This is the twenty-eighth in our series of emails called “How I Monk.” In this series, we will be highlighting + celebrating members of the Monk Manual community as they’ve meaningfully applied our tools and resources to find peaceful being and purposeful doing in their everyday lives. If you’d like to be featured in a future “How I Monk,” share your information with us here… #HowIMonk
Name: Steven Lawson
Occupation: Founder @ Monk Manual
Location: Buffalo, NY USA
A bit about who you are and how you spend your days:
Hi I’m Steven, I’m the founder here at Monk Manual. I live in Buffalo NY, with my wife and three children (two boys and a girl). My wife and I were both raised here, and moved back around five years ago to be close to family and live a life that isn’t shiny - but feels real and grounded in what matters to both of us.
My days tend to have quite a variety. I have a number of core practices I do every morning, including the Monk Manual, to get me primed for the day and focused on whatever seems like the highest contribution for the day. I tend to be a bit nomadic with limits - choosing my workplace for the day based on how I’m feeling and the nature of the work I am doing.
When I am doing what I would consider my creative work (writing, developing ideas, products or programs) I usually work in a coffee shop or at a park. Life Atlas and the Sprout Journal were created almost entirely at a picnic table in a park next to a creek. When I am working on more operational work, or when I am doing any sort of coaching work - I work out of my office or at a desk in my home.
Within the Monk Manual most of my time is spent either working on the above, or working with my team on ways to improve our internal operations, and outside impact.
Outside the Monk Manual I am always working on a few other things, which I discern by trying to pay attention to inner signals. I love creating things, and helping others create things - especially if I feel they are a net positive for culture and/or humanity.
For fun, I like live events and live music, watching the Bills, reading, exercise, films, a good tv series with my wife, hanging out with a friend over a fire, and researching things I find important. I’m pretty much always trying to figure something out. I live on the edge of my unresolved questions.
What originally drew you to the Monk Manual?
I had personally just gone through a season where I realized the premises of productivity were causing massive issues in my own experience of life, and I wanted a better way. A friend of mine who was getting his doctorate at Notre Dame sent me an article about how the Rule of St. Benedict was its own form of “spiritual technology” - in that it was a man-made system that created leverage for the process of becoming. At the time I was also quite interested in the principles of positive psychology - and I had a realization.
These monks seem to have figured something out that we have forgotten.
I knew that it wasn’t possible to mirror monks in form, but I was gripped by the idea of mirroring their function.
I set out to design a tool that could port over what I had concluded were some of the core elements, knowing that one thing I didn’t feel I could address at the time was the communal aspect - which is a major part. Only now 7 years later do I feel we are ready to begin this journey with what is to come in Basecamp.
When I was developing the Monk Manual, I still had a full time job, so for about 10 months I worked roughly four nights a week after the kids went to bed at the local Starbucks until they would kick me out each night, trying to understand what really was signal in the tool and what was noise. It was important to me that it wasn’t rooted in just my sense of things, but rather a deeper anthropology of what actually makes people flourish - as well as our cultural moment.
I began using early prototypes about 8 months before the launch of the final version, which is pretty much the same as the version that many of you use today.
When you were first getting started, what part of the Monk Manual did you struggle with most?
I imagine this is similar to many people - but my primary struggle was engaging the nightly reflection with true engagement. Sometimes I would just not want to do it. Sometimes I still don’t want to do it.
But I trust the process - so I do my best each day. And sometimes if I really am just too tired to engage meaningfully, I leave it to the morning.
It’s what you do most of the time that really shapes your trajectory, even if it’s imperfect.
Do you have a favorite prompt or section?
I have two favorites, one because of its importance for me personally staying on track, and the other because I like the experience it creates.
1. The weekly priority and to do section. There is something for me that gets a lot out of choosing, and bringing clarity to, what my week will be focused on. I am someone who needs time set aside to bring clarity and ask what is really most important right now, otherwise I end up approaching my week and living my days feeling a bit directionless.
2. Also in the weekly pages - it’s meaningful moments. I enjoy the fact that I get to review my week and in a sense live my week twice. Seeing the things that come to the surface helps me see the coherence of the process of life that is taking place, as well as acknowledge what is really happening in my life in this moment. It helps me intentionally connect with the meaning in my life I might otherwise miss.
I also love that immediately after I get to answer “what is GOD teaching me?.” This is the thread I get to follow week to week.
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How has your life changed since using the Monk Manual?
The tool came out of a personal need, and everyday it shifts me out of distraction or just doing, and towards contribution and becoming.
I use the monk manual every single day, and have since those early prototype days. I would wager I have only missed a total of 30 days since I’ve started, which ends up being around 3-4 days a year.
On the days I don’t use the Monk Manual, it’s usually a sign I’m going too fast or I’ve lost the plot. And on these days as one would expect - I feel a bit unmoored.
I’m a better man because of the Monk Manual and my sense is I’ll likely use it for the rest of my life, expecting it to conform to the contours of my life as it evolves over time.
What suggestions would you give to new Monk Manual users?
Don’t think of the Monk Manual as a task list tool. If you do, you will be frustrated and feel like you are just doing busy work. That’s like picking up a computer and wondering why it doesn’t work like a hammer.
The Monk Manual is called a planner - but only because there isn’t a better name that is easily understood. What it really is, is a daily system for becoming. Every aspect is intentional and serves a purpose, and that purpose becomes more clear over time. The tool, and your use of the tool, will evolve.
The biggest problem people run into when they get started is to expect too much too fast, especially from oneself. I like to say that if someone is using the Monk Manual they have already figured quite a bit out. We tend to attract high achievers who want depth in their life. The downside of this is it can often be difficult for high achievers to give themselves the permission to slow down and give themselves some grace. The Monk Manual is a slow work - by design.
PS. I want to conclude by just offering a sincere heartfelt thank you to all of you for enabling this work to exist. Without our customers and co-conspirators I wouldn’t be able to continue this work - so thank you.
I hope each of you have a wonderful Holiday season, and a 2026 full of peace and purpose.
If you’d like to be featured in a future “How I Monk,” share your information with us here.
