Daily Habits That Drive Goal Achievement with Alex Sanfilippo

MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/157

Are you someone who sets New Year's Resolutions or has goals they'd like to achieve throughout the year? Most of us would answer "Yes" to this question. However, if I were to ask you how often you actually reach the resolutions and goals you set, most would regrettably admit that it's rare that they achieve the goals set. Having and achieving goals are two very different things. In today's episode, which is part 3 of the 4-part solo episode series we're in, I will talk about how to develop daily habits that act as a system that drives goal achievement. Additionally, I'll be walking you through my entire calendar so you can get a preview of what every week of my life looks like and how I've been able to become a high achiever as a result. Get ready to develop your own daily habits that lead to achieving goals!

MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/157

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

You're listening to the Creating a Brand Podcast, where we deliver weekly interviews on topics to help entrepreneurs make their first or next step in business the right one. I am your host, Alex Sanfilippo. Are you someone who sets New Year's resolutions or has goals that they want to achieve throughout the year? Most of us would answer yes to this question. However, if I were to ask you a follow-up question, which is how often do you actually achieve the resolutions and goals that you set for yourself, most would regrettably admit that it's not often, if at all, that they achieve what they set out to do. Having and achieving goals are two very different things. In today's episode, which is part three of four of the series that we're in, I'm going to talk about how to develop daily habits that act as a system that drives goal achievements. Additionally, I'll be walking you through my entire calendar so you get a preview of what my week looks like in every week of my life and how I've been able to use it to become a high achiever as a result. For links to resources that will be mentioned during this episode, please visit creatingabrand.com slash 157. And now get ready to develop your own daily habits that will lead to achieving your goals.

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Bye.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Welcome back, everybody. I'm excited to bring you part three of the four parts in the series that we're doing right now. This is another solo episode. And before we dive into this episode, I want to make sure that you've actually heard the last two because this is going to really heavily play off of those two. The last ones were about the morning routine, and then the evening routine. And now I'm going to finish that off by talking about my daily habits. But it's important that you go back and listen to those. And the reason being is because I have eight additional disclaimers for you. But I'm not going to go back into the 12 disclaimers I had in the last two episodes. So I We'll be right back. But you can pull some of the clues that I leave along the way. As it said, success leaves clues. So find the different things that are going to work for you with what I'm doing and use them for yourself. But just know, I'm giving these disclaimers because it's not going to work for everybody exactly the way I have it set up. But I do hope once again, that you can get some great ideas from that. So with that said, let's go and dive into my eight disclaimers. Then we'll get into how I'm managing my day and doing my daily habits and how it's driving goal achievement. Disclaimer number one, this is one that I've actually said previously, but I have to say it again. I live what's called a zero variability lifestyle, which means in my life, I know that I can do everything exactly the same every single day because there are no variables in my life. I'm not responsible for any other living or breathing thing aside from maybe my marriage and keeping that healthy and myself. But other than that, I'm able to just manage every day basically exactly the same almost to the minute because I don't have anything else in it or any responsibilities at all. And that's actually disclaimer number two, I aggressively avoid unnecessary responsibility. I live in a condo, not a house. And that's because I don't want to deal with a yard I don't want to deal with a roof I don't want to deal with anything else to be taken care of additionally if somebody's like oh I got an idea we should start meeting every week my immediate response is always no even if I want to I'll go back and revisit that maybe change my mind later but in the day I'm going to make sure that I'm not taking on any responsibility that I don't have to take on now I need to say this I am an extremely responsible person if you ask me to do something one time it'll be done at 110 percent every single time but I'm not going to take on more responsibility than I need to. That way I can continue to execute at such a high level. So for me, just know I aggressively avoid unnecessary responsibility. Even if it sounds like fun, even if it's cool, if it's on a schedule, I'm probably going to say no to just about anything. And that's what's really helped me continue to achieve and drive my goals further. Disclaimer number three, I have a personal assistant. Now, this is a little bit extreme for some people, maybe a little bougie, even it sounds, but it's important for me where I'm at in my life right now. This person helps me with my chores. I don't take out the trash. I don't fill my cars with gas. I don't do laundry. I really don't do much, again, avoiding responsibility, right? I have somebody who handles all those things for me. And that way, I'm able to, once again, focus on the biggest impact that I have in the world. I can show up and really help and serve the right people that I know. I'm supposed to help and serve. So again, this sounds bougie. Maybe you shouldn't have a personal assistant. But at some point in your life, if you realize that you're impacting people on a super high level, you need to make more margin. Here's the thing. If I could literally help change somebody's life or take out the trash, which one am I going to do? I'm going to help save and change somebody's life, right? So for me, having a personal assistant makes sense. It might not make sense for you where you're at. But I do think it's actually a pretty good idea for a lot more people than maybe actually take advantage of that. So something to think about. But that's disclaimer number three, know that I have a personal system that's helping me out. Number four, my TV is unplugged six days a week. That's right. I only watch TV once a week. I watch one single movie. I don't