You don’t need a better system. you need less system. if your brain feels “busy” 24/7, it’s probably not burnout — it’s context obesity: too many open loops, too many tools, too many identities pretending to be productivity. Notion, ai, courses, frameworks — they don’t save you. they quietly turn into a museum you maintain at night to feel like you’re trying. this piece is a demolition plan.

you’ll see:

in the previous article, we said something simple but annoying:

often, you’re not burned out — you’re living with context obesity.

your head is clogged with unfinished tasks, AI keeps pouring more on top, and Notion + Obsidian turn into a second job.

after publishing, we dropped the text into Space — our closed community inside AI Mindset — and things got spicy. here are a few quotes (with permission).

“the recommendation ‘don’t keep more than three active projects in your head’ — that’s the hardest task. it’s scary to choose wrong. and those three projects might be imposed by external authorities and lead you somewhere you don’t even want to go.”

— Dmitry Kompanets

another participant shared:

“i dumped all tasks until the end of the year into Obsidian. asked Cursor to build a day plan. it came out to 29.5 hours of tasks including sleep and rest. i closed Obsidian and realized: first i need to rewrite my system prompt — i don’t have three projects. and yes, that’s… another task i now have to finish 😭”

— Ekaterina Gracheva

a third added:

“start of the day: a mini standup with 3 key goals. end of the day: recap + gratitude. it helps you finish the day with ‘i did good’ instead of ‘another day flew by and i did nothing.’”

— Ksenya Tkacheva

and then an imaginary Mark Manson in our internal “board of directors” dropped the summary:

“honestly? you’re not only suffering from context obesity — you’re suffering from context narcissism. you’re chasing the image of a productive person, not what you actually need. AI and prompts are a curtain hiding the real question: maybe you’re doing the wrong thing entirely?”

— Alexander Stashenko

this text is about that. not “10 more frameworks.” but the museum of systems, context narcissism, and how to write a living self.md that doesn’t instantly get archived into shame.

an evening in the museum of systems

imagine: 22:30, you decide to “get your life together.”

you open Notion.

in there:

then you switch to Obsidian.

different folder logic.

in downloads there’s a YearCompass PDF — the annual review booklet. you open it, scroll past questions like “how was your year?” and “who do i want to become?”, catch a wave of shame — and close it.

in Telegram, a habit tracker bot quietly blinks.

little circles: “sleep / sport / meditation” half-empty.

your inner voice goes: “yep. another day where i didn’t become the upgraded version of me.”

and on top of that:

and now you’ve spent 40 minutes “organizing” — but realistically you’ve just been wandering around your own museum of systems.

leaving the museum feels scarier than redesigning it one more time.

context narcissism: not a diagnosis, a defense mechanism

quick clarification: this is not a “you’re all narcissists, go get treated” post.

i’m not writing from the outside. i’m writing as a former curator of my own museum — someone who loved the feeling of being “too complex for simple solutions.”

context narcissism isn’t “you’re vain and bad.”

it’s a protective mechanism that:

and in a world where:

the museum gives you the soothing feeling of: “at least i’m trying.”

but it has a side effect:

every new system = a new layer of unfinished expectations.

you didn’t just fail a project — you also “failed” your templates, your courses, your inner coaches.

context obesity grows.

it’s not that you “broke your productivity system.” it’s architecture

when we looked at people’s tool stacks in the AI Mindset lab, the pattern was almost always the same:

so we stopped thinking in framework names and started thinking in layers.

we got four layers:

  1. core — habits + execution: how you process inputs and actually take steps
  2. file system — where your knowledge, notes, and decisions live
  3. compass — who you are right now, and where you’re even going
  4. interface — how you look at your life “from above” and reframe it

this architecture isn’t here to “explain everything.” it’s a knife. it lets you cut the museum down instead of expanding it.

below is a quick walk through each layer — with questions and practices.

layer 1. core: are you living, or endlessly preparing to live?

the core answers one question: “i said it — did i do it?”

realistically, the core should be:

any sane task system, at the base, is painfully simple:

ask yourself:

practice: “minus two trackers”

for one month:

layer 2. file system: a second head, or a warehouse of shame?

