Is it possible to become so productive that work happens almost on autopilot without feeling boxed into a monotonous routine? The answer is yes. But first, you need to understand this one thing. 21 days ago, I decided to go all in on creating content online, talking about anything and everything I find interesting, while using it to build my business, Northlight.
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This decision gave birth to a consistency challenge I called Project 365. And once I committed to it, I realized one thing very quickly: Any act of procrastination would sink the challenge.
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So I had no choice. I had to build systems and frameworks to keep myself consistent. And in the process, I discovered something strange: being productive is easy really.
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All my earlier attempts at productivity failed because I was working on things I didn’t care about. That’s why, back in my undergraduate days, I would only start studying for exams a week before or worse, cram the entire syllabus the night before (don’t try this, it’s not fun).
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It’s also why I often finished work assignments just before the deadline (hopefully my boss never reads this). The point is If you’re living a life assigned to you and not the one designed by you, you will always struggle to be productive.

This only starts making sense when you see the loop.

The Productivity Loop

Productivity is a loop of two phases: Motivation and Work.

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Think about the last time you were productive. Chances are you were motivated:

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Maybe the deadline was close after days of procrastination.

Maybe it was that 3am burst of “I need to get my life together.”

Or maybe someone said something that lit a fire under you.

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But here’s the other possibility:

You forced yourself to start working, even when you didn’t feel like it. And once you got into it, the work felt good, so good you ended up doing more than you planned.

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That’s the loop: motivation → work → more motivation → more work.

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You can enter the loop from either side: the easy way (motivation first), or the harder way (just doing the work). Most of us blame “lack of motivation” for not being productive.

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But the reality is: you’re motivated all the time. It’s just not toward the things you want. Think about it: how much motivation do you need to pick up your phone and scroll? Or to binge a new Netflix series? Or to waste time on literally anything except the work you should be doing? Almost none. Why? Because those things feel good. That “feel good” is dopamine.

Dopamine & Productivity

Here’s how dopamine work.

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Imagine you want to train a dog to sit. Every time it obeys, you give it a treat. When it doesn’t, nothing for it but the smell of the treat in your hand is still there. Over time, the word “sit” becomes linked to the treat. Eventually, the dog sits whether you show the treat or not.

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That’s dopamine. It’s the brain’s way of rewarding behavior it wants you to repeat.

Social media algorithms are designed to hijack this system keeping you hooked by giving you dopamine shots at just the right times.

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The same way Mark and his friends have found ways to tap into this system for their benefit, you can also hack this same system for your work. If the work itself is enjoyable, if it aligns with your deeper motivations, your brain will reward you for doing it.

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That’s why procrastination is really a signal: you’re doing work you don’t care about. Your brain only gives you dopamine when there’s urgency (like a deadline). At that point, you’re not enjoying the task but the thrill of racing the clock. So the real challenge isn’t “finding motivation.” It’s designing your life so the work itself is the reward.

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This is what i did and now i wake up, do 4 hours of focused work and feel fulfilled and happy that i am charting my own path.

And now I am going to share with you what exactly i did to get to achieve this.

Define your true motivations

Many of us live assigned lives from our parents, we derive no joy in the course we study or in going to school but we do it either way just to please them.

Many societal norms make no sense yet we follow through on them because we do not want to be labelled as outcasts.

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Our beliefs hold no water to us outside what we are told to be true and we accept it without question. You live this life and you wonder why you lack motivation to work. Of course you do. You’re climbing ladders leaning on walls you don’t even want to scale. The fix is to Define your true motivations.
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​There are two types:

Extrinsic motivation

This is the common one, the kind you can see, touch, and measure.

Money. Fame. A Rolex. A Mercedes. A healthy relationship.

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They’re all forms of extrinsic motivation. And they work, especially when you’re in survival mode. If you need to get out of a situation you dread, chasing external rewards can be enough fuel to carry you through the grind. But many people stop here. And while it might be sufficient to reach their goals, for some of us… it’s not.

If you have a tendency to settle once you hit “just enough,” you’ll see the problem.

