One of the most critical skills of the century is time management. In today’s world we are inundated with distractions - things to do, demands from others, so many responsibilities - and those who are the best at making the most of their time are the ones who find success with it. 

But the problem with time management is, and you’ve probably heard this before, you can’t manage time. Time is a constant. You can’t make more or manipulate it. So ultimately, time management is actually more a matter of where you choose to invest your energy and attention in the moments you have.

Time management is energy management.

Where you put your energy is how you spend your time. So you really should be more thoughtful about maximizing the energy you have to do things so that you can fully apply yourself within the time that you have.

But we’re not going to stop there. How do you know where to put your energy and attention? That’s the problem - there are so many things demanding of your energy these days that you could spend a whole day putting it into things that aren’t meaningful to you.

If time management is knowing where to put your energy in the time you have, then energy management is having clarity on what you want to do with your energy.

What’s a worthwhile investment? What’s important to you? What are the things that most directly contribute to the life you want to live?

Put your energy into that!

One of my favorite brands Vuori coined the mantra “Clarity is the ultimate currency”, and I agree. We don’t spend time... We allocate our energy within it. And we maximize our energy by doing the highest leverage thing, the thing that is most likely to create the result that we want.

It’s only when you have clarity that your time becomes incredibly valuable.

Clarity has a few different levels to it. There’s being clear on what you want (the goal). Being clear on the path to getting it (the strategy). And being clear on what you need to do by one to take action on it (tactics).

Clarity is efficiency. The more of it you have, the less energy you waste. And the less energy you waste, the more of it you have left to be channeled into high impact actions.

To demonstrate the connection between time management to clarity, let me ask you an insightful question:

If I gave you 5 extra hours this week to support your biggest goals, do you know exactly how you’d use it?

Answering that question requires clarity. And it dictates what you should do with your time.

I believe a foundational mindset that anyone needs to have to create the life they want for themselves is a disciplined mindset. They need to consistently do what most serves them, their goals, and the life they want to create. Otherwise their actions (on inaction) will be actively manifesting a different, undesirable reality.

Discipline is a complex topic because it has a lot of layers to it. The top layer is self-control and willpower where you can make yourself do whatever it is you tell yourself to do. At face value, this can be useful in the short-term... But it’s way more useful when used strategically.

There’s a concept called ‘Willpower Leveraging’ where you make yourself take uncomfortable action in such a way that it greatly promotes discipline in future moments. It’s making the intentional choice to use a small amount of willpower right now so that you have a lot of discipline when you need it later.

For example, telling a waitress to “Skip the french fries” is an easy sentence to say, and an effective way to intervene as it prevents you from actively needing to restrain yourself from eating french fries when they’re on your plate.

Or how making a precommitment to a mentor that you’ll get a project done by a certain date makes it much easier to start working on it the following week because now you have a promise you need to deliver on.

Leverage is when you put a certain amount in and you get more out. The higher the ratio between inputs and outputs, the more leverage. Thus ‘willpower leveraging’ is about being a little disciplined in one way such that it produces major discipline in others. 

Essentially, willpower leveraging is a form of environmental design because it impacts the context of future moments. As author Steve Levinson says in his book “Following Through”, it influences ‘the situation’ so that vices aren’t present, commitments are clear and known by others, and poor choices aren’t as accessible.

Practicing willpower leveraging is simple, but it’s also a skill you develop. You need the awareness to know what ways you can effectively intervene, and have the ability to summon the will to take action on the intervention. It’s easier said than done, which is why I’ve tried to make it as systematized as possible for myself: 

In the 21 Day Super Habits Challenge, I share a variety of ways you can use willpower leveraging to help you be more disciplined in your health habits and more focused by warding off distractions throughout the day. It also helps you implement a foundational system so that you can create more leverage in your life overall and start getting more positive results with less effort.

If you’re curious to check that out, I have more about the 21 Day Super Habits, check it out here!

The most important clarity to have in life is knowing what you want. This is true in the long run as you decide the career you want to be in, the lifestyle you want to have, and the friends you want to keep… As well as in the micro where you choose the tone you put in an email, the tradeoff between enjoying fries or opting for a side salad, and who you want to invite to an event.