watch TV shows. I think that they really are very addictive. At least for me, they are. So I try to avoid them. I watch one movie per week on Sunday evenings with my wife. And aside from that, everything on screens is basically very limited. And TV is completely unplugged. And if I'm going to watch something, I make sure that it's like an animated movie or Star Wars or something that's really clean. No rated R movies, nothing that's going to drop any wrong emotion Disclaimer number five, I have no access to social media. at all even YouTube is blocked on my phone I can't access any social media apps if you send me something funny from social media then it's a link I can't click it all that stuff is taken off my computer I have no way to get on social media at all now if you're like well Alex I've sent you a message and you've responded there are two sets of times throughout the day that I'll get into during my actual daily habits but there's two sets of times during the day where my team is allowed to ask me questions other than that they're not allowed to talk to me so it's only twice per day for a set period of time and during that time they'll usually bring me a computer or a phone that already has my social media on it so I can do some responses in that time. But it's on somebody else's phone and I'm staying away from it. I'm telling you now, if you want to have better daily habits and actually achieve your goals much faster, limit what you do on your phone, limit what you do on your social media. And again, now I've lost like 99% of people. But if you learn to do this, I'm telling you that will automatically send you so much further in life. All right, I know I've beat everyone up about the phones and the computers and stuff enough. So I'm gonna move on to disclaimer number six. I know nothing about pop culture. of what you hear is false information, not even close to real. So just think about that. Be really careful with what you're consuming because it's not even reality. I'll tell you what is real, what your neighbor is doing right now. If your neighbor needs help unloading groceries, having that conversation with the person in your family who you haven't talked to in a while, that's real life. Everything else that you're watching, pop culture, news, events, all that stuff, I just consider to be a plague. It's not real life. It's creating some alternate reality that really is not real. Again, if you step outside, talk to your neighbors, the people that are closest to you, you'll find that that's not really reality. So again, I avoid all of that. Disclaimer number seven, I spend a lot of time with friends, but I'm very selective with who I spend my time with. In fact, I have exactly 48 people on my list that I will allow myself to even hang out with. So yeah, I'll go to parties or I'll do group setting things where there's other people outside of those 48. But if I'm going to ask somebody to hang out or someone's asked me to hang out, they have to be on that list of 48 people. Other than that, I am not going to spend time individually with anybody else. And that's because you're an average of the five people you spend most time with, right? I want to make sure that I have a big group of five people. So for me, it's 48. I want to make sure that I do my best to really show up in their lives to add value and help them go further faster. And I want in return, then to people that help me do the same thing that I feel good being around that I'm really happy to be with. Now I know 48 is like a big number. I've been building this network over years by being very intentional. At one point in my life, I had zero people on that list. But it's really important to me that once again, I am very careful with that list. It's hard to get added to that list like if you want to be number 49 that's going to take a really intentional act on your part and my part as well but having this list again intentionally is very important because of the first disclaimers I gave you and every disclaimer I mentioned these people know about these in my life so they're not like trying to talk to me about pop culture they're not trying to get me to plug in a TV on a Thursday night they know all these things about me they know I'm not going to be on my phone them knowing this helps me continue to pursue the life that I want to pursue and having those people around is just really an encouragement encouragement and motivates me just to continue on the journey that I'm on. So it's very important that you're intentional to people that you spend your time with. And now for my final disclaimer, number eight, I religiously track my phone's screen time and usage, and I limit what I can do on it. As I mentioned, there's no way for me to use social media on my phone, but additionally, I don't use anything that's fun on my phone. As a matter of fact, I make sure that I don't spend more than 30 minutes total on the phone, and I don't pick it up more than 25 times. And I actually have my calendar time block set for when I'm allowed to even touch my phone. Now, of course, because it is a phone and we're very connected in today's world. There's all types of times when like I have to pick it up to reference something I have to call somebody like all those things happen. And that's fine. That's not a big deal. I'm not going to get too crazy about it. But I make sure that I keep my phone out of arm's reach. It stays in a certain part of the house that I never go to. So I have to go intentionally seek it out. I also make sure that I'm not using any fun apps. Like I said, the only things I use my phone or my calendar, my book reading app, my GPS music app and texting. Aside from those five things, I don't have any other access on the phone at all I don't even have email on my phone and I use a smartphone with a smaller screen on it I'm not like upgrading to the latest and greatest that have like these big HD screens I use one that's a lot older and a lot smaller that way it's less fun and honestly it's easier to leave in my pocket because if I go somewhere my wife likes me to have my phone on me and I understand that respect it but when I have the bigger phones you can't like sit down and have in your pocket like it always end up on the table if it's on the table and it lights up or it's just there it's just asking you to to pick it up right so for me I like having the small phone I can leave in my pocket. It has no notifications on it. There's no way anyone can ever cause it to buzz or ding or anything like that. So it just sits in my pocket and I just kind of forget about it. The only person who can actually get through on a notification is my wife. That way, again, I'm keeping her happy and I have my phone on me if need be. But it's important to know this last disclaimer here. You got to be careful with