What I'm Up To

Killed it in the gym this morning, like I do every morning.

I wanted to reach out today to write about my daily routine and how I feel about it.

I've never been a morning person. In fact, I'm the last the leave a party, you'd probably hate me if we hung out. I want to keep that party rocking as long as possible. As such, throughout my childhood and all the way to date (I'm 34), I've been a night owl. How I spent that time differed greatly throughout different periods of life, but it could've been partying, watching movies or TV, video games, or at some points training in the gym.

That ended sometime in the fall of 2017. I had heard of a podcast by a former SEAL, Jocko Willink, and started to listen here and there. I'm not a very loyal listener, mind you, but when I catch it, I enjoy it. One of the things Jocko does that blew my mind in the beginning is that he wakes up at 4:30 am and takes a photo of his watch and tweets it. That's when he starts his morning workout. Jocko says many times, you don't have to wake up at 4:30 but one of the best things you can do to help yourself be successful is JUST WAKE UP EARLIER. You need to be up before the enemy. So you can be better prepared than he.

What do I take from that, you ask? I wake up at 4 now, at least on weekdays. I decided I needed to take his advice and do this, because the nature of my career is very hectic. I'll be working on half a dozen projects at once, and get two dozen more dumped on my head before I'm halfway through the first task. So because of this and thanks to the idea from Jocko I decided I need to change how I do things. The office opens officially at 8:30am and closes at 5. That is everyone's expected schedule, no matter what.

So let's get into it.

4am - Wake up. Sit up. Snooze alarm for 5 minutes in case of a doze. Turn on bedside light, read phone for 5 minutes or so or until my need to piss becomes so overwhelming that I need to get up and let it out.
4:10 - Piss, brush teeth, apply deodorant, rinse and style hair and beard.
4:20 - Get dressed, gather bags and get out the door (drive to the gym, about an hour, it's near my office).
5:20 - Arrive at gym, train for at least an hour or until I'm gassed out.
6:30 - Arrive in office. Go over emails from previous day and check for anything I need to follow up on. Make notes about calls I need to make.
7:00 - If there are any projects that need my undivided attention, I block an estimated amount of time out of my calendar where I'll shut my office door and buckle down.
7:15 - Use the remaining 1:15 of silence to get a head start on any of those projects that do not require other people.
8:30 - People are starting to file in, I make a quick call to my wife as by this time the kids are on the bus and she's back inside. This is about the extent of my personal calls all day long.

8:30-5 - Work. This can be office projects, on site work, phone calls, meetings, anything. Insert your work here.

5:00 - Usually I leave at this time, but to be honest normally it's at least 6 before I go, sometimes even later. It gets nice and quiet after work ends too, so I like to take advantage of that while I'm still in a professional setting. When I leave I call home to see how the day went, let the wife vent, vent to her myself, and ask if there's anything I need to pick up on the way home.

6:00 - Arrive home. Immediately wash, dry, or fold any laundry. Fill up water bottles for the next day. Pack business casual clothes in my gym bag, and leave out my gym clothes to wear the next day. 

7:00 - Eat dinner. Steak. Make an additional steak for tomorrow's lunch.

7:45 - Take a shower. I like to do this at night, because frankly even though I sweat in the gym I don't make a mess and I don't usually smell that awful. Deodorant works just fine afterward. This way I can take my time to get good and clean, and it also relaxes me immensely. I fucking love a good, hot shower. Taking a night shower also helps make me tired, and prepares me to shut my brain off. It also makes my morning routine go by much faster, as the most time-consuming part is done at night.

8:15-10:00 - I usually use this time to relax a little bit. Maybe do some reading. If there's anything left over for the next day's work, I will make plans for the following day to execute. I'll set reminders if I need to. Then I go to sleep, and I sleep well.

That's basically a rough outline of how I succeed every day. I am not a very organized person at all, but I feel like for once I'm finally improving on that.