I believe that consistently realigning around what you want is embedded in the process of living intentionally. It involves being more thoughtful about things so that you understand the short term and long term implications of your choices. And when you’re clear on what you holistically want, considering all the tradeoffs, then you can take action to achieve it.

What happens naturally is your internal clarity then gets expressed externally through the actions you take. The more clear the intention, the more directly an action can contribute toward fulfilling it. So much so that there’s a stark difference in effectiveness between making a specific ask and having a vague wish.

The difference between the two is the level of clarity you have with a request:

A specific ask is narrow and precise. A vague wish is open, undetermined, and intangible.

Here’s an example of how this played out in my life. Last year I ran a fundraiser called New Year For Good, a campaign to help people make good on their big goals for the New Year while donating 100% of the revenue to charity. Talk about a win-win!

As I was hustling to grow the movement and taking calls with people, I’d often ask for introductions and referrals. I’d say “Do you know anyone who’s into personal development and social impact?” To that they’d respond, “I’m sure I do! Let me think about it and get back to you.” Very few did.

So I changed my strategy from making a vague wish to a specific ask. Instead I started asking “Do you know any former athletes who are ambitious, have big dreams, and care about social impact?” The right person came to mind right away.

When I got more clear on who I wanted to collaborate with to build this campaign, my efforts to do it became more effective. The universe rewards a specific ask because it doesn’t know how to deliver on a vague wish. Or when it does, it’s not as impactful because it wasn’t exactly what you wanted.

So my recommendation to you is: Get clear and ask away! Not only will you waste less time and effort when you do, but you just might get what you asked for.

One of the big, existential questions we’ve all asked ourselves before is “Why am I here?” What’s underlying the question is an interest to discover what our unique purpose is, who we’re meant to help, what we’re meant to contribute, and how we’re meant to be involved in shaping a better future.

As someone who founded the For Purpose Foundation… And speaks often about the importance of finding your purpose… I actually argue that we all share the same purpose. I believe we’re all here to become all that we can be, to the very best version of what we’re capable, and use our gifts and talents in service of the world. 

The way we express that purpose varies person to person and even day to day, but I’m not going to get into all of that. I’m going to take it in a different direction today…

What if we’re all here for the same reason, and that reason is to just be here?

Take that in.

What if it doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that? We’re here because we’re here. What other reason do we need?

We put so much pressure on ourselves to do all of these things, but what if what we do doesn’t even matter? What if the only thing we ever needed to do is just be present with what’s in front of us?

What if we enjoyed taking in the nuances and details of every moment… Experience what’s happening around us and integrate it into the feelings of an emotional response… And observe what’s happening within us so that we can better understand ourselves and our essence?

As you can tell, I have many more questions than answers for this one. And that’s because a part of me is scared to admit that it might be this simple.

I’m wired for high-achievement. I’ve designed my life to be in control, disciplined, and making progress toward what I find meaningful. I have goals, ambitions, and dreams that drive me forward.

But what if the pursuit of all of that is taking away from the experience of just being here in the now? What if I’ve chosen to orient my life in a certain way where I’m hyper-focused on 1% of reality and missing 99% of it? 

Maybe monks and hermits living in isolation have it all figured out? Or maybe not. And as I process this, I’m not ready to completely uproot the life I’ve constructed for myself... The life I believe that I want…

But, I will take this as a very important reminder to be more mindful!

If someone were to share the secret to success, it’s not actually a secret...

We all know what it takes to produce unbelievable, overwhelming results in our life - Consistency.

When we consistently make good choices, follow through on our daily commitments, and take action toward our goals… We become exponentially more likely to achieve them. Darren Hardy has popularized this as “The Compound Effect”.

Some of the key ingredients to consistency are self-control and self-discipline. They’re often used interchangeably, but there’s actually a significant difference between the two:

Self-control relates more to our ability to resist an urge or do what we feel tempted to do. It’s to avoid the allure of pleasure, or hedonism, knowing that overall we’re a lot better off without it. In many ways self-control is self-restraint, keeping you from doing what might feel good in the moment but actually does you harm - like overindulging on sweets, being unfaithful to a partner, getting distracted on your phone when you’re supposed to be focused, or whatever it might be.

