About The Working Theory
Build systems that hold.
If you've spent serious time trying to get more structured — reading the frameworks, testing the tools, building the systems — and still feel like something isn't quite holding, you're in the right place.
Most productivity advice optimises for the short term. A better morning routine. A cleaner inbox. A new app. The Working Theory is interested in something harder: the underlying architecture. The systems that still work six months later, when the novelty has worn off and real life has reasserted itself.
Who we are
The Working Theory is a content platform and newsletter for founders, solopreneurs, and knowledge workers who want to build personal operating systems — combining timeless frameworks with modern tools and AI — so they can do their best work without burning out.
We share what works, document what doesn't, and build in public. That last part matters: this is an ongoing experiment, not a finished product. We're willing to revise our positions, report on failures, and change our minds when the evidence warrants it.
What you'll find here
The Working Theory is organised around two content layers and a weekly newsletter.
The System
Long-form, evergreen pieces on the frameworks and mental models that underpin good personal systems. Tool-agnostic by design. These are the load-bearing articles — written once, referenced often, built to hold up over time.
The Lab
Where the experimentation happens. Tool deep-dives, documented experiments with a hypothesis and an honest result, and shorter observations from the work in progress. The Lab is where the thinking is still live — and where we publish the failures alongside the wins.
Working Notes
Our weekly newsletter. Each issue is a Field Notes dispatch: shorter, more personal, and more exploratory than the long-form content on the site. Half-formed ideas, links to things we've genuinely read, observations from whatever we're currently testing. Published every week — more when something warrants it.
How we work
Four principles govern everything published here.
Curious, not prescriptive. We publish working theories, not commandments. Every position we hold is subject to revision — this is what's working for us right now, based on what we've tested and observed. The reader is an intelligent adult who will form their own conclusions.
Analytical, but human. We love frameworks and mental models. But every framework has to be grounded in something real — a specific tool, a particular situation, a named constraint. Abstract models without concrete examples aren't ready to publish yet.
Patient and anti-hustle. The Working Theory is not in the business of 5AM routines and productivity theatre. We believe in the compounding power of small, consistent improvements over time. That requires patience — and a deliberate resistance to the idea that there's always a faster way.
Warm and honest. We write like a smart friend who has thought carefully about this stuff and wants to share what they found — not to perform expertise, but because the idea is worth your time. We share failures as readily as wins. No guru energy.
One more thing
The Working Theory is an experiment that compounds over time. We don't have everything figured out — and we're not pretending to. What we do have is a commitment to intellectual honesty, a genuine interest in what actually works, and a low tolerance for advice that sounds right but falls apart in practice.
If that sounds like your kind of reading, the best place to start is the newsletter.