WEBVTT - Build good systems, with Ben Meer 0:00:03.009 --> 0:00:09.270 Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good morning. 0:00:10.070 --> 0:00:14.850 This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's 0:00:14.950 --> 0:00:17.530 episode is going to be a slightly longer one, part 0:00:17.550 --> 0:00:20.380 of the series where I interview fascinating people about how 0:00:20.390 --> 0:00:23.180 they take their days from great to awesome and any 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:25.700 advice they have for the rest of us. So today 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:28.300 I'm delighted to welcome Ben Mierda, Before Breakfast. Ben is 0:00:28.340 --> 0:00:31.000 an expert on systems and the author of the brand 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:34.400 new book, How to Be Good at Life. Ben, welcome 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:34.959 to the show. 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:37.099 Thank you so much for having me. 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.360 It was great spending time together recently in Miami, and 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:41.550 it's really an honor to be here. 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:44.150 Yeah, I was so excited to meet you and to 0:00:44.190 --> 0:00:45.990 get to learn a little bit about you. But why 0:00:46.010 --> 0:00:48.170 don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? 0:00:49.470 --> 0:00:52.570 So systems did not always come naturally to me. In 2017, 0:00:52.550 --> 0:00:58.220 I had $ 32, 000 in credit card debt, My first startup 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:00.920 was failing, and I was waiting tables on the weekend 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:03.870 just to make rent. And around that time, a close 0:01:03.950 --> 0:01:07.569 friend suggested that maybe I should lower my expectations in life. 0:01:07.850 --> 0:01:11.150 And that's a conversation that still motivates me today. As 0:01:11.170 --> 0:01:14.950 a Hail Mary, I applied to business school. And for 0:01:15.010 --> 0:01:18.990 some reason, Cornell said yes. And what happened there really 0:01:19.050 --> 0:01:22.690 changed everything. I was sitting in my operations class when 0:01:22.730 --> 0:01:26.290 my professor said something that completely reframed how I saw 0:01:26.390 --> 0:01:30.790 success and failure. He said the biggest difference between high-performing 0:01:30.830 --> 0:01:34.280 companies and struggling ones often comes down to their systems. 0:01:34.900 --> 0:01:37.940 And suddenly, I realized why my startup had failed. We 0:01:37.980 --> 0:01:40.680 had no real systems. And you can just think of 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.240 a system as a repeatable way to get a desired result. 0:01:44.810 --> 0:01:48.070 We had no sales systems. We had no customer service systems. 0:01:48.170 --> 0:01:51.920 I was just improvising everything. But then I started wondering, 0:01:51.980 --> 0:01:54.480 what if the same thing was true for people? What 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.300 if the difference between someone who is thriving and someone 0:01:57.340 --> 0:02:01.760 who feels constantly overwhelmed is their systems? The systems that 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.330 they use to take care of their health, the systems 0:02:04.340 --> 0:02:06.410 that they use to manage their money, to do their 0:02:06.450 --> 0:02:09.270 best work, to stay in touch with the people that 0:02:09.290 --> 0:02:10.310 they care about most. 0:02:10.389 --> 0:02:13.359 And that idea really set my mind straight. on fire. 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:14.700 I remember being in. 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.120 A coffee shop, just mapping out all the areas of 0:02:17.190 --> 0:02:19.830 what I imagined to be a well-rounded life and the 0:02:19.889 --> 0:02:22.610 systems that I could build to get me there. And 0:02:22.630 --> 0:02:25.910 then I started going about building them. And each system 0:02:25.930 --> 0:02:29.510 made the next one a little bit easier to build. 0:02:29.730 --> 0:02:32.059 And a few years later, my life felt completely different. 