Self-control is like will-power where you make yourself make a good choice that aligns with what’s most important to you, rather than what you feel like doing in the moment. Self-control is effortful.

And the important distinction is… Self-control is just one of the expressions of self-discipline. We conflate the two because it’s the one we’re most aware of, but if I’m being honest, it’s also the least significant.

Self-discipline relates to your overall ability to follow through on doing what most serves you, consistently, despite the circumstances. Only a small fraction of what we do on a daily basis is done consciously… Most of it happens without us even realizing it. Every day we take consistent action and we don’t even know it because it falls into this unconscious category.

So what guides self-discipline behind the scenes, in every moment when you’re not choosing self-control?

In one word: Environment.

Like a canoe on a river, your actions flow automatically in the direction of your environment, effortlessly downstream.

This means that if you want to master self-discipline, it’s much more a matter of changing the design of your environment than it is making yourself do things consistently.

What I’ve just described is so important that it’s what I call one of the 7 Fundamentals To Self Improvement. If you want to learn more about the power of environment, and how to get it working for you and not against you… And learn what the other 6 game-changing fundamentals are, click here and discover them for yourself!

One of the things that I’m a huge proponent for, that I see a lot of people struggle with, is creating a schedule for the day.

For many, a schedule is filled with ‘empty promises’. It’s a list of all the things they wanted to do - but there are some things they forget to add, that take longer than expected, that they don’t feel like doing… And before they know it they’re completely off track. 

When your day goes off the rails, it might feel like your schedule isn’t relevant anymore. But that’s only because it is out of place with old information.

As the day unfolds, things genuinely change. New priorities surface, previously unknown information is revealed, and the way you thought you wanted to spend your day doesn’t represent what you actually want to do with your time.

As regimented, organized, and disciplined as I try to be - this happens to me too. But that’s because I’m human and limited by the same constraints.

I've learned that when I make my schedule for the day, I can only do it at the level of consciousness I had when I made it. This means that once you increase awareness on how you actually want to spend your day, which you can’t plan for ahead of time, your plan isn’t designed to accommodate those things.

But that’s not to say it’s impossible to stay on task… What you need to redefine what on task is. In other words, you need to update your schedule. 

Just because you already prepared your schedule for the day doesn’t mean it needs to stay that way. Just because you’ve established your plan doesn’t mean that the plan can’t change. As your day evolves, your schedule must evolve with it if you want it to accurately reflect what you want to do.

One of the best practices I’ve implemented in the last year is keeping my schedule dynamic. This means that I’m constantly making adjustments to my schedule. Moving things around, adding extra time to finish things, removing others. Why? Because when I see the rest of my day through the lens of what I want to do, what I can actually get done, and how much time I have left to do it... I constantly get to make new decisions with new information.

On an afternoon where I’m feeling I’ve had too much time in front of a computer, I add a break I didn’t plan for. When there’s an extra task that pops up that really needs to get done, and I don’t want to compromise anything else on my list, I extend my work day to accommodate it. I change my schedule in real-time so that moving forward my schedule always represents what I believe to be my best intentions.

This practice carves out a clever middle ground between staying disciplined and flexible. My personal protocol is that any time I choose to go off schedule, I must update my schedule to represent the new plan for the day. What this does is add enough friction to spontaneously going off track (because there’s an effort and a cost to it) while also giving myself the ability to change my plans as needed (to accommodate new priorities).

Lots more to say on all of this, but in summary if you know that being more organized and focused about how you structure your day will unlock more productivity and progress in your life, let me help you get in the habit of mastering your scheduling. Detailed scheduling is one of the pillars of the 21 Day Super Habits Challenge - check it out if you’re ready to live up to the higher standard you see for yourself.

I want to change my stance on something...

Have you ever heard someone say as a line of encouragement “Give it 110%”? Every time I did, I’d roll my eyes. My logical brain would write it off as nonsensical. Anything more than 100% is literally impossible because it’s by definition, beyond capacity. That’s what 100% represents… Everything that’s available.

