The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business

In Chapter 7, Kaufman shifts from the mechanics of business to the psychology of self-management, arguing that mastery of one’s mind, habits, and expectations is the foundation of all sustained achievement. He reframes productivity not as relentless output but as intelligent alignment between goals, attention, and personal limits. The chapter unfolds as a practical philosophy of self-regulation—bridging behavioral psychology, cognitive science, and Stoic acceptance—while cautioning against the illusions that undermine focus and satisfaction.

Kaufman begins by dissecting akrasia, an ancient Greek term for acting against one’s better judgment. Borrowing from cognitive research, he explains how distraction and decision fatigue stem from the brain’s limited capacity to manage competing impulses. Concepts like monoidealism and the cognitive switching penalty underscore that the mind performs best when devoted to one task at a time. This insight leads into his “Four Methods of Completion” (295)—eliminate, delegate, defer, or finish—illustrating that productivity is primarily about removing friction, not doing more. His treatment of goals versus states of being reframes ambition as experiential rather than conditional; the point is not to have success but to live in a successful way. Habits, priming, and structure become the tools for sustaining this alignment, anticipating ideas popularized by James Clear in Atomic Habits and Charles Duhigg in