the phone. I've mentioned it so many times throughout this. It's really the biggest thing that's hindering all of us from actually achieving what we want in our lives. All right, there you have it. If you go back and listen to the previous two episodes in the series as well, you will hear a Hey, Alex Sanfilippo here, and I want to take a quick moment to intentionally serve the world with you. Here's what I want you to do. Think of the one person you know who would most benefit from listening to this episode today. Now I want you to send it to them, but also include an encouraging note explaining why you share this episode with them specifically. By doing this, you're helping me grow this podcast and you're also adding value to the people you care about. With that said, thank you for your continued support. It means the world to me. And now let's get back to today's episode. I'm gonna give a quick overview of my seven daily habits and we'll dive into each in detail. Number one, bring the joy. Number two, focus. Number three, seek to be a person of value, not a person of profit. Number four, complete today's meaningful work. Number five, be where your feet are. Number six, pursue relational intimacy. Number seven, prioritize health. To quickly get into each of those, number one is bring the joy. I actually got this from Brendan Bruchard. He talked a lot about how joy increases energy. And he had some like really great science behind how this works. And for me, I actually have this written down on my daily piece of paper, right? Like, cause I talked about this in the two previous episodes. My morning routine has a checklist. It's all 30 days of the month. And basically I can just check off every day, which parts of my morning routine I'm executing properly. And I can just put an X on the ones I didn't do properly. That way I can really keep track. I do that with my evening routine and with my daily habits. And the way I actually have this one, bring the joy written down is bring the joy of the Lord. And again, not to push any spiritualness or any religion on anybody, but for me, I'm a Christian. I follow Jesus. And I just know that when my joy comes from the Lord, it's a lot more powerful than any other form of joy that I can get in my life. So for me, I want to make sure that I'm always spreading that positivity, that joyfulness. I'm smiling and laughing along the way. And even if I'm having a bad day, make sure to do my best to be like, well, there's a positive side of this as well. I'm not being unrealistic or anything like that. No, I'm bringing the joy of the Lord and being thankful for what I do have in that moment. And when you do that, you actually don't need as much caffeine as you might think. You actually might have more energy throughout the day than you might think. Even if you didn't sleep good, you might be able to stay awake a little longer than you thought because joy is really driving your energy throughout the day. So this is the first thing in my daily seven habits. I want to make sure that I'm bringing the joy throughout the day. That's so, so important for all of us to do. Number two is focus, which is actually in my mind an acronym. Focus stands for follow one course until successful. Follow one course until successful. For me, I want to create rhythms of flow and focus and create environments where I'm able to actually just have one thing in front of me and not have all the other distractions that so many of us have to deal with. And focus is something that you have to fight for in today's world. As a matter of fact, I think that if you look at us before we had smartphones, and now we have smartphones and these TVs and always being connected, our level and our ability to focus has dropped dramatically. So I want to make sure that I set up rhythms, and I set up environments where I can truly focus where I can follow that one course until I'm successful with whatever it is that I'm doing. As I talked about, I always have those goals every single How am I going to get those most important things done, that meaningful work done, without being really focused throughout the day? So for me, I have different times where I can be distracted. I have other times where I have to be focused, and there's no way to even talk to me during those times. Before I move on to the next point, I want to quickly mention a resource. A friend of mine named Nir Eyal has a great book called Indistractable, and it's about the art of controlling your focus and choosing the life that you want. It has a lot to do with how to create environments of focus. I had him on the podcast, and if you go to creatingabrand.com slash You can actually find and listen to that episode, and I highly recommend you do that at this point. All right, now number three of my daily habits. This is seek to be a person of value, not a person of profit. Fun fact, I've literally said these exact words on over 100 different podcasts I've been a guest on. And I've done that because I want to consistently remind people and remember myself that I want to add value to people's lives instead of just seeking profit. You can tell the difference really easily when you meet somebody who's seeking profit versus seeking to add value. Here's an example. If you go to like a card dealership. I don't mean to pick on people that work in that industry. There are some great people in that industry. You can tell they're focused on profit. They don't want what's best for you. They don't want what's best for your family. They want what is best for them in that moment because they have a quota to meet or they're trying to get that commission. You can tell they are a person of profit. They are there for that. Now, on the flip side, if you go somewhere else, like imagine a Carvana. I guess they do really well. It's funny. I'm not really like a car guy, but I'm throwing all this out there. If you go there, they're really focused on making sure you get exactly what you want and exactly what you need, and they're going to work really hard for it. You can tell the difference in the personality of the person that you're talking to. For me, yes, I own a service-based company online, and yes, I need it to grow so I can pay the bills, so I can eat, right? Those things need to happen. But if I seek first to be that person of profit, instead of what value I'm actually adding to somebody else, I'm going to hinder my ability to grow, and also it's going to steal my joy, it's going to steal everything else from me, because when you seek to just be that person of profit, it really actually hinders you from achieving that goal that you have of making profit. I've actually found that when you seek to be a person of value, the profit seems to follow most of the time. So I always want to remind people, be humble. It'll actually give you