Presence over pressure: reframing success in 2026

For a long time, we mistook exhaustion for excellence. The earlier you wake up, the more meetings you have, the busier you are – these are things we have rewarded socially and allowed to become markers of success. Unread messages piling up are a moral virtue. Rest was a luxury you earned only after collapse. 

The one-upmanship of performative overwork has left us burnt out, apathetic and desperate for an alternative solution to doing it all at once. The contradiction of trying to dismantle a system while simultaneously subscribing to it in order to succeed has left us in an echo chamber of frustrated mediocrity.

But we’re waking up – literally and metaphorically – to the idea that relentless input isn’t the same as progress. When I wrote Smarter: 10 Lessons for a More Productive and Less-Stressed Life, I wanted to challenge the myth that success belongs to the busiest person in the room. Productivity was never meant to be a punishment. It’s not about doing more – it’s about doing what matters. And yet so many of us still chase speed over substance. We reward the appearance of busyness – the full diary, the glowing Slack status, the performance of importance – in the same way we do actual success. But what if the future of achievement isn’t about doing more at all? What if it’s about understanding the difference between a busy life, and a full one.

The cultural shift: from hustle to presence

Something shifted in the last few years. You can feel it in the language. We’ve moved from “rise and grind” to “protect your peace”. From glorifying all-nighters to romanticising slow mornings. From the cult of the 5am club to the quiet rebellion of the 8am realist. This isn’t laziness, it’s evolution. The smartest people I know aren’t sprinting every day anymore – they’re pacing. They’re aligning their ambition with their energy, not their calendars. They’re rejecting the myth that worth is something you prove through depletion.

In Smarter, I wrote that “energy, not time, is your true currency”. That idea has only grown more relevant in the run up to 2026. The people thriving now aren’t trying to squeeze more into the day, they’re building systems that make the day work for them –  designing ambition that sustains rather than scorches. Momentum, it turns out, doesn’t require chaos. It requires alignment.

Memory as the new success metric

For decades, we’ve measured success in metrics. Revenue. Reach. KPIs. But numbers don’t tell you how something felt. They don’t capture the laughter, the quiet, the joy. Our phones are full of photos, but our minds are fragmented. We scroll through our days rather than live them. We record everything and remember nothing. The future of success might not be about how much we achieve, but how deeply we experience it.

In Smarter, I argue that every moment is an energy exchange, and memories are the return on investment. They’re proof that you showed up for your own life, not just your to-do list. A full diary doesn’t mean a full life. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is stop, notice and absorb; to convert the fleeting into the memorable. Because when you look back, you won’t remember the hours – you’ll remember the energy.

Mindfulness and intention 

Popsa exists at the intersection of memory and mindfulness. In a world drowning in digital debris, it offers a pause button and a way to curate rather than accumulate. Turning your photos into something tangible isn’t just sentimental, it’s psychological. The act of deciding what deserves permanence is a small rebellion against the pace of life. We know that social media wrecks our brains, we’ve evidenced that enough. But the pressure to feed the machine with marketing style content that widens the gap between our real lives and the life our followers think we are living is where all the bad stuff creeps in – imposter syndrome, anxiety, fear, depression. I have had to learn to be conscious of when I am slipping into experiencing moments for the gaze of others, rather than myself. It’s accountability at its finest.

When you print a Photo Book, you’re doing what I call a busyness detox. You’re engaging in a deliberate ritual of reflection, or “habit pairing”, as I refer to it in my book. You’re turning the passive scroll into an active pause and transforming a cloud of pixels into a story that you actually revisit. You are present, capturing a real moment in time, without letting it pass you by. Like any good productivity system, making Photo Books with Popsa is not about perfection, it’s about consistency. The act of reviewing your camera roll once a month, choosing what matters and creating something physical is more than nostalgia – it’s self-connection disguised as curation.

A smarter call to reflective action

Here’s an experiment: next time you scroll through your photos, don’t look for what’s “good”, look for what feels alive. The image that makes you laugh unexpectedly, one that softens your shoulders or one that reminds you that you’ve already done, seen and felt enough.

Those are your high-energy moments – your life’s power hours. Turn them into something real. Hold them. Revisit them. Because in a culture obsessed with optimisation, there’s something radical about reflection.

The future of success is less about ticking boxes and more about telling stories – your own, on your own terms. It’s about presence as progress, about ambition that leaves room for joy.

In 2026, the most successful people won’t be the ones with the busiest diaries. They’ll be the ones most connected to their real story, one that they are writing and bringing to life for themselves. Success is no longer about proving your worth – it’s about preserving it.

Hacks to curate your photo library

1. Track energy, not time. Notice which moments light you up – those are your high-value memories. Build more of them.

2. Batch with intention. Choose one evening a month to reflect, select and create. It’s monotasking with meaning.

3. Choose momentum over perfection. Don’t wait for the “perfect” project. Start small – your last trip, a Sunday morning, a photo that makes you pause. Progress always beats polish.

Smarter: 10 Lessons for a More Productive and Less-Stressed Life (£18.99, Hachette UK) is available on Amazon. The SMARTER card game launches this November (£24.99).