0:02:32.100 --> 0:02:35.820 I was advising Fortune 500 companies. I'd gotten my health 0:02:35.900 --> 0:02:39.860 and finances in order. and had even got engaged. And 0:02:39.900 --> 0:02:42.620 the fact that Jade, my fiancee, is excited to marry 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.280 me is all the proof that I need that this 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.320 stuff works. And it was around that time, you know, 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:51.150 systems had transformed my own life. And I started to 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:53.710 get a little bit frustrated with some of the self-help 0:02:53.770 --> 0:02:58.769 advice out there that seemed to stop at motivation. We 0:02:58.810 --> 0:03:02.549 hear these quotes like, trust the process. But I spent 0:03:02.770 --> 0:03:06.220 years trusting the process when I didn't have a process. 0:03:06.820 --> 0:03:09.829 So I've I've come to believe that most people don't 0:03:09.870 --> 0:03:14.169 need more inspiration. They need better life infrastructure. And that's 0:03:14.210 --> 0:03:17.230 why I'm so passionate about this message. I think that 0:03:17.930 --> 0:03:20.930 modern life has just become too complex to navigate without 0:03:20.950 --> 0:03:21.609 better systems. 0:03:22.590 --> 0:03:25.230 And so is having good systems what makes somebody good 0:03:25.290 --> 0:03:25.650 at life? 0:03:26.150 --> 0:03:29.010 Being good at life is as simple as writing down 0:03:29.060 --> 0:03:33.500 your friend's birthday. Because here's what happens. On the day 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.700 you get a notification, you wish them a happy birthday. 0:03:37.270 --> 0:03:39.790 their face lights up because you remembered and you feel 0:03:39.830 --> 0:03:43.290 better for doing so. And that is the whole thing 0:03:43.410 --> 0:03:47.010 in miniature. Being good at life is systematizing things today 0:03:47.130 --> 0:03:49.740 so that tomorrow feels a little bit lighter and a 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:50.520 little bit freer. 0:03:50.660 --> 0:03:52.320 And that can take many different forms. 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.060 That can look like keeping a running gift list on 0:03:55.100 --> 0:03:57.930 your phone so that when something comes up in conversation, 0:03:58.470 --> 0:04:00.590 you can jot it down and you're not scrambling at 0:04:00.630 --> 0:04:02.930 the end of the year during the holidays. It can 0:04:02.970 --> 0:04:05.570 look like maybe automating a little bit of your savings 0:04:05.690 --> 0:04:07.910 on payday so that your future self has a bit 0:04:07.950 --> 0:04:11.890 more financial security. It can look like managing your calendar 0:04:12.410 --> 0:04:14.670 well enough so that you can take a long weekend 0:04:14.710 --> 0:04:17.330 road trip with your partner because your work is organized 0:04:17.470 --> 0:04:22.750 enough to handle your absence. And what systems really give 0:04:22.770 --> 0:04:25.909 you surprised me. Yes, they will make you more competent. Yes, 0:04:25.970 --> 0:04:28.870 they will make you more productive. But then something else 0:04:28.930 --> 0:04:32.119 really interesting happened. starts to show up once you stack 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.940 some of these wins. And it is a quiet confidence. 0:04:35.980 --> 0:04:38.729 You start to trust that whatever life throws your way, 0:04:38.810 --> 0:04:42.409 you can build a system to solve it, to address it. 0:04:42.470 --> 0:04:44.550 And I think that that's the real gift of systems. 0:04:44.630 --> 0:04:48.430 It's not just being better at life, but it's feeling 0:04:48.970 --> 0:04:50.810 good at life. And I think that's a skill, which 0:04:50.910 --> 0:04:53.640 is as simple as writing down your friend's birthday that 0:04:53.779 --> 0:04:54.420 anyone can learn. 0:04:55.220 --> 0:04:57.820 And I noticed in your book, How to Be Good 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:02.659 at Life, you use a lot of names for different things. 0:05:02.779 --> 0:05:06.000 And I think like giving something a name is an 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:11.779 underappreciated tactic in and of itself, like a system Sunday 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:16.900 or a Saturday or a life engine audit. Do you 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:19.960 find this that giving things names helps with being more systematic? 0:05:21.370 --> 0:05:22.990 I think that it absolutely does. 0:05:23.830 --> 0:05:26.750 You mentioned Saturday, so I'm happy to chat about that 0:05:26.990 --> 0:05:28.930 a little bit because I think it just makes it 0:05:28.990 --> 0:05:32.990 so much more fun. So Saturdays is something that Jade, 0:05:33.050 --> 0:05:36.810 my fiance, and I do. And we're both in busy 0:05:36.890 --> 0:05:40.039 seasons of our lives right now. We're both writing books. 