a better life and a better work if you learn to be that person of value and to lead with that. So I write that down every single day to make sure that am I really being that person of value? Is profit secondary to me? It needs to be, and I want to consistently remind myself of that. Again, being a believer, I believe in following Jesus from the Bible. He was a servant. He seeked first to serve and then not to be served. And I wanna make sure that I'm somebody that is seeking to serve the world around me. All right, moving along here. Number four is to complete today's meaningful work. As I mentioned in the last two episodes about morning routine, evening routine, always making sure to be consistently going back over the meaningful work that I need to do. And there's three things I always wanna make sure that I write down every single day to do. So I need to make sure those things are actually getting completed. Those are the most important thing. And the way I look at it is if I get those three things done, but maybe miss the 15 small things that I also wanna do that day, Then it doesn't matter, because if I'm getting the meaningful work done, I'm driving my life forward. So I want to make sure, again, that I'm staying focused, following one course until successful, right? My second thing we talked about. Then I want to make sure I'm staying focused so I can complete today's meaningful work. And to do this, I actually throw these things in the calendar. I make sure to predetermine when I'm going to do them. There's the old quote that says, unspecific goals lead to unspecific results. If I just say, I want to get this meaningful work done today, but I don't prioritize it in the calendar or have time blocks for it, guess what? It's probably not going to happen because life's going to happen and there's going to be too many other things that need to happen before I can actually get to those. And then by the time I sit down and be like, okay, time for my meaningful work, guess what? I'm done. My day is over. I need to go to bed. And one of the things on this point is you want to make sure to do this when you're really primed to do so. For me, I find I have a few creative moments throughout the day and it'll be different for each of us, but one of the first things I do in the morning after 9 30 a.m. that's like when I'm checking my actually checking my administration and The next thing I'm doing is jumping the meaningful work. I'm going to get more into the schedule after I'm done going through these seven things here. So now we're on to number five, and this is to be where your feet are. Be where your feet are. I cannot stress how important this is. Here's an example for you. Recently, I was at a dinner with some people, and it was a bunch of entrepreneurs. And I kept on getting in conversations, but I was realizing almost the same thing every time I talked to somebody. We'd be having a conversation, but it's almost like their eyes were glazed over, like they were looking straight through me or straight past me. And that's because they were thinking about what they had to do when they got home all the work they still had to do that night or what about that meeting earlier like did that really go well in their minds they were processing all these different things and that was all entrepreneurs so i get everyone's like kind of high strong right but it was sad because we were in this moment we all should be having a really good time but instead of doing that everyone's mind was somewhere else it was back at home at the office or back on the big deal that they just missed or maybe the big deal they just got right like they weren't actually being where their feet were which literally means be where your feet are where all are you in that moment? Be present. Be there. Let your thoughts be there as well. And this doesn't just work after work. This also works while you're at work. So while you're at work, don't be thinking about the football game you're going to this weekend or about how you're going to be going out with some people later that night. Instead, choose to be where you are. I actually have found that life feels a lot slower when you do this. One of the reasons that we feel like, oh, today just went by so fast, or can you believe it's already the end of the year, right? Like all the things that people say is because we aren't where our feet are. We're always in the next phase and the next thing that our life has instead of learning to truly be present in the moment that we're in. Another way to do this, and I know I pick on cell phones a lot, is when you're out with friends, don't put your phone on the table. Leave it in the car if you can. Don't have it with you because, again, you're showing them and yourself that you'd rather be somewhere else in that moment. If you can learn to be where your feet are, I'm telling you, you'll have a more fulfilled life, and it's going to slow down a lot in a really good way. I actually had the opportunity to have a friend on the podcast named Scott O'Neill, and he talked about this topic. He actually has a book titled Be Where Your Feet Are I highly recommend you listen to that episode because it was very impactful. You can find that at creatingabrand.com slash 116. Number six is to pursue relational intimacy. Now, first off, I want to mention that intimacy doesn't mean sex. So back off, you perv. Intimacy simply means going deep with somebody, like getting involved in their lives. And every year on my birthday, I actually pick one word that I want to focus on that year. And this past year, it was actually two words. It was relational intimacy. That's what I knew I wanted to focus on. this year, and as I've really dove into this, I've realized how important this is. So first and foremost, I want to grow in relational intimacy with God, then my wife, and then also my friends, those 48 people that I have in my life. I want to make sure that when we're together, yeah, we're where our feet are, we're having fun, but also I'm leaving those moments for having those deeper conversations, for asking them what's actually happening in their lives. How many times have you been hanging out with friends like on a regular basis, and there's that one friend who's always there, always happy, having a good time, and you find out six months later that they were really struggling with like a healthy issue or they're having some deep family problems going on, but it never even came up like they were just going through it alone. I really hate seeing that personally. For me, I want to dive into that stuff. I want to be there to help them. I want to know and not just be like someone that can kind of mask the pain they can have fun with. And although that can be good sometimes, but knowing what's really going on in somebody's life helps you