Welcome to Verstreuen—meaning “to scatter”—where I unpack the ideas I’ve collected this week in my 🗃️ Zettelkasten, “note box,” personal knowledge management system. Here, I’ll share the highlights, insights, and stories I find interesting—and think you will too!

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This Week’s Highlights

Not a lot of time for reading this week, only 15 new entries into the Zettelkasten, but still plenty of insights worth sharing. Here are three that stood out:

…… Assets That Make You Rich

…… Four Strategies for Deep Work

…… Simple Actions for Clarity & Energy

Assets That Make You Rich

When we talk about building wealth, we usually focus on finances—a bigger number in our bank account, a nicer car in our driveway. But the reality is money is a tool, not a score.

When people talk about assets, they often focus on things that appreciate, like gold, crypto, or real estate. But the real key isn’t just appreciation—it’s productivity.

Assets that appreciate grow in value over time. Assets that are productive generate value on their own. But the most powerful assets do both—they appreciate and create new opportunities.

The Overlooked Wealth Builder

Real estate, stocks, and index funds are often seen as the standard for productive and appreciating assets. However, one asset that stood out to me when looking at this chart was knowledge—I had never considered it in that way before. It makes sense; knowledge is something we can accumulate. But I hadn't fully appreciated its productive and appreciating nature until I thought more about how it compounds over time.

We start with a foundational understanding, and as we learn more, our ability to grasp new concepts expands. Each new piece of knowledge refines our mental models—even in areas that may seem unrelated. This happens because our existing knowledge serves as a base layer, allowing us to integrate new information more effectively over time.

When I first started learning about personal finance, I just wanted to know how to save and invest. That led me down a rabbit hole—learning about market cycles, behavioral psychology, risk-taking, and decision-making. The more I learned, the more dots started connecting—affecting how I approached business, strategy, and even relationships.

That’s the thing about knowledge: it doesn’t just add up—it compounds.

• Every skill you build makes the next skill easier to learn.

• Every book you read helps contextualize the next lesson.

• Every past decision refines your ability to make better future ones.

And unlike money, knowledge has no cap. It won’t run out. It doesn’t depreciate. And most importantly, it creates new opportunities that wouldn’t exist otherwise.

Think about the wealthiest, most successful people in any field. They’re not just investing in stocks or real estate. They invest in knowledge, relationships, and systems that multiply their efforts over time.

**🗃️**

Four Strategies for Deep Work

Over the years of working on personal projects, I’ve noticed that real progress happens during intense, focused sessions—the kind where time disappears, breakthroughs emerge, and productivity compounds. This deep work, which demands full cognitive engagement, consistently leads to the highest-quality results.

The challenge? Dedicating time for deep work is hard.

At work, I’ve experimented with different ways to structure my time to maximize deep work. Here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Monastic Mode: Eliminating Shallow Work

I tried cutting out emails, messages, and meetings entirely but it’s just not reality—the backlog became overwhelming, undoing any of the progress i’d make during the day.

2. Bimodal Deep Work: Dedicated Focus Days

Next, I tried setting aside a few days each week purely for deep work. But in a client-driven industry, if a client was available on my deep work day, that’s when we met—disrupting my flow.

3. Journalistic Deep Work: Squeezing in Focus Time

I tried fitting deep work into any available slot, but constant context-switching killed momentum. Every session felt too short to make real progress.

4. Rhythmic Deep Work: Structured Focus

The real problem wasn’t distractions—it was meetings. Inspired by Alex Hormozi, I started batching my meetings into “Manager Mode” days even rescheduling things just to free up other days for deep work.

This rhythmic deep work strategy has been the most effective for me. While I still don’t get as much deep work time as I’d like, this method helps me stay productive while meeting my commitments. By consolidating meetings, I can make the most of my focused work time.

**🗃️**

Mental Clarity and Action

When I first started writing this newsletter, I thought it would be a way to share interesting ideas I came across—a way to document the best insights from my Zettelkasten. What I didn’t expect was how much the process would sharpen my own thinking.

Every week, I go through my notes, pick out the most interesting ideas of the week, and try to make sense of them in a way that’s actually useful. And almost every time, I realize that what seemed clear in my head is actually a tangled mess when I put it into words.

Writing forces me to untangle that mess—to break ideas down, refine them, and figure out what I actually think. If I can’t explain something simply, I probably don’t understand it well enough yet.

It turns out that the act of writing isn’t just about communicating—it’s about clarity.

And it’s not just writing. Clarity in general comes from action, not overthinking. Read to spark ideas, write to make sense of them, move to shift your state.

This newsletter has been a reminder that writing isn’t just how I share ideas—it’s how I make sense of them in the first place. 

**🗃️**

Closing Thoughts

This week’s notes kept circling back to the idea of compounding—whether in wealth, focus, or clarity.

• Wealth isn’t just about money—it’s about building productive, appreciating assets like knowledge, relationships, and habits.

• Deep work doesn’t happen by accident—it requires designing your time with intention.

• Clarity isn’t something you wait for—it’s something you create through action.

Writing this newsletter has made me realize that the biggest breakthroughs don’t come from thinking harder but from doing—learning, structuring, and moving forward in small, intentional steps.

Thanks for reading Verstreuen

Thanks for taking the time to explore and reflect on my notes with me. If any ideas particularly resonated or challenged you, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

👋 Until next week.

-GH

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