General

At the start of every year, I notice the same wave of articles. Perhaps you do too. They promise that this will be the year you finally achieve work-life balance. If you adopt the right morning routine, the right productivity tool, the right habit stack, everything will fall into place. Work will flourish. Family will feel cared for. Your health will improve. You will somehow glide through it all with calm efficiency. I read those pieces and often admire them. They are usually well-intended and sometimes quite thoughtful. However, I read them as an operator, not as a spectator. From where I stand, something important is missing. Here is the harsh truth. Work-life balance, at least at meaningful levels of responsibility, is a myth. Not because balance is a bad idea. It is attractive for a reason. It suggests symmetry, stability, and equal weights on both sides of a scale. But once you are responsible not only for your own output but also for institutions, teams, capital, reputations, and decisions that carry consequences beyond your desk, life stops behaving like a balanced equation. Some weeks demand everything from you. Some months do. Sometimes family requires your full attention. Sometimes your health interrupts your plans. Sometimes a strategic decision cannot wait just because your calendar indicates it should. The mistake is not imbalance. Imbalance is inevitable. The mistake is allowing that imbalance to become accidental. For the past two years, I have stopped chasing balance. Instead, I have been building something else. A deliberate combination of systems that allows me to pursue coherence across a year rather than equilibrium within a day. It has not been elegant. It has not always been tidy. But it has been intentional. Whenever I’m asked how I handle work, family, making an impact, studying, side projects, and sometimes just taking a bit of rest, I always say that I don’t aim to balance everything perfectly. Instead, I focus on creating a sense of coherence in my life. Let me explain what I mean. I pursue coherence rather than balance. The concept of balance is attractive because it implies stability. A flat surface. Equal weights on either side of the scale.Work-life balance, remember? Executive life does not work that way. At any meaningful level of leadership, imbalance is the default; it is not a failure state. There are weeks (even months) when work dominates because it must. There are times when family demands full attention. Phases when health, study, or reflection cannot be postponed without consequence. The mistake is not an imbalance. The mistake is allowing the imbalance to become accidental. I focus on coherence over a year rather than equilibrium within a day. The question I ask is not whether every week feels balanced, but whether the year’s overall flow makes sense, whether effort, recovery, growth, and meaning are distributed intentionally rather than reactively. The tools I use are designed to enforce that coherence. As an Operator, my Flow is Operational. Flow, often described as being “in the zone”, is sometimes called a state of grace: intense focus, effortless engagement, time slipping away. That description is accurate but somewhat incomplete. My flow does not arrive unannounced. I engineer it. Flow reliably happens for me when four conditions intersect. One, the work must matter to me. Two, the work must be challenging enough to earn my respect. Three, I need to be skilled enough to handle it without panic; if not, I must pass it on. And four, it must connect to a broader MIG narrative, something that extends beyond the immediate task. When those conditions are met, depth follows. When they are not, no level of motivation can make up for it. I do not schedule flow optimistically but rather I schedule it defensively. Deep work blocks are reserved for strategy, writing, synthesis, and decisions that require original thought. Meetings, calls, and operational reviews are organised around that core, ensuring it remains protected. That is how I have been able to sustain my ongoing academic drive toward multiple postgraduate degrees, and I’m on my fourth unpublished manuscript. In practice, what I am saying is that I am protecting fewer hours, not more. But I am protecting them absolutely, so I can mine their output absolutely as well. My calendar is either a boundary or a confession If there is one artefact I own that reveals my priorities with brutal honesty, it would be my calendar. Executives often speak about values and intentions. Our calendars tell a clearer story. What is blocked. What is left open. What is endlessly rescheduled. What is never revisited. I block time not just for tasks, but for roles. There is a portion of my time dedicated to executive work, another to family, another to physical maintenance, another to academic study, and another to impact work and mentorship. I also protect time for exploration and unstructured thinking. The walls of my porch are proof enough, lined with notes and sketches from Friday evenings spent with music, decent food, the occasional drink, and long stretches of thought that run well into the night, or the next morning. Each category exists because, without deliberate allocation, it will be overshadowed by the most urgent voice in the room, which is almost always my work. Time blocking is about containment, not about rigidity. It prevents one domain from quietly expanding into others. It also enhances presence. When time is consciously allocated, guilt diminishes and attention becomes sharper. The Compression Principle There is a widely recognised, seldom-challenged principle: work expands to fill the time allotted to it. This principle is always active around me. My team knows, and I often emphasise that the earliest time to complete a task is ASAP. I just realised I didn’t fully explain to them why; many have said I “give pressure”, but the Compression Principle is why. I personally always compress deadlines aggressively where possible. Tasks that could take a day are given half a day. Half-day tasks are