to elevate that even more, to be sensitive, to know what's going on with them. So for me, pursuing relational intimacy just means diving deep with each of the people that is in my life. And I just think it's so important. Yeah, that we go have fun, we play games, we joke around, but also that we're willing to go deep. We share our struggles. We let other people share their struggles and we're there to support one another because when you do this, it helps the friendship grow, but also helps you grow as an individual as well. And finally, the last thing, number seven is to prioritize health. So every day I actually write down seven areas of my health that I want to consistently stay active in, that I want to pursue, that I want to make sure that I'm very focused on. I know I use the number seven a lot, but this is just kind of how it worked for me. So I'll share those with you right now. And I write these things down every single day actually and I put little like check boxes next to them just so I can check them off and I'll run through those real quick so prioritizing health is I want to eat six times per day I want to drink my body weight in ounces which is actually six bottles of the of the water bottle that I carry around it's about the right size for that I want to stretch three times per day I want to do a breathing practice three times per day and I talked about that in the previous episode a lot the benefits from that and I want to be in the sun two times per day I usually shoot for about 10 to 15 minutes because it actually reverses the EMF damage that we're getting from Wi-Fi and phones and things like that. For more on that topic, go to creatingabrand.com slash 148. Mary Ruth really dives deep into that. I think it's really important for people to listen to. She'll actually talk about the stretching and stuff like that as well. Really an important thing. And the next thing is exercise just one time per day, but seven days a week. I make sure that I'm always going to work out. Here's something that I've always told myself that's helped me a lot. Like on those days, I don't want to work out. I always say never waste a shower. And what I mean by that is don't get in the shower if you haven't broken a sweat. Now, here's the thing. I'm not going to be nasty. Like I'm going to shower every day personally. That's something I'm going to do. But I always make sure that if I'm about to get in the shower, I'm like, oh man, I didn't work out. I haven't broken a sweat from something like a physical activity I did. I'll quickly drop and do some push-ups. I'll go do some pull-ups. I'll do some jump ropes real quick. So that way I can say, you know what? I earned this shower. So never take a shower you don't earn. Little hack, little tip for you there. And the last thing on this prioritize health number seven is my relationships. I'm going to reach out to four people every single day. When I say reach out to four people, one is God. I'm going to make sure I'm reaching out to God through my devotional time. time in my morning routine. One of them is always my wife. I'm going to make sure that I have good time with her, that I'm where my feet are when I'm with my wife to make sure that we're not just talking about work and stuff. They're actually diving deep in relationship together. And then reach out to two friends. So out of those 48 people, I've got like an inner circle, I've got a middle circle and kind of an outer circle of where they all fit in. I'm going to make sure that I prioritize and reach out to those people properly. And 48 people is a lot. Yes, I use an app. This is one other app that I have on my phone that helps me keep track of the last time I've reached out to specific people that I want to. And those 48 people are listed out there. So anyway, number seven, once again, prioritize health, eat, drink, stretch, breathe, sun, exercise, and relationships. Those are the things that fit into that. And again, I'm checking off the little box and make sure I ate six times, make sure I drank six bottles. I'm checking those off and at the end of the day, basically decide, did I do enough of this that I can actually check the prioritize health box off as like I did enough, like did I win on this? So very, very important to make sure that you prioritize your health as well. And when you do that, it actually helps you have a better evening routine and sleep better, which helps you wake up better, right? There's my seven daily habits. I want to mention that I have a calendar that supports each of these things, and I want to dive into my calendar now. I put everything on my calendar. I mean, literally everything. So my morning routine, my evening routine, even what times I'm going to eat, what times I can pick up my phone, my time blocks for when I want to get my meaningful work done, my time blocks for when I can actually take calls and things like that. Everything is on my digital calendar. My team has access to it. Everyone can see that calendar. Very, very important that I have that extremely organized. It's always getting updated, always getting tweaked and improved. And I highly recommend you do the same thing. Having a physical calendar is great, can be fun, but having one that's digital and always accessible for you and other people that are in your family or in your business, whatever it might be, very, very important. So I'll share with you what my Monday through Friday calendar looks like. I'm just going to kind of breeze through these things here. From 7 a.m. till 9 a.m., I am doing my morning routine. You can go back to creatingabrand.com slash 155 to hear that morning routine episode that's part of this series. The next thing I'm doing after 9 a.m., it's from 9 a.m. till 9.30. That's my first administrative check of the day. And yes, I actually check my work email before I do anything else because here's why I've realized that if I don't my mind is always thinking about okay what's going on there while I'm working on my meaningful work so I just knock this out really quick give myself 30 minutes I have a pre-made playlist it's just gets me amped up to just rush through this stuff I have a 30 minute timer going right when 930 hits I'm moving on the next thing but I only check my inbox three times per day and all three of them are these administrative sprints so you'll hear more of them in the calendar and I set a timer on each of them have a playlist for each of them it's super fast paced my goal is just to get through this stuff as fast as I possibly can because I'm Unfortunately, we live in a world where you just cannot avoid the administration. Everyone's going to have to do it at some point. All right, so 9.30 to 11 a.m., this is my time block to focus, to follow one course until successful, and to complete my most meaningful work for the day. So