This episode is brought to you by Your Clockwise Week—a personalized weekly structure built around your actual life, not an ideal one. If your week feels full but not fitting, you can learn more at mikevardy.com/yourclockwiseweek. This episode marks the latest installment in PM Talks, the monthly series I do with my longtime collaborator Patrick Rhone. We've been doing this for a few years now — closing in on three seasons — and what I love most about these conversations is that they're genuinely reflective. We're not coming in with a polished take. We're working through ideas in real time, and that's exactly what makes them worthwhile.
This time around, Patrick and I dove into a word that doesn't get nearly enough airtime in 2026: prudence. It's one of those terms that has been moralized, gendered, and generally squeezed out of everyday conversation. But it's also one of the nine principles in my upcoming book Productiveness, and the more I unpack it, the more convinced I am that it's something we're all practicing quietly — even when we don't call it by name.
Six Discussion Points
- Prudence traces back to the mid-14th century as a concept tied to intelligence, foresight, and practical wisdom — and it sits alongside justice, fortitude, and temperance as one of the four classical cardinal virtues. That's a lot of weight for a word most people associate with Dana Carvey doing George H.W. Bush.
- The word has faded from everyday use for a few reasons: it got moralized through its religious and philosophical associations, it became a common woman's name that then fell out of fashion, and perhaps most crucially, it got sidelined by a speed culture that has no patience for anything that feels unhurried.
- Prudence lives in interesting territory between "too soft" words like intentional and "too hard" words like strategic or tactical. It carries a moral dimension that neither of those fully captures, which is part of why it's so hard to replace and so easy to overlook.
- The connection between prudence and AI turned into one of the richest threads we pulled on. Patrick made the point that AI is fundamentally not prudent — it doesn't tolerate known unknowns well, and tends to hallucinate its way toward confident-sounding answers even on questions that science genuinely hasn't resolved (yawning being a particularly delightful example). Applying AI prudently means knowing where human judgment still has to lead.
- Evening routines and morning preparation came up as lived examples of prudence in action — laying out clothes the night before, prepping dinner before your brain is fully engaged, checking in with a collaborator ahead of a scheduled call. Prudence often shows up in the small, low-glamour decisions we make before we even know we'll need them.
- Patrick, who does circus rigging work, offered a line that I think is the most compressed definition of prudence I've heard: "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast." When you're under time pressure — two minutes to set up a flying net — the prudent approach isn't to rush. It's to move deliberately, know the order of operations, and trust that the method will get you there faster than panic will.
Three Connection Points
- Patrick Rhone's blog post: Thoughts on AI and the Known Unknowns
- Ryan Holiday's video responding to Ivanka Trump's comments on stoicism
- Mike's upcoming book Productiveness, where prudence is one of the nine core principles
Patrick and I will be back next month for PM Talks S3E7, where we're taking on a word with a lot of range: tolerance. It means something very specific in rigging and something very different in everyday conversation, and I suspect we'll cover a fair bit of ground on both fronts. In the meantime, I hope this episode gives you an excuse to bring "prudence" back into your vocabulary — and more importantly, to notice the places where you're already living it.
If this episode resonated, I’m exploring ideas like these more deeply in my upcoming book, Productiveness. You can follow along as it takes shape at mikevardy.com/productiveness. What is A Productive Conversation?
Hosted by productivity strategist Mike Vardy, A Productive Conversation offers insightful discussions on how to craft a life that aligns with your intentions. Each episode dives into the art of time devotion, productiveness, and refining your approach to daily living. Mike invites guests who are thinkers, doers, and creators to share their strategies for working smarter and living more intentionally. From practical tips to deep dives on mindset shifts, this podcast will help you reframe your relationship with time and find balance in a busy world.
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