0:05:40.100 --> 0:05:43.020 We run a business together. And we would find ourselves 0:05:43.060 --> 0:05:45.680 saying that we want to spend more quality time together, 0:05:46.300 --> 0:05:49.200 but life would get busy and inevitably it would get 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:51.839 crowded out. So one of the things that we started 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.859 to do was... to have Saturday dates and it is 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:57.900 exactly what it sounds like. It is a date on 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:01.260 Saturday on Saturday and it's this weekly routine that we 0:06:01.300 --> 0:06:04.180 do where we will carve out between one and two 0:06:04.220 --> 0:06:08.820 hours on Saturday and take turns planning something fun. So 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:11.280 we've done over a hundred of these Saturday dates. It 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.300 could look like a pottery class. It could look like 0:06:14.339 --> 0:06:17.080 salsa dancing lessons. Some of the best Saturday dates are free, 0:06:17.300 --> 0:06:19.860 whether it's like a hike or a, you know, a 0:06:19.900 --> 0:06:24.640 festival in the park. And what we learned from Saturdays 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:28.599 is that your intentions of we should spend more quality 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:32.040 time together is really only as good as the systems 0:06:32.100 --> 0:06:34.480 that hold them, the systems that make them happen. I 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:37.820 think sometimes people hear systems and they think, oh, they 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:41.510 can make life mechanical or make life robotic. But I 0:06:41.529 --> 0:06:44.610 think systems can absolutely be a vehicle towards freedom if 0:06:44.630 --> 0:06:48.270 you're pointing them at the right direction. So with something 0:06:48.310 --> 0:06:51.410 like Saturdays and these other systems that we give fun 0:06:51.450 --> 0:06:53.659 names to, I think One of the reasons that I 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:57.200 give them these names is that whenever you're building a system, 0:06:57.240 --> 0:06:59.360 you want to try to step back and ask, will 0:06:59.380 --> 0:07:00.380 this bring more joy? 0:07:00.740 --> 0:07:03.660 Will this bring more connection? Will this bring more free time? 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:06.220 And if the answer is no, then that system is 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:10.240 probably not worth building at all because it's never really 0:07:10.260 --> 0:07:11.000 about the system. 0:07:11.060 --> 0:07:13.580 It's about the life on the other side of it. 0:07:13.740 --> 0:07:15.560 So these systems definitely earn their names. 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:16.440 All right. 0:07:16.490 --> 0:07:17.930 Well, we're going to take a quick ad break and 0:07:17.940 --> 0:07:27.080 then I'll be back with more from Ben Meir. So 0:07:27.180 --> 0:07:29.420 I am back talking with Ben Mayer, who is an 0:07:29.500 --> 0:07:31.500 expert on systems. He is the author of the brand 0:07:31.540 --> 0:07:35.140 new book, How to Be Good at Life. So let's 0:07:35.230 --> 0:07:38.790 talk about what you do on Sundays to prepare for 0:07:38.810 --> 0:07:41.970 the week ahead. Friday is actually my planning day, but 0:07:42.010 --> 0:07:43.970 I hear Sunday is your planning day. Maybe you can 0:07:44.010 --> 0:07:47.250 talk about what your Sunday process looks like. 0:07:48.270 --> 0:07:53.320 So I used to experience these Sunday anxiety, this Sunday anxiety, 0:07:53.380 --> 0:07:54.080 this Sunday anxiety. 0:07:54.570 --> 0:07:56.390 Scaries that would come up. 0:07:56.450 --> 0:07:58.810 And what I discovered is that that anxiety is often 0:07:58.850 --> 0:08:03.510 just your brain asking for a plan. So System Sunday 0:08:04.010 --> 0:08:06.830 is when I carve out 30 to 60 minutes. I 0:08:06.850 --> 0:08:09.740 do mine on Sunday to really just set myself up 0:08:09.860 --> 0:08:13.640 for the week ahead. And the core part of System 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:17.780 Sunday is getting clear on your priorities and then actually 0:08:17.860 --> 0:08:20.540 scheduling them on your calendar. 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.940 And this helps for a couple different reasons. It helps you. 0:08:22.900 --> 0:08:25.850 Protect the things that matter most to you, but it 0:08:25.870 --> 0:08:29.090 also lets you get ahead of some of the friction 0:08:29.130 --> 0:08:34.429 that can turn up. Maybe you book back-to-back-to-back meetings and 0:08:34.610 --> 0:08:36.369 you see, okay, when am I going to go to 0:08:36.410 --> 0:08:39.180 the bathroom here? Or you see that you've double booked 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:41.760 yourself and you can shuffle things around so that you 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:45.580 don't have that stress on the day of. And I've 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:50.010 been inspired by what you've shared about the weekly planning. 