your file system is your digital memory:

the “second brain” idea is simple: one extra head where you keep what you actually need for your projects and life areas — not the entire internet.

ask:

practice: “archive without repentance”

one month on a “lightweight second head” noticeably melts context fat.

layer 3. compass: who is making decisions — you, or your “internal authorities”?

this is where it gets uncomfortable.

your compass is:

remember that Space quote:

“it’s scary to choose three projects. what if all three are imposed?”

context narcissism is strongest here: it’s easier to fill out another annual review or draw another mind map than admit half of what you carry isn’t your life — it’s other people’s expectations.

quick definition: what i mean by project.

not “reply to a client” and not “make a landing page,” but something that:

projects are major storylines. tasks are bricks inside them.

practice: “3 projects that are actually mine”

yes, this hurts more than building a new dashboard. but without this, any self.md becomes just another pretty museum exhibit.

layer 4. interface: are you recording life, or just falling asleep and waking up?

interface = any way you look at your life “from above”:

it doesn’t need to look like an Android 2011 launcher stuffed with custom icons.

Ksenya’s Space ritual looks like this:

nothing fancy. but it stops days from dissolving into “i did nothing again.”

practice: “i did good” for 7 days

for 7 days:

one week later, you’ll notice days start ending — not just collapsing into a gray feed.

the minimal stack: an experiment against the museum

if i compress everything above into one radical idea:

for one month, stop being the curator of the systems museum and see who you are without the identity of “person with the perfect OS.”

a minimal stack isn’t your final setup for life. it’s rehab after the museum — the first moment you can actually write an honest self.md ruleset

self.md: a protocol for how you treat yourself

self.md is basically my personal README. a living markdown file i can reopen anytime — especially when i’m about to “just add one more project” and pretend it’s self-care.

a typical manifesto sounds like:

these texts go straight to the museum: a beautiful Notion page you’re ashamed to open in a month.

self.md is a different form.

it’s not “how i become ideal.” it’s:

what i consider acceptable vs unacceptable treatment of myself for the next few years.

it includes rules like:

one Space participant wrote after the first article:

“the idea that a person should have a system prompt too is very close to me. i literally have that text and try to reread and update it — special notes in Obsidian.”

— Kirill Oleinichenko

so for some people, a system prompt already exists as a working document — not a pretty manifesto.

if you don’t have one yet, write it not as “ideal me,” but as your internal board of directors.

self.md as a board meeting

for many people, the roles look like this:

practice: self.md 2026, board protocol

manson: “no projects for status only. if i can’t explain why it’s mine — i don’t take it.”

tired one: “no more than N evenings of work per week. if i break it — it’s a system bug, not a moral failure.”

product: “if my calendar has no focus blocks, only meetings — that’s firefighting mode, not normal.”

anxious: “i don’t promise anything until i’ve done the time math. first calculation, then ‘yes.’”

AI: museum painter or honest x-ray?

in this story, AI plays two roles.

the unhealthy role: museum painter.

that’s when you ask:

if you ask AI to design an ideal life before you’ve chosen your projects and constraints, you’re not solving the problem — you’re automating your context narcissism.

the healthy role: x-ray + secretary.

that’s when you say:

in that role, AI:

if you want a simple “what to delegate vs keep human” rubric (so AI doesn’t become your museum interior designer), this is the cleanest cheat sheet i’ve seen: https://self.md/concepts/delegation-principles/

where {context} lab fits, and what’s next

this essay came out of the AI Mindset ecosystem — specifically, watching smart people accidentally build beautiful cages for themselves. at some point we even ran a time-boxed sprint called {context} lab to help people shut down their productivity museums and rebuild a minimal stack. that cohort is closed now, but the move still works:

if you combine both articles, the picture is pretty honest:

in this picture, {context} lab was a space where participants temporarily close the museum entrance, make a few painful decisions in a safe environment, assemble their stack and their self.md — and only then attach AI assistants and automations.

and for you, the choice is weirdly binary:

you can close this tab and do a small Notion cleanup or today — honestly turn off at least one system for a month, write down your three projects, and draft the first five lines of your self.md

in the second scenario, a year from now you’ll have a much better chance of living your life — not someone else’s expectations.

Ray Svitla
stay evolving 🐌