How I went from video game addict to productivity coach

Believe it or not, I wasn’t born a productivity coach.

I got into my line of work in a roundabout way.

It started in 2015, when I was working as an analyst at one of the world’s top litigation consulting firms.

I was a few years into the job and I was getting more and more responsibility. Eventually, I found myself leading teams working on litigation you’d read about in the national news.

I pushed myself very hard. You see, in litigation consulting, clients expect 100% accurate results and they expect them quickly.

In fact, I pushed myself a little too hard.

I started to feel cynical about the job.

I got impatient with my coworkers, being awfully snippy. My stress level just kept going up and up. And while I never measured it, my blood pressure must have been sky-high.

Soon, I burned out and had to quit that job entirely.

And I didn’t just quit that job.

I was in America on a work visa, which wasn’t valid without my job. So I had to leave the country and move back to my home country of The Netherlands, too.

My entire life collapsed.

In the first few months after I quit, things were really bad.

Cleaning my apartment, buying groceries, or even picking up a book to read in a coffee house was stressful.

I tried to do some freelance work, but just answer email had my heart pounding.

It took me a while to figure out how to be productive without stress.

But I did figure it out.

It turns out that I just needed a productivity and organizational system.

But before I share the system I built, let me tell you about a time when I had the opposite problem: when I wasn’t motivated to do any work at all.

You see, as a teenager, I was really addicted to video games. I played games for 6–8 hours a day.

At one point, I was one of the top Call of Duty players in Europe.

But all this sitting at my desk and gaming meant that I hardly put any effort into my studies. Many of my friends were online friends and I didn’t exactly play many sports, either.

In hindsight, it wasn’t the best use of my teenage years…

But eventually I got tired of gaming and applied to attend an international school, in Hong Kong. I got accepted and spent the last two years of my high school there, living with two hundred other students on campus.

That’s when I learned that there’s more to life than gaming. I became social and interested in people—and in being productive to make a meaningful contribution to the world.

I then moved to the United States to study economics, political science, and public policy. After I graduated, I took that consulting job.

So I’ve been at both sides of the spectrum: spending way too little time on productive activities like work or studying—and spending way too much time, resulting in burnout.

Now, I’ve found the sweet spot.

I’ve built a system to organize my life.

This system lets me focus on both my long-term priorities and my day-to-day tasks. It helps me balance productive work with all of the other things that give life meaning.

And this system helps me get stuff done without feeling overwhelmed, no matter how busy the world around me is.

Today, I feel better than ever.

Do I still get stressed sometimes? Sure. Who doesn’t? But I learned how to channel my energy into doing things I care about in a sustainable way.

And now I’m sharing my system with you.

You don’t have to spend years burned out, like I was.

You don’t have to go through tremendous amounts of trial and error, sifting through dozens of apps and techniques, to find a personal productivity system that works.

I did that work for you.

With my system, you too can consistently be productive without stress.

And my system is easy to implement.

Over 5,000 people have enrolled in my courses and changed their lives, being more organized and more productive.

When I coach clients privately, I charged over $6,000 a day to teach them my system.

You can discover my system and change your life, too—and it doesn’t have to cost nearly that much.

Discover life-changing productivity hacks

Join the 11,000 people who subscribe to my productivity newsletter.

Thank you! Please check your inbox to confirm your email address.
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

When you subscribe, you’ll receive my weekly newsletter on productivity. I will also send you a few emails about how I can help you. You can unsubscribe anytime.

Peter on his bike in front of an Amsterdam canal