yes, I have three main things I want to accomplish every day that I consider to be my most meaningful work, but what I want to do is find the one most important thing, and from 9.30 to 11, I'm making sure I'm finishing that. And here's the thing, if I do finish that, then I move on to the next one. I'm not going to be like, oh, cool, extra time to go hang out. I'm going to say, you you know what, I've got from 9.30 to 11 to really get as much of this done as I possibly can. I'm going to stay focused. I'll make sure that I win the day early. Super important to make sure you prioritize this time. And when your mind is prepped and ready to go, I do my best, most creative work from 9.30 to 11 a.m. So I really focus on that. All right, from 11 to 11.15 a.m., this is when I make my morning smoothie. This is the first time I'm actually eating for the day, and I make sure it's a smoothie. No solid foods before lunch. I referenced that episode with Mary Ruth a moment ago. Go check out that episode. She talks about why you shouldn't eat solid foods before 12 p.m. She has a lot of great reasons behind that. For me, I get a lot of energy from this smoothie. I've given myself my body time to digest anything from the day before, right? My metabolism is sped up. This smoothie energizes me, keeps me going. I get a second wind from this smoothie. And that's from 11 to 1115 a.m. While I'm making that smoothie, because I actually enjoy making my own smoothie, is my first set of office hours, as I talked about a little while ago during the actually disclaimer section. What I do is I allow my team to talk to me at this time. They can ask me questions that they have about their email, about different projects we're working on. They can show me a phone if I need to check something on social media. If one of my friends message me, I can go back and message them back. They have from 11 to 1115. At 1115, I walk away from that. I go back into my office. My team cannot talk to me anymore. And from 1115 to 1145 is my second administrative sprint. So at this point, I'm going back through to another 30 minutes in my inbox. Again, I got that playlist queued up. I'm rushing through. I got my timer going. And then what I do is i leave myself a little bit of time from 11 45 until 12 that's something that's actually not on my calendar there's nothing there but no one can schedule during that time maybe just to finish up a few things if i had something in my mind i want to write on a whiteboard right give myself a little bit of space there and then from 12 p.m to 1 p.m is fitness so this is while i'm working out i listen to audiobooks during the same time so i'm not listening to music i'm actually listening to a book and i retain a lot of it while i'm working out even though i work out really hard it still helps me to retain what i'm hearing in the book and during this time i make sure i'm outside i'm stretching right those things that that are also in my prioritized health. I make sure that I'm actually doing those things while I'm working out. And once I'm done with that, from 1 to 1.30, I hope you're all staying with me. I'm going really fast here. From 1 to 1.30, I actually eat my second meal of the day. I eat every two hours throughout the day. And it's, again, time blocked. But I'm actually eating eggs, avocado, and some gluten-free toast at this time. And it's my second set of office hours. I enjoy making eggs. I enjoy getting the avocado and toast ready as well. And I'll even make it for the team. If somebody's there and they want it, I'll make it for everybody. And I've done that. I've actually made it for up to four team members at one time while I'm actually making that. At the same time, I'm having office hours. So my team can talk to me. They can ask questions. I'm just there to answer. And this is the last time they're going to talk to me throughout the day. After this, they cannot talk to me again until 11 a.m. the next morning. So they're getting all that out and all that done. I'm eating while we're talking and stuff like that, right? I'm getting it all done. And then from there, after 1.30, my schedule is open from 1.30 till 4.30. The only thing I do in the middle there is at 3 o'clock, I grab my third meal of the day. Remember, I eat every two hours. And that's usually a protein shake some mixed nuts an apple if I'm feeling like I need a little extra energy right like all those type of things is what I'm doing but during this time so again that's from 1 30 till 4 30 is actually when people can access my calendar and I do not play what I call calendar battleship where we all just kind of guess times it'll work no I have a calendar link that you have to use if you want time with me I'm not going to use your calendar you have to go to my calendar link that shows available time it doesn't allow you to overlap or anything like that and I only allow three meetings per day each of which can be 20 minutes at max so I never let more than one hour of my time per day be driven by somebody else's agenda. I make sure that it's all mine. But during that time, it's really open. So there'll be some times where I have an hour break between a call. And again, that's when I go back and work on my meaningful work. I'm going to go back and finish the three big things I want to make sure I accomplish that day. All right, now we're coming to the end of my workday from 4.30 till 5 is my third and final administrative sprint. Again, I've got my playlist queued up. I've got my actual clock going so I can see the countdown. I've only got 30 minutes. I'm going to rush through as much as I can possibly do. And then five o'clock hits. Five o'clock is when I stop work for the day. It's when I'm done. So at this point, I actually eat one more time after I close my laptop. And this time I actually eat Greek yogurt, some seeds and fruit, local honey and granola. I put it all in like a cup with some extra protein. It's a really great snack. And it's the tastiest snack I have the day. And I actually do this intentionally because when I'm shutting down work for the day, it's almost like a nice little like healthy treat that I get. Subconsciously, it makes me feel like, yeah, I won this is my prize for for getting through the day from 5 p.m until 10 p.m right after i finish eating i've got some free time in there i have time i can schedule with my wife and with friends and just relax if i need to whatever it is that i might want to do that time is open the few things that are in the middle there that i'll share is at seven o'clock i make sure i eat again eating every two hours this is my biggest heaviest meal so i'll have like chicken uh i'll have something a little bit more filling or if i'm going out it's not always super healthy but i'll have pizza i'll have a burger right i always make sure to get a balance