Issue #94 • September 5th, 2026

Hi Reader,

There's a specific kind of tired that comes from carrying too much for too long. If you're feeling it right now, you already know exactly what I mean. Five conversations this week, five different businesses, and every one of them landed on the same word:

overwhelmed.

Here's what I want to say plainly: AI and productivity tools will not fix that. Not because they don't work, they do. But a tool that increases your capacity gets met with increased demand on that capacity. Reply faster, and people learn you're reachable, so you get more to reply to. Produce more, and more gets expected. The gap between what's asked of you and what you can do doesn't close. It just moves faster.

I learned this the hard way in 2022, running woom's global business at $100M. We had too many products in the pipeline at once, total overwhelm, every one of them defensible on its own. One category stood out: newly innovated, clever engineering, genuinely impressive, built to serve an ultra-niche segment of a market that was already niche to begin with. On paper it made sense. In the room, looking at everything else competing for the same attention and budget, it didn't. I killed it. Not because it was a bad idea. Because it wasn't one of the five things actually moving the business, and every hour we gave it was an hour not spent on what did. That one call, more than any system we adopted, is what set up our growth the following year.

Here's the part that actually matters most, and it's not really about AI.

As long as you're waiting for the tool, the system, or the AI stack that finally closes the gap, you'll keep feeling like you just haven't found it yet. You have. It doesn't exist. The relief doesn't come from a better tool. It comes from accepting that, and putting your energy elsewhere.

None of what follows closes that gap. It's what you do once you've stopped expecting it to.

​The Anti-Skill. Get good at leaving things undone, on purpose. Cap what's actively in motion, five or ten things, and let the rest wait without guilt. (Read More Here)

​Cut It Off. "Decide" means "cut off." Stop waiting for clarity that isn't coming, you already know. That niche product wasn't a bad idea when I killed it. It just finally got decided instead of debated. (Read More Here)

​The Joy of Missing Out. You can't do it all, and that's not a failure. Choose what doesn't make the cut, especially the "almost good enough" stuff, the clever, defensible things that would probably have worked. That's what makes room for what actually does. (Read More Here)

​Protect Your Five. Use AI to go deeper on what matters, not to take on more. The moment a tool tempts you into a sixth priority, it's working against you. (Read More Here)

The four above are things you do alone, at your desk, in your own head. This last one you can't.

​Talk to an actual person. Not a prompt. Not a dashboard. A real conversation with someone who's also in it is often what actually cuts through, not another tool.

One question worth sitting with:

If you can't remember, that's worth noticing.

If this landed, hit reply, I read them all.

Mathias Ihlenfeld | Entrepreneur | Coach | Advisor

​LinkedIn • Instagram • Website​

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