In economics, ideas rarely fail because they are wrong. More often, they fail because they are badly introduced, poorly structured, or concluded without conviction. Anyone who has sat through a policy briefing that began with a dense equation, or read a paper whose conclusion simply restated its abstract, will recognise the problem. Economic reasoning may be rigorous, but economic communication frequently is not. This matters more than economists sometimes admit. Economic ideas do not live in journals alone. They travel into ministries, boardrooms, classrooms and, increasingly, the public sphere. They inform interest rate decisions, shape fiscal priorities, and influence how societies understand inequality, inflation, and growth. When economists write, they are not merely reporting results. They are guiding interpretation and, in many cases, shaping action. A well-structured document is therefore not cosmetic. It is strategic. The introduction sets the contract with the reader. The body delivers on that promise through logic and evidence. The conclusion determines whether the message lingers or dissipates. Together, these elements determine whether economic insight becomes economic influence. The craft of economic writing should be seen through the lens of structure, with particular attention to introductions. Clarity, sequencing and narrative discipline are essential tools for economists who want their work to matter beyond their immediate peers, and I will draw on academic literature and a concrete example from applied monetary economics to make my point. The introduction is an intellectual handshake Introductions are often treated as formalities, a short runway before the “real” work begins. In economic writing, this attitude is costly. The introduction is not a summary. It is an invitation. It tells the reader why they should care, how the argument will unfold, and what intellectual journey they are about to undertake. Prinz and Arnbjörnsdóttir (2021) describe the introduction as the architectural foundation of an academic text. A strong introduction, they argue, engages the reader, provides context, and leads seamlessly to the thesis. Without this structure, even technically sound analysis can feel disjointed or inaccessible. Hassan (2024) makes a similar point from a research-writing perspective, noting that the introduction establishes purpose, relevance and direction. It is the reader’s first impression and, often, their decision point about whether to continue. In economics, this role is amplified by complexity. Models, data and policy debates can overwhelm even informed readers if they are not properly framed. A clear introduction performs three essential tasks. First, it defines the problem in plain language. Second, it situates that problem within a real-world context. Third, it signals what the reader will gain by engaging with the analysis. When any of these elements are missing, the reader is forced to work too hard, too early. And readers, whether policymakers or students, rarely persist out of goodwill alone. An introduction should earn attention A useful example comes from applied macroeconomic research rather than journalism. The paper “How optimal is Ghana’s single-digit inflation targeting? An assessment of monetary policy effectiveness in Ghana” by Amoatey, Ayisi and Osei-Assibey opens with a deceptively simple observation. The optimal level of inflation, they note, has long occupied both academics and policymakers because inflation produces both benefits and costs. Growth incentives coexist with welfare losses. Stability must be balanced against flexibility. This opening works for several reasons. First, it begins with a broad, recognisable concern rather than a technical claim. Inflation targeting is not introduced as a narrow econometric puzzle, but as a longstanding policy dilemma. Second, the authors immediately anchor the discussion in a specific national context. Ghana is not presented as an abstract case study, but as a real economy grappling with persistent target misses and credibility challenges. Third, the phrase “necessary evil” is doing rhetorical work. It signals tension, trade-offs and uncertainty, drawing the reader into the debate rather than presenting it as settled science. Most importantly, the introduction points forward. It makes clear that the paper is not merely descriptive. It is asking whether Ghana’s policy framework itself is fit for purpose, or whether execution, rather than design, is the problem. By the end of the introduction, the reader knows what is at stake, why it matters, and what question the analysis intends to answer. This is precisely what an introduction should do. It lowers the cognitive barrier to entry without diluting the intellectual challenge. It respects the reader’s intelligence while guiding their attention. Why economists struggle with introductions If strong introductions are so powerful, why are they so rare in economic writing? Part of the answer lies in training. Economists are taught to prioritise precision over persuasion. The incentive structures of academia reward methodological novelty and statistical robustness, not narrative clarity. Introductions become compressed literature reviews rather than carefully constructed arguments. There is also a cultural element. Many economists write as if their audience already agrees on why the topic matters. This assumption may hold within a narrow subfield, but it collapses when ideas travel across disciplines or into policy debates. What seems self-evident to a specialist may be opaque to everyone else. Finally, there is a misconception that clarity implies simplification and that simplification risks misrepresentation. In practice, the opposite is often true. Poorly structured writing obscures nuance. Clear structure allows complexity to be introduced gradually, giving the reader time to absorb assumptions, mechanisms and implications. The introduction is where this discipline begins. It forces the author to articulate, in accessible terms, what the problem actually is and why it deserves attention. Structure as a guide through complexity While introductions open the door, the body of an economic document determines whether the reader stays. Here, logical structure is the difference between illumination and confusion. Complex economic arguments typically rest on layered reasoning. Theory informs hypotheses. Data tests those hypotheses. Results feed into interpretation and policy implications. When this sequence is disrupted, the reader loses the thread. A well-structured body follows a clear progression. Concepts are introduced before they are applied. Data is explained before it is analysed. Results are interpreted before they are evaluated. Each section builds on the last, reinforcing the central argument