But that’s only when you look at it completely literally. Now, I think you can actually give 110%, and here’s why.

David Goggins is known to be “the hardest, toughest man on Earth”. He’s a former Navy SEAL, ultramarathoner, used to have the world-record for pull-ups in 24 hours, and is the best in the world at pushing his mind and body to its fullest. In his book ‘Can’t Hurt Me’, he introduced the concept of ‘The Governor’. 

The Governor is our brain’s voice of reason, trying to tell us to slow down and back off. It’s responsible for the thought that creeps in telling you to stop in a hard workout, skip making a ridiculously bold request, or give up on a stressful project. 

Goggins believes that this ‘Governor’ gets activated at a certain threshold that is 40% of our body’s true capacity. And that when we push through the mind’s attempts to make us slow down or quit, we can push through to unlock that fuller capacity.

Basically, what we’ve learned to be our 100% - everything we’ve got - only gets you up to the threshold that activates the ‘Governor’. The mind is often unwilling to see beyond that amount because it exposes our body to levels of strain and difficulty that are considered to be unsafe. Like a reflex to faint, it’s a psychological off-switch the mind uses to keeps us from doing what it believes to be dangerous. The mind doesn’t want you to reach your fullest capacity. It just wants to protect you. 

In reevaluating this concept of giving more than 100%, it’s with this new understanding that what we call 100% is only what your mind is telling you is your 100%. But it’s not accurate. It’s a facade. It’s a programmed maximum velocity that keeps the car from going as fast as it truly can.

So if I were to use other words to summarize what giving 110% really is… It’s to push yourself beyond what’s comfortably possible. To exceed the expectations you have for yourself. To go beyond the limitations of the governor and into the unknown depths of your greater potential.

Giving 110% isn’t an impossible task, it’s just an incredibly uncomfortable one. But, at the same time it’s the mechanism for redefining what you believe you’re capable of. Each time you do it, you update your reference point for what ‘giving it your all’ means to you, and unlock your own ability to believe in yourself that much more.

I just came up with one of the most ridiculous, boring examples of a critical part to personal development. This morning as I was about to prepare my breakfast, a high-protein Kreatures Of Habit oatmeal, I noticed that the box was empty. I have plenty more, but they aren’t easily accessible. I store them in a cabinet tucked away behind some bigger bowls.

Originally I had the boxes of oatmeal in the front of the cabinet and the bowls behind it, but every time I needed the bowls (which was multiple times a week) I had to pull the oatmail boxes out to access them. It was an inconvenient process and I realized that if I flipped the way I organized things, bowls in front and boxes in back, that would be more efficient.

But… Only so long as I make another change. I make my oatmeal every day, and instead of opening the box every single time, I decided to pull the individual packets out and put them front and center and easily accessible. What that means is the only times I need to pull out the bowls to access the boxes in the back are when I need to restock packets that I store in the front.

What this did is it turned a daily problem of reorganizing my cabinets into a more coordinated, streamlined system. Every morning I can access my oatmeal easily because there are packets right there in the front… Any time I need a big bowl for my salad it’s right there in the front too. Only every 2 weeks or so do I need to go into the boxes of oatmeal packets in the back.

I share this because underlying everything we do is a system, and what gets output into our life is based on the quality of that system. The more thoughtful, organized, and designed a system is, the more efficiently it helps you generate a certain result.

And the thing about systems is that they take some time and thought upfront to be established. You need to invest now in order for them to produce for you later. But it doesn't need to be too difficult or elaborate - sometimes it can be as simple as looking at a problem, identifying the constraints, and brainstorming a different way of doing things that creates a much more sustainable result.

Let me tie it back to this example in my kitchen:

The problem was that I had to clear the cabinet to get to whatever is in back, which I needed access to often.

The constraint was that I had a tradeoff between making it easy to get into my box of oatmeal, and making it easy to pull out a bowl, and I couldn’t do both.

The new system is to have oatmeal available as packets, to move the bowls in front of the boxes, and every 2 weeks I replenish my access to packets by pulling out the bowls to access the box.

Ridiculous, I know. But insightful? I hope so!