0:08:50.030 --> 0:08:52.240 I think it makes such a big difference that 30 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.679 minutes of planning or whether it's an hour can really 0:08:54.740 --> 0:08:57.720 make the next 167 and a half hours of the 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.360 week so much lighter and so much freer. And if 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:04.460 folks are feeling really ambitious, they can add one more 0:09:04.540 --> 0:09:07.090 thing to System Sunday, which I encourage. This is when 0:09:07.110 --> 0:09:09.569 you can build some of the simple systems too that 0:09:09.630 --> 0:09:13.650 make your life easier for years. Maybe finally you set 0:09:13.710 --> 0:09:16.630 up a password manager so you don't have to go 0:09:16.650 --> 0:09:21.150 through that dreaded password reset process and have to be 0:09:21.230 --> 0:09:25.770 identifying fire hydrants in little squares anymore. Or you put 0:09:26.410 --> 0:09:29.720 grayscale mode on your phone, which studies show can help 0:09:29.750 --> 0:09:33.020 people reclaim up to 40 minutes a day, which is 0:09:33.020 --> 0:09:37.100 10 days a year that you can reclaim and then 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:40.860 maybe use that time for leisure, things that will actually 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:44.220 restore you. Just imagine what your life could look like 0:09:44.340 --> 0:09:47.290 in six weeks or three months setting up some of 0:09:47.370 --> 0:09:50.780 these simple systems, I can guarantee you'll remove a lot 0:09:50.820 --> 0:09:54.100 of friction from your life and you'll prevent a lot 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.850 of the preventable chaos. So definitely have folks keep an 0:09:57.890 --> 0:10:00.560 open mind to scheduling some time on their calendar. whether 0:10:00.580 --> 0:10:04.439 it's Friday or Sunday, to set themselves up for the 0:10:04.460 --> 0:10:04.860 week ahead. 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:06.120 And you'll thank yourself later. 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:09.370 So you just actually take like 30 minutes and think like, 0:10:09.570 --> 0:10:11.530 what is something in my life that is a point 0:10:11.570 --> 0:10:14.869 of friction that I could potentially do now to solve? 0:10:14.950 --> 0:10:17.390 Is that like how I would approach that extra 30 0:10:17.390 --> 0:10:18.890 minutes on top of my planning session? 0:10:19.470 --> 0:10:19.840 Yeah, so. 0:10:20.260 --> 0:10:22.360 For folks that are just getting started with this, I've 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:28.760 actually outlined a 52-week challenge. We can maybe chat about 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:30.320 that later. If folks want to check it out, it's 0:10:30.380 --> 0:10:35.220 at BenMirror.com forward slash year of systems. It's a free 0:10:35.260 --> 0:10:38.740 bonus if people end up purchasing the book. Because some 0:10:38.780 --> 0:10:42.900 people like that sort of like prescriptive going through the steps. 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:45.610 I've done a lot of the thinking for folks. But 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:47.989 I think something useful is maybe just to keep like 0:10:48.030 --> 0:10:51.610 a frustration... list on your phone to just try to 0:10:51.690 --> 0:10:56.310 identify some of the annoying things that keep coming up. 0:10:56.510 --> 0:11:01.790 So one frustration that I was recently experiencing is I 0:11:01.830 --> 0:11:04.030 would wake up and open my computer and then I 0:11:04.050 --> 0:11:06.780 would have all of these tabs open that were not 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:09.720 a great thing to be waking up to. If I 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:12.679 somehow ended up on Twitter at night or ended up 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:14.679 on the news, that's not exactly how I wanted to 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.010 be starting my day. So trying to then see that 0:11:18.090 --> 0:11:21.730 friction point and then put in a system to include 0:11:21.750 --> 0:11:24.310 a little bit of a shutdown routine, add that to 0:11:24.330 --> 0:11:27.030 my checklist before going to bed so that I wasn't 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.510 waking up to these distractions and the next day could 0:11:30.550 --> 0:11:31.240 go a bit smoother. 