We talk endlessly about the infrastructure of roads, bridges, power stations, data cables, and so on, because they are visible, measurable, and easy to showcase. They create great photo opportunities and generate compelling headlines. Yet, beneath the steel and concrete, beneath the policy frameworks and financing models, there is another form of infrastructure that is harder to see but just as crucial. Trust. Not as a virtue or a desirable cultural trait, but as a fundamental infrastructure. A load-bearing platform. A system that enables commerce, innovation, and governance. When trust collapses, empires decay, businesses go bankrupt, and communities fracture, even if all the highways and fibre cables remain intact. The paradox is that we regard trust as “soft,” but history indicates it is the strongest foundation of all. Trust as Infrastructure, Not Intangibility Consider how we typically define infrastructure: it connects. A road links cities. A port links countries. A data centre links people to the cloud. Trust functions in the same way. It connects individuals and groups who might otherwise have no reason to transact or collaborate. A road without vehicles is useless. A contract without trust is equally useless if performance is the goal. In fact, even the most advanced transport systems cannot save a society where trust has disintegrated. One could even argue that trust is the first infrastructure. Long before humans built canals or railways, they relied on trust to hunt in groups, share food, and organise labour. Civilisation itself rests on this invisible architecture. Long before laws were written or currencies minted, trust allowed people to cooperate beyond bloodlines, to plan beyond the day’s survival, and to build systems that outlived individual lives. Without it, no market forms, no institution endures, and no shared future can be imagined. What we call civilisation is, at its core, trust scaled across time and distance. Trust and Innovation We also often celebrate innovation as a product of talent, capital, and technology. Those are the visible inputs. The things that show up in pitch decks and policy documents. But underneath all three is trust. Talent takes risks only when it believes effort will be rewarded rather than exploited. Capital flows only when it trusts that rules will be stable and commitments honoured. Technology is adopted only when people trust that it will not be used against them or fail them when it matters most. Strip trust away, and innovation becomes timid. People stop experimenting. They stop sharing ideas. They optimise for survival instead of progress. In those conditions, even the most gifted minds and the most sophisticated tools struggle to produce anything meaningful. A farmer in northern Ghana only experiments with a new seed variety if she trusts that buyers will not undercut her at harvest time. Without that trust, she sows, harvests and sells whatever she has quickly, for whatever price she can get, to avoid being cheated. Her willingness to innovate is held back not by a lack of ability but by a lack of trust in the system. Silicon Valley, celebrated as the temple of modern innovation, is not fundamentally about technology. It is about risk capital, which is essentially trust capital. Investors pour billions into young founders who may have only a prototype and a compelling story. That is trust made TANGIBLE. And even adopting technology itself requires trust. Digital wallets. AI-powered platforms. Blockchain tools. These do not scale simply because they are clever or well-engineered. They scale only when people believe the system will work for them, not against them. When trust is high, adoption accelerates. People are willing to try, to learn, to migrate from familiar habits to new tools. They accept short-term friction because they believe the long-term payoff will be honoured. But when trust is low, adoption becomes shallow and fragile. People may register for platforms but stop using them. They may experiment once but retreat at the first failure. They keep backups, workarounds, and informal alternatives because they do not fully believe the system will protect them when something goes wrong. In regions where trust in formal institutions is weak, even sophisticated technology struggles to gain real traction. The issue is rarely access or intelligence. It is fear of exclusion, fear of hidden costs, fear that the rules will change without warning. And once trust erodes, adoption does not merely slow. It reverses. People abandon systems they no longer believe in and return to what feels safer, even if it is less efficient. So if we ask why certain places leap forward while others stall, the missing variable might not be talent or money, but the invisible infrastructure of trust. Trust and Trade Trade, at its essence, is an act of faith. I am handing you goods today on the understanding that you will pay tomorrow. I ship cargo across borders with the assumption that your government will not suddenly change tariffs or seize my product. This fragile faith is what keeps economies running. When it fails, the repercussions are immediate. The 2008 financial crisis, for example, was not simply about subprime mortgages or toxic assets. At its core, it was a systemic failure of trust. Banks did not suddenly run out of money. What they ran out of was confidence in one another. Financial institutions operate on the assumption that counterparties are solvent, disclosures are broadly accurate, and risks are reasonably understood. In 2008, that assumption collapsed. Once banks began to doubt the quality of each other’s balance sheets, interbank lending froze. Institutions chose to hoard cash rather than lend it, not because cash was scarce, but because uncertainty was high. In financial terms, liquidity did not disappear; it became trapped. Money existed, but it stopped circulating. For non‑analysts, the simplest way to understand this is to imagine a marketplace where everyone suddenly suspects that the person on the other side of the transaction might not pay tomorrow. Even with full wallets, trade slows. People wait. They pull back. They protect themselves. That is exactly what happened at a global