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The moment you make enough money, you ease off. The moment life feels “okay,” you stop pushing. There’s nothing wrong with that if “just enough” is truly what you want. But this is for people like me that can’t be satisfied with just enough, this kind of motivation will always feel like a ceiling.

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You’ll realize at some point that leaving your source of drive in the hands of external things doesn’t deliver the fulfillment you thought it would. That’s when you start searching for something deeper. And that’s where intrinsic motivation comes in.

Intrinsic Motivation

There’s some neuroscience behind this, but I’ll keep it simple. (If you want the details, Steven Kotler’s The Art of Impossible is the book.)

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Intrinsic motivation comes from within. When you tap it properly, your biology works for you. Your brain doesn’t just reward you after you’ve done the work, it rewards you even before you start. The anticipation of doing meaningful work becomes a motivator in itself.

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This is why people who’ve found their thing show up relentlessly. They don’t need an external carrot dangling in front of them, the work itself is the reward.

Work feels like play.

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Extrinsic motivation works. But when you pair it with intrinsic motivation, that’s the difference between the 1% and the rest of the pack. And intrinsic motivation really boils down to one principle: Do work you care about.

How to define the work you care about.

At this point, you understand productivity isn’t just about hacks or systems. It’s a loop. You can enter it through motivation or by brute-forcing yourself to work even when you don’t feel like it.

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The second option works, but it’s hard and unsustainable. The easier path is to define your motivations clearly, so showing up doesn’t feel like a fight. That means going beneath the surface — past the external rewards — until you find the work that feels aligned.

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Here’s how you do that:

1. Follow your curiosity.

What are the things you can spend hours learning, talking about, or doing without feeling time pass? The things that feel like play to you but look like work to others?

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Write them down. 20 of them. Don’t edit. Don’t try to make it “serious.” If you like gossiping and you’re good at painting pictures with your words, put it down. If you obsess over small design details nobody else notices, put it down. The point is to capture what naturally pulls your attention.

2. Find your passion.

Look at your list. Now start connecting dots. Passion often lives at the intersection of two or more curiosities. For example: I love philosophy and human psychology. I also love entrepreneurship and building things. When I overlap them, what emerges is a fascination with how entrepreneurship pushes humans to redefine their philosophy and stretch their psychology.

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One of my core messages is that business is a self development tool disguised as a money making tool. That intersection is my passion. At first, just talk about it. With friends, family, whoever. As your confidence grows, share it more broadly. Passion becomes stronger the more you give it air.

3. Define your purpose.

This won’t click overnight. Purpose is uncovered over time, by peeling back layer after layer until you hit the core. It might take years, even decades. But when you find it, everything else falls into place.

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Your passion is the work you care about. Zero in on it daily, and it compounds into purpose. Once you’ve defined the work you care about, goals stop being distant targets on a wall. They become side effects. Natural outcomes. You don’t grind your way toward them, you get pulled in their direction, almost like you’ve stepped into orbit.

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This is the shift most people never experience: when the external rewards (the money, the recognition, the lifestyle) are backed by internal conviction (the curiosity, the passion, the purpose).

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At that point, discipline isn’t something you manufacture. It’s something that happens to you. You don’t “push” anymore you get carried forward, the way gravity keeps a planet in motion. That’s the difference between forcing progress and becoming unstoppable. It is the key to unlimited Motivation.

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But….

Even with all of these done correctly, the loop won’t go on forever. Things would break you out of it even though you are now doing the work you care about that motivates you naturally to work. You would get distracted. You would get bored. You will get frustrated. You would be crippled with fear, You will feel burnt out. This among many things, we are human after all.

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But there is so much i can say in one email, in my next one we would dive into how to stay productive and i would share how i structure my day so i get the most out of it. For now like always, read this again take out a pen and work through it as a guide because it is. That will be all for today.

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Enjoy your weekend.

~ Tolu.

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PS. I’m putting together something new called The Clarity Map — a 7-day guide to help you cut through the noise and actually see where you’re headed. It’s not ready yet, but you can hop on the waitlist if you want first dibs when it’s out.

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In the meantime, I made a free tool called The Clarity Compass. It’s a simple way to get clear on your goals and turn them into steps you can act on right away. You can grab it while you wait.