0:11:32.580 --> 0:11:34.880 So this episode is going to be airing around the 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:37.660 start of October, which is around the start of Q4. 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:42.980 And you talk about how 90-day projects are often a 0:11:43.179 --> 0:11:47.190 good length of time for somebody to tackle something. What 0:11:47.210 --> 0:11:50.130 are some examples of good 90-day projects that you've seen 0:11:50.170 --> 0:11:52.850 people take on? And why is this a smart timeframe 0:11:53.450 --> 0:11:54.350 for people to be thinking? 0:11:55.730 --> 0:11:59.620 I love 90-day projects because it's close enough to motivate you, 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.060 but it's also long enough where you can make meaningful 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:06.900 progress on that project. And I do think that it's 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:11.040 helpful to have something that's contained in a 90-day sprint 0:12:11.090 --> 0:12:13.530 so that you are working towards a goal, that you 0:12:13.570 --> 0:12:17.980 are working towards something on the horizon. I am a 0:12:18.020 --> 0:12:22.040 big proponent of goals. There was a fascinating study that 0:12:22.100 --> 0:12:24.420 I read about where they dropped people in both a 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:28.480 forest and in both a desert. And they made sure 0:12:28.500 --> 0:12:30.600 that there was no sun overhead where they can orient 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:34.020 themselves or things that are on the horizon. They told 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:37.970 the folks to walk in a straight line to make progress. 0:12:38.110 --> 0:12:41.610 And the people thought that they were, but within 45 minutes, 0:12:41.670 --> 0:12:45.660 they would end up circling back to where they were originally. 0:12:45.700 --> 0:12:49.380 And maybe that's just evolutionary, I think, during our days 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:51.059 as hunter and gatherers. 0:12:51.140 --> 0:12:54.880 We drift 2% a little bit to the side. 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:58.619 We drift back to the safety or what we perceive 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:02.329 as being less risky. And that's why there's a big 0:13:02.380 --> 0:13:04.650 parallel here with goals. It's important to have something on 0:13:04.670 --> 0:13:07.750 the horizon that pulls us forward. One that I did 0:13:08.170 --> 0:13:10.710 recently over the past year was I ran my first 0:13:11.350 --> 0:13:14.990 half marathon. And that gave me something to work towards. 0:13:15.150 --> 0:13:17.329 I had, you know, there was a race day, and 0:13:17.530 --> 0:13:19.930 I could build a training plan that built my capacity 0:13:19.970 --> 0:13:23.670 to end up running those 13.1 miles. Because if I 0:13:23.890 --> 0:13:26.510 didn't have that, there would likely be a tendency to 0:13:26.570 --> 0:13:29.010 just do the, you know, the 20 minute walk or 0:13:29.050 --> 0:13:31.809 the one mile every day, which is great, but it 0:13:31.850 --> 0:13:35.929 wouldn't necessarily stretch my potential in the way that a 0:13:35.970 --> 0:13:38.990 goal could in the way that a 90 day project could. 0:13:39.690 --> 0:13:41.650 And the thing with 90 days is you can still 0:13:41.690 --> 0:13:44.220 do multiple goals a year, but then you're focused on 0:13:44.510 --> 0:13:48.000 one at a time instead of sort of diluting your efforts, right? 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:50.000 That's absolutely right. 0:13:50.100 --> 0:13:54.880 I think the more things that we add to those 0:13:54.900 --> 0:13:58.000 90-day sprints, the less likely we are to achieve any 0:13:58.100 --> 0:14:00.460 one of them. So I like to have one main 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.209 sort of focus and goal. And it's okay to have 0:14:04.250 --> 0:14:06.290 a couple of these focuses and goals in different life 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:08.900 categories and different life areas. Maybe you have one in 0:14:08.940 --> 0:14:11.180 your health. Maybe you have one in your business. But 0:14:11.540 --> 0:14:14.020 I'd be careful not to stack too many within each 0:14:14.070 --> 0:14:15.179 of the life areas. 