I'm obsessed with living a better life each and every day.
I want to share what I learn and discover with you.
Share
1% Better: 3 Tools That Are Making Me More Productive, A Book That Changed My Life, and Accepting Agitation
Published about 2 months ago • 4 min read
By Colby Kultgen
Hey friends.
If you're new here, this is the newsletter where I share the 5 best things I find each week to help you get a little better each day.
Let's dive in!
Today at a Glance:
1. Book: This book changed my life 2. Tools: 3 tools making me more productive 3. Quote: Accepting agitation 4. Tips: Writing advice from C.S. Lewis 5. Tweet: The smartest people are self-taught
Read time: 3 minutes 55 seconds
1% Better is brought to you by Maya Grossman:
Learn the exact steps to grow from Director to VP in months, not years.
Feel stuck in your career?
My friend Maya Grossman is putting on a free masterclass you won't want to miss.
In this exclusive workshop, you’ll learn how to:
Stop being passed over or hearing, “You’re not ready.”
Develop executive presence that commands attention in the C-suite.
Master strategic visibility with decision-makers—without breaking a sweat.
Sell yourself as the obvious choice for VP—without the cringe.
And you’ll do it without an MBA, working 80-hour weeks, or needing to be the loudest person in the room.
I firmly believe timers are the most underrated productivity tool. I use one almost every time I start a task. My favorite thing about Onigiri is that it stays on-screen as a subtle visual cue to remain focused—without being distracting like other timers I’ve tried.
Cold Turkey is great for blocking distracting websites, but my favorite feature? Frozen Turkey. It completely locks me out of my computer at a set time. Now, every evening at 8:00 PM, my system shuts down—whether I like it or not. Non-negotiable work-life boundaries.
RescueTime runs in the background and automatically tracks how I spend my time on the computer—no manual input needed. Seeing the raw data on where my time actually goes was a massive eye-opener.
Why hard work feels bad at first (and how to get past it)
This is so good.
Billy Oppenheimer (Ryan Holiday's research assistant) on accepting the initial agitation of doing something hard:
I think about this twice a day.
Every morning when I sit down to read & again when I begin to work, I say to myself,
“Accept the initial agitation.”
When you try to focus, Andrew Huberman explains, “the brain circuits that turn on first are of the stress system.”
Meaning: “The agitation and stress that you feel at the beginning of something—when you’re trying to lean into it, and you can’t focus: you feel agitated and your mind’s jumping all over the place—that is just a gate. You have to pass through that gate to get to the focus component.”
There’s a common misconception, Huberman continues: “the misunderstanding around how these brain circuits work has led to this idea...a kind of obsession with the idea that we have to feel good in order to be productive.”
“And nothing could be further from the truth.”
The truth is it’s the reverse: we have to be productive—we have to start working, we have to lean in and get going, accepting the initial agitation—in order to feel good.
So along with “accept the initial agitation,” sometimes—when I don’t feel especially good, motivated, interested, or energized—I say to myself,
“Forget how you feel right now.”
“It will feel good,” Huberman says, “but there’s a whole staircase in which it feels kind of lousy...The early stages of hard work and focus are always going to feels like agitation, stress, and confusion.”
“Remember: there’s a gate of entry. You have to wade through some sewage before you can swim in clear water. That’s the way I always think about it.”
These writing tips from C.S. Lewis are just as relevant today as they were in 1959.
Here’s my take on each one:
1. I interpret this as "remove distractions". Could also be about curating your information diet (the modern day equivalent to radio would probably be social media).
2. My advice would be to not only read good books, but copy passages of them by hand (a practice called copywork).
3. My favorite tip here. I always read anything that I write out loud multiple times while editing.
4. Feel like this one is pretty self-explanatory. It's hard for your writing to feel authentic when you're writing about topics that don't genuinely interest you.
5. A great writing rule to follow: Be clear, not clever.
6. I call this the "idea incubator". Sometimes I work on an idea on and off for months before feeling ready to publish it.
7. This is hilarious because I have a mechanical keyboard which is loud as hell.
8. Take caution when using ChatGPT.
🤔
We opened with Naval, so I decided to close with him too.
By Colby Kultgen Trying to Win Imaginary Awards, The "No Complaining" Rule, and Ghosts in Your Blood Read online / Read time: 4 minutes Today at a Glance: • Stop trying to win imaginary awards• The "No Complaining" Rule• The best article you'll read in 2025• A reminder we all need to see• You have ghosts in your blood A question I can't get out of my head What award are you trying to win that doesn’t exist? This one stopped me in my tracks. Because the more I sat with it, the more I realized...
By Colby Kultgen Make Consistency Feel Easy, My New Favorite Productivity Tool, and Raw Dogging Your Walks Read online / Read time: 4 minutes Today at a Glance: • My new favorite productivity tool• A mindset shift to help you show up more often• A 20-min weekly challenge for better thinking• A story about patience, carpentry, and Harrison Ford• A quote that hits like a freight train My new favorite productivity tool Every week, I get messages from companies asking me to promote their...
By Colby Kultgen Résumé Virtues vs Eulogy Virtues, 100 Must-Read Life Hacks, and The Average Tuesday Rule Read online / Read time: 4 minutes Today at a Glance: Idea: Resume vs. Eulogy Virtues Quote: Powerful perspective shift Rule: The Average Tuesday List: 100 things I know Funny: Extract here Resume Virtues vs. Eulogy Virtues Answer this:Who are the people in your life you admire most? Are they:1. The ones with the longest list of achievements2. The ones who listen deeply, make you feel...
