How the Founder of RadReads Finds ‘Extreme Simplicity’

I'm fascinated with how the smartest people in the world get their work done. That's what Superorganizers is about: seeing all of the little habits that make up a great work day and a great life. Artificial intelligence has changed what it means to be productive and efficient at work, so we decided to revisit some of our favorite interview subjects to understand how their routines have changed in the era of AI models. Recently, we spoke to designer Marie Poulin, newsletter writer Polina Pompliano, former Holloway CEO Andy Sparks, Indistractable author Nir Eyal, and Kickstarter cofounder Yancey Strickler. Today, we’re back with the founder of RadReads and executive coach Khe Hy.—Dan Shipper

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When Khe Hy traded his career at the investment firm BlackRock for a life of writing and entrepreneurship, he built an intricate set of systems to manage his complicated new world. 

But as his newsletter, RadReads, grew over the past decade—now counting 50,000 subscribers—along with an executive coaching business, Hy has found himself craving "extremely simplicity" in both life and work. He's regressed when it comes to productivity systems, he says, but that's a good thing—it's actually freeing.

Hy's minimalist approach was on full display as we caught up on his productivity, organization, and life more than five years after he first shared his systems with Every's audience: his dedication to Tiago Forte’s PARA method, his compulsive to-do lists, and his vow to never go “overboard” with productivity hacks. Sometimes the most sophisticated approach is also the simplest one.

Are you still keeping up with the PARA method and all of the complex systems you mentioned in 2019?

I have moved into a mindset of extreme simplicity. I use Notion as a Google Docs substitute and Omnifocus for just a few projects. I occasionally use Drafts to quickly Capture ideas.

What does it mean to have a “mindset of extreme simplicity”?

One of our family’s values is “simplicity over complexity.” It shows up in so many decisions and actions. For example, we prefer renting over owning a home, and we automatically only buy into one index fund, to limit decision-making fatigue.

With regard to productivity, it's understanding what truly moves the needle versus what is unnecessary noise that leads to cognitive burden and overload.

Have you adopted any new tools or systems?

I've regressed!

I've gone more to pen and paper to list a few tasks for each day. I constrain that list to five items to force myself to be selective. With age, I've focused much more on habits (i.e., the tasks associated with producing a weekly podcast, but I no longer need to track them).

Why did you feel you needed to regress?

I had strayed from my values and looked for the “perfect system,” which had ultimately created more stress without any marginal benefit. I had used Zapier to piece together a more “automated” system, I had created too many project lists, and I was trying to store and organize too much information under the guise of “personal knowledge management.”

Were you going overboard on productivity tools?

I wasn't going on overload with tools, per se, but with how much information I was putting into them.

I've done a lot of therapy, particularly Internal Family Systems, which has shown me that many of these systems were fear-based—to avoid getting in trouble or looking foolish—and, as I healed the fear, the systems naturally simplified.

Have you incorporated AI into your organizational practices?

I use Claude and Claude Projects to understand and replicate my voice for much of my social media presence. I also use it to manage and deconstruct my coaching sessions. I use OpenAI’s GPTs predominantly with o1 as a strategic partner when I'm trying to organize big projects—either for my business or creative purposes.

I talk to ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode all the time to learn new topics—specifically now coding. I've spent five hours a day since January 1 learning how to code with Cursor. It started as an innocuous project to redesign my website, but now I am learning how to create chatbots, scrape websites, and build simple apps. I also love the built-in AI features for podcast video editing within Descript.

And I use Perplexity as a Google substitute mostly to collect the most up-to-date information—on current events, recent products I'm evaluating, and sports and entertainment.

Scott Nover is a contributing editor for Every. He’s a contributing writer at Slate and the lead writer for the GZERO AI newsletter. He was previously a staff writer at Quartz and Adweek. He currently lives in the Washington, D.C. area.

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