in there though so i'm not doing that every every single day. And then at nine is my last meal of the day. And maybe the most fun meal. I've always enjoyed cereal. And for many years, I just cut it out of my life. But I found like a super healthy cereal brand actually has three ingredients. And I just add some local honey, some kiwis and cherries and protein because that combination actually supports a healthy immune system and REM sleep. So I make sure that I do that. It's a really important meal, as I mentioned in my evening routine, because it's my last one of the day. And I really like to eat. So I got to make sure that this is a good meal that I don't ever skip or miss. And it also helps me get ready for bed. And then at 10pm, I start my evening routine. And that's from the last episode as well. So if you go to creatingabrand.com slash 156, you'll be able to hear that evening routine episode. So that's it. That's my schedule from Monday through Friday. And if you're really good at math, you probably realize I only work 35 hours per week if you thought about how I manage my calendar there because of the workout that's in the middle of my day, which leads me into Saturday. Saturday morning, my routines are exactly the same until after I eat at 11 a.m. After that, it's all free time. I can go do whatever it is that I'd like to do at that point. But what I do up until 11 a.m., it's my makeup time. So this is a bit extreme, I'll go ahead and admit, but I go to the bathroom while I'm working during the week. I sometimes slack off on the internet, right? Like I'm like, what are the NFL scores from last week, right? Or my wife wants to go for like a quick walk, right? Like those things happen. So what I do is I've actually identified that on average, I don't work for two hours that 35 hours, Monday through Friday. So I make up those two hours Saturday morning, that way I work a true 35 hours. As somebody who comes from a corporate background, I know how little people actually work. And you can go look this up yourself. There's a lot of reports, people work less than half the hours are actually in the office. So somebody who's working 40 hours a week is actually really only working about 20. And it's not any different with software founders or entrepreneurs or anything like that. Many of them will say I'm working 80 plus hours a week. But the truth is they've always got their phone on them. They take 30 minute breaks regularly to play on their phone. They have video games plugged into whatever they're doing. They're not really working as much as they say. For me, I want to make sure that I'm actually working 35 hours like I say I'm working. And that's why I make up the time on Saturday morning. I don't know anyone else who does this, but I also don't know anyone else who actually works 35 hours per week. I'm just very intentional with that time to make sure I knock it out within 37 hours after I make up time. Let's move into Sunday. Sunday is my Sabbath, and it actually starts Saturday evening into Sunday evening. So I make sure I go like sundown to sundown. You don't have to be a religious person to honor the Sabbath, and all the research and science behind this is conclusive. People who take a Sabbath are healthier and get more done than people who don't. It sounds counterintuitive, but here's the thing. If you work six days a week versus seven, you'll actually get more done. All the science, once again, conclusive on this. You don't have to be like a spirit For me, I want to have a Sabbath because one, the Bible says that I should have a Sabbath, but also I want the health benefits from it as well. So it's like a win-win type of thing. I really encourage you to try this. If you haven't, start taking a Sabbath one day off completely. Take a 24-hour period and don't do any work. Don't even open your laptop if you can help it. Now, before I had a personal assistant, as I mentioned in one of the disclaimers, Sunday evenings, my wife and I would actually complete all of our chores for the week. Again, we live in a condo. We like to have less responsibility. So we'd grocery shop together. We'd take out the trash, do the laundry, clean the condo. 100% everything we needed to do. We'd knock it out all on Sunday night, and it only took us about three hours to do. Then afterwards, we would reward ourselves by taking a walk and then watching a movie together. That's kind of like our prize for doing all the work that we didn't want to do, right? So that's something that I really encourage you to do. Pick a date and time as well when you know you can get the majority of the chores done. Depending on your lifestyle, that might not work for you. One more thing that I do before we start watching the movie, I usually open my laptop for about 30, 45 minutes just to look at the upcoming week and make sure there's no surprises. That way I can be fully present with my wife for the rest of that night. night and not have to think about later on like what I'm gonna be doing the next morning and there's two more things I do during that 30 to 45 minute period of time and yes I have a time block for this what I'm actually doing is doing my reflection time so for me I'm preparing mentally and physically for the next week I'm looking at what I want the three main goals for that I'm gonna achieve like big goals I'm achieving the next week so I can break them down into smaller goals three things I do each day right so I pick three big things for the week and I break them into three small things daily to make sure that I'm making the progress and achieving along the way during my reflection time also looking at how I did the last week. Did I perform well? Was I slacking a lot? What was causing me pain? What was making me more joyful? I do all that stuff. And it doesn't take long. This is like a 15-minute practice just to really be mindful of where you're at in life. And the next thing I do is actually reach out to my accountability. So I have 12 guys that hold me accountable in life. These are people that I'm very close to. I'm fully transparent. And they are the people that are making sure that I'm avoiding TV during the week, that I'm staying within my phone time that I've set, that I'm doing my workouts every week, that I'm not working after 5 p.m., that I'm honoring the Sabbath and many other things. And I actually email them once a week on Sunday. What's basically a scorecard is an Excel spreadsheet showing how I did every week. And I'm very transparent on that. I write a little note. They all see it. And each of them just has an assignment of like which one they're supposed to be holding me accountable for. So they all know, but they can all comment on any of it. But the point of that is, is I wanna make sure that they're just seeing exactly what's going on. And again, I'm fully