like the bike you already know how to ride.

If your current workflow feels like pedaling so hard you'd honestly cover more ground just walking…

Just reply back with "I'm interested" and I'll get you more details.

Talk soon,

Kevin Hood