Hosting Accountability Retreats in Zanzibar, goldenweeks Retreats
I'm a digital nomad. For four years, I had three unfinished projects sitting in Notion. Two notebooks full of ideas. An "MVP" that never reached anyone.
Every six months I'd start over. New city, new burst of energy, new "this time it's different". And every six months I'd end up with another half built thing that I quietly stopped opening.
For a long time I thought this was a discipline problem. I read every Andrew Huberman protocol, every Cal Newport book, every Atomic Habits chapter. None of it stuck for more than three weeks.
Then I realized something that's been more useful than any productivity advice: the problem wasn't me. The problem was the structure of nomad life.
Most nomads I know are quietly carrying the same thing: too many ideas, not enough shipped. But the reason isn't laziness. It's that nomadic life systematically removes every external structure that helps humans ship.
Three structural traps:
1. Infinite optionality. Next month you could be in Bali, Mexico City, Madeira, anywhere. When everything is possible, nothing feels urgent. The opposite of a deadline.
2. No accountability. Your friends are on different continents. Your "team" is a Slack channel that's quiet on weekends. Nobody is checking on whether you shipped what you said you would.
3. No shared focus. The people around you in cafés are doing fundamentally different things. The remote employee on a Zoom call, the freelancer in client mode, the traveler in vacation mode. There's no critical mass of "we are all trying to ship this week."
What changed it for me was almost embarrassingly simple. I gave myself two weeks. I went somewhere with no other agenda. I told three other founders what I was shipping by when. I didn't sightsee, didn't café hop, didn't pretend I was on holiday.
I shipped. It wasn't perfect. But after years of half built things, the act of having one completed thing in the world changed how I thought about my own capacity.
So now I'm building the thing I wish had existed when I was stuck: a two week retreat for nomads tired of carrying around projects they never finish. It's called Goldenweeks. First cohort is small on purpose.
Even if you never go on a retreat like this, the principle is portable. Pick a window. Pick what you're shipping. Tell three founders by when. Then sit somewhere with no other agenda until it's done.
A question for the room, because I'm curious:
What's the project that's been "almost ready" for too long? And what's actually blocking it, the work itself, or the conditions around the work?
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I'm a digital nomad. For four years, I had three unfinished projects sitting in Notion. Two notebooks full of ideas. An "MVP" that never reached anyone.
Every six months I'd start over. New city, new burst of energy, new "this time it's different". And every six months I'd end up with another half built thing that I quietly stopped opening.
For a long time I thought this was a discipline problem. I read every Andrew Huberman protocol, every Cal Newport book, every Atomic Habits chapter. None of it stuck for more than three weeks.
Then I realized something that's been more useful than any productivity advice: the problem wasn't me. The problem was the structure of nomad life.
Most nomads I know are quietly carrying the same thing: too many ideas, not enough shipped. But the reason isn't laziness. It's that nomadic life systematically removes every external structure that helps humans ship.
Three structural traps:
1. Infinite optionality. Next month you could be in Bali, Mexico City, Madeira, anywhere. When everything is possible, nothing feels urgent. The opposite of a deadline.
2. No accountability. Your friends are on different continents. Your "team" is a Slack channel that's quiet on weekends. Nobody is checking on whether you shipped what you said you would.
3. No shared focus. The people around you in cafés are doing fundamentally different things. The remote employee on a Zoom call, the freelancer in client mode, the traveler in vacation mode. There's no critical mass of "we are all trying to ship this week."
What changed it for me was almost embarrassingly simple. I gave myself two weeks. I went somewhere with no other agenda. I told three other founders what I was shipping by when. I didn't sightsee, didn't café hop, didn't pretend I was on holiday.
I shipped. It wasn't perfect. But after years of half built things, the act of having one completed thing in the world changed how I thought about my own capacity.
So now I'm building the thing I wish had existed when I was stuck: a two week retreat for nomads tired of carrying around projects they never finish. It's called Goldenweeks. First cohort is small on purpose.
Even if you never go on a retreat like this, the principle is portable. Pick a window. Pick what you're shipping. Tell three founders by when. Then sit somewhere with no other agenda until it's done.
A question for the room, because I'm curious:
What's the project that's been "almost ready" for too long?
And what's actually blocking it, the work itself, or the conditions around the work?