transparent. That's the only way accountability works. I take this one step further though. I actually give the person who holds me accountable$10 if I just totally fail in one of the areas or ways. And that can happen every single day. So we'll be up to$10 per day. It's funny, when I first started doing this, it immediately improved me because now I had some skin in the game, right? Like I'm gonna lose$10, I do something wrong. But some of the guys realize that other guys were getting$10, like three and four times a week. And like, yo, man, kind of trade for holding you accountable for something else instead. So I can make some extra cash. Obviously, they were joking. At this point, I don't really do that very much. But I always want to make sure that failsafe is there that you know what, if I slip up and make a mistake, I'm going to be held accountable for it. And I'm actually going to pay somebody that is holding me accountable. I know it sounds a stream, but it's something that's really worked for me and it might work for you as well if you had some skin in the game financially with your accountability. So those are my seven daily habits and my calendar and how I basically manage every day and week of my life. Something you should know is this is always changing. Just like the morning routine and the evening routines in the previous episodes, once something is mastered, it's time to improve it. We have to keep it challenging. And what I always say is get 1% better every single day. And here's something new that I just recently started doing, actually. I started just following myself around with a piece of paper, looking at the little things I do throughout the day, and I'm gonna make a way to stop doing them if they're really small. Let me give you an example. Something I regularly find myself doing is folding the tags that are on my couch pillows behind it. I'm a little OCD, so I just don't like seeing it stand out. So I was doing that every day. And I would also go to the kitchen, and I'd be moving certain things around all the time because I never liked the way they were positioned. When I started doing that piece of paper, I was writing down how many times I was doing that. And I'm going to make changes. So here's a practical example. I'm going to cut off the tags. I don't have to do that anymore. I'm going to remove those pieces of small furniture accessories from the kitchen because I'm always moving them around anyway. And you're like, all right, Alex, why are you doing that. Here's why. Because I want to gain back four minutes every day. You might be saying, Alex, what the heck is four minutes going to change? Here's the thing. At the end of the year, after 365 days, if I can eliminate four minutes of unnecessary things I'm doing, that's an extra 24 hours I have now back in that year. So that four minutes adds up after 365 days to a full 24 hours. So for me, I'm thinking I'm getting an extra day every year by taking things away that are less meaningful so I can focus on something that is more meaningful. And again, this whole concept here is just to get one percent better every day, which is really impactful on a journey to self mastery. At this point, I'm going to give a conclusion of the three parts we've covered in this series. We still have one part left I'm going to cover, but I want to make sure that you understand that a morning routine, daily habits, and evening routine all work together. It's kind of like a chicken and the egg type of thing, like which came first. I can't tell you which comes first because they all play into each other. Example, it's hard to have a good morning routine without having done the right thing the evening before, right? Like if you're drinking, partying, and stuff like that, it's hard to wake up and have a good, meaningful morning routine. But on the evening routine, it's really tough to actually do well with that if you just live terribly all day. Right. Like you didn't prioritize your health. You didn't take care of the work you needed to do because you're doing all that right before you go to bed at night. So it's not a good evening routine, but it's hard to have a good daily habit. If you didn't have a good morning routine, you're feeling sluggish all day. The point is that can continuously just come up and come up and come up. What it takes to get started with this is picking a time saying tomorrow morning or this afternoon or this evening, I'm going to get started. It takes intentionality. It takes focus and it takes an extreme level of self-discipline to get into this proper daily routine of your morning routine. Afternoon and evening. It's going to be something that you have to decide you want to do. And it's an intentional action. It takes self-discipline. Additionally, I'll tell you this. This only works if you do it repeatedly. You can't just say one day... I'm just going to try it and see how it works. Or I'm going to try this for a week. You have to make the commitment to yourself to say that, you know what, I'm going to do this on an ongoing basis. This is going to be something that's consistent in my life. I'll say this. We live in a world that suffers from chronic inconsistency. If you can break free of that and decide, you know, I'm going to consistently do this for six months, for a year, I am telling you, your life will be different because of it. And I encourage you to really think about that. And to end this episode, I'm going to just share a quote from Jerry Rice that I absolutely love. Today, I will do what others won't. So tomorrow, I can have what others can't. Today, be determined to become your best for yourself and for the people in your life. And I'm telling you, if you're willing to step into this, be disciplined and be consistent in this, you're going to succeed well with your morning, daily, and evening routines. And that's all I've got for you. Looking forward to the last part of the series next week. Thanks, everyone, for listening. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. My prayer is that you found some of the things in this episode to be very helpful, and I hope that they actually further develop your own daily habits. One thing I want to mention again is that many people get turned off by having such a structured schedule, but I've actually found the more scheduled you are, the more control you have of your time instead of your time controlling you. I don't know about you, but I want to be the one who choose what happens with my time, not the other way around. Once again, I appreciate you listening to this very long episode and getting to know me a little bit better. For links to resources mentioned, please visit creatingabrand.com slash Thank you as always for listening. I'm looking forward to bringing you the fourth and final part of the series next week.