4 Days Per…Day?

I’ll admit it. I’m an “organizational nerd”. My calendar looks like a perfect game of Tetris, every day. But there’s more to it than that — a specific mindset behind how I set things up.

Four Distinct Days-Within-A-Day

Every one of my days has four clear parts. But why do I call the parts “days”? Simple. Each one has a start and an end. A transition point. A measure of success or opportunity for improvement.

And most importantly, having a bad “day” in one of them doesn’t have to bleed over or negatively impact one of the others.

5am-9am: “The Me Day”

Yes, I’m a 5am person. Yes, I have a family and participate in raising my kids — that was the catalyst for building the habit! I get up before everyone so I can pour some time into myself without feeling guilty about it.

WTF do I do at 5am? I read. I write (it’s 5:02 right now, writing this). At 5:50, I get changed and work out. Wrap it up around 7.

Usually by 7, my kids are up and that’ll cue my transition — I’ll help get them dressed and ready, make them breakfast, and hang out a bit.

9am-1pm: “The Focus Day”

I do my best to protect morning time for heads-down work, rarely take meetings in the morning.

Personally, my best focus time is in the morning — so I do my hardest / most creative work as early in my workday as possible.

What if I’m not done when time runs out? Well, that work “day” is over. It doesn’t take over my afternoon or my evening…I handle it “tomorrow” — aka my next “Focus Day”, likely the following morning.

1pm-5pm: “The Meeting Day”

Next, I dive into meetings. 1:1s, team calls, work sessions, etc — I do my best to hit all of these in the afternoon.

I don’t really “thrive” on meetings — I love my team and have a blast talking with them, but it doesn’t create energy for me personally — it takes energy for me to do them well. So, I stack them in the afternoon where I can focus specifically on doing them in a way that’s helpful for everyone that I talk to.

5pm-9pm: “The Family Day”

Dinner time, playing with the kiddos, and our bedtime routine. Putting our 2 year old son to bed is one of my favorite things in the whole world (those snuggles won’t last too much longer) — so I try to do that as often as I can.

By 9 or 9:30, I’m gassed — so it’s off to bed for another day.

If this feels like a lot, that’s because it is…

…but it’s the best way (for me) to squeeze everything out of a day that I want to. It also gives me clear guardrails around putting effort into myself and my family.

Sometimes it’ll slide around a bit — no need to be overly pedantic about it — but using this as my starting point has added a lot of value to my life.

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