0:14:16.150 --> 0:14:17.650 So I wanted to get back to a goal you 0:14:17.690 --> 0:14:21.050 had mentioned earlier that you had worked on, which is 0:14:21.090 --> 0:14:24.190 that several years ago, you found yourself with a significant 0:14:24.210 --> 0:14:27.090 amount of credit card debt. And then you also took 0:14:27.190 --> 0:14:30.670 on student loans on top of that. If somebody else 0:14:30.730 --> 0:14:32.610 is in a situation where they're sort of trying to 0:14:32.730 --> 0:14:36.720 claw out from debt, what advice would you give them? 0:14:39.590 --> 0:14:42.830 So I want to disclose that this is not financial 0:14:42.850 --> 0:14:48.210 advice because I'm not necessarily qualified to give it, but 0:14:48.230 --> 0:14:51.000 I can just speak from my own experience here that 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:54.420 I was in quite a bit of debt from the 0:14:54.460 --> 0:15:01.930 first business and from student loans. And My advice is 0:15:01.970 --> 0:15:05.650 you want to try to turn that intention into infrastructure. 0:15:05.670 --> 0:15:08.650 I think many of us have been in a situation 0:15:08.670 --> 0:15:13.030 where maybe we've read a self-help book about personal finances, 0:15:13.070 --> 0:15:17.940 and we genuinely are inspired. We genuinely feel more motivated 0:15:18.020 --> 0:15:20.260 that we want to save more. 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:22.240 And we can have that intention. 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:26.400 But if things get stressful, if things get busy, our 0:15:27.220 --> 0:15:31.140 spending is going to end up... expanding to whatever we have. 0:15:32.030 --> 0:15:34.030 So I think the real trick is to try to 0:15:34.090 --> 0:15:37.810 automate some of your savings. I'm a little bit skeptical 0:15:37.830 --> 0:15:40.229 to give a certain percentage here. But I think if 0:15:40.270 --> 0:15:42.960 you can automate even just a little bit of what 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.140 feels comfortable to you on your payday before you see it, 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:53.080 then you've immediately turned that intention into infrastructure. And of course, 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.570 you can always build from there. But you're sort of 0:15:56.610 --> 0:16:01.440 doing this kindness for your future And I think another 0:16:01.860 --> 0:16:05.060 good policy is as you continue to make more money 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:10.540 to try to contribute more and more through this automated savings, 0:16:10.580 --> 0:16:13.300 I think the less we can rely on our own 0:16:13.380 --> 0:16:16.860 motivation and our own discipline and willpower, the better. 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.180 All right. Well, we're going to take one more quick 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:20.940 ad break and then I'll be back with more from 0:16:20.980 --> 0:16:30.830 Ben Muir. So I am back talking with Ben Meir, 0:16:30.870 --> 0:16:32.710 who is the author of the book, How to Be 0:16:32.810 --> 0:16:35.770 Good at Life. So Ben, a lot of people listening 0:16:35.790 --> 0:16:39.090 to a podcast called Before Breakfast have their morning routines. 0:16:39.490 --> 0:16:41.190 I understand you have one as well. Can you share 0:16:41.230 --> 0:16:41.670 that with us? 0:16:43.150 --> 0:16:43.590 Absolutely. 0:16:43.630 --> 0:16:45.500 So I do have a morning routine and it looks 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:49.640 very different than what it used to be. So in 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:53.040 my mid-20s, I had this limiting belief that before I 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.320 could become successful, I had to prove to myself that 0:16:56.360 --> 0:17:00.170 I deserved it. So I built this two-hour stack of 0:17:00.250 --> 0:17:03.910 rituals that I made myself complete before I could do 0:17:03.990 --> 0:17:07.109 any real work. We're talking face in a bowl of 0:17:07.210 --> 0:17:10.730 ice water, writing with my non-dominant hand. I was doing 0:17:10.810 --> 0:17:15.000 dual end back brain training, drinking lemon water at precisely 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:18.379 98.6 degrees. And now that I'm saying it out loud, 0:17:18.420 --> 0:17:21.280 it just sounds completely insane. And I kept this up 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:25.290 for months. The wake-up call was looking at my habit 0:17:25.330 --> 0:17:28.869 tracker and seeing this beautiful unbroken streak and then looking 0:17:28.910 --> 0:17:32.120 at my actual life and realizing that nothing had really changed. 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:36.399 I hadn't built anything. I wasn't particularly happier. I just 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:39.739 got an extremely good at checking all those boxes. And 0:17:39.820 --> 0:17:43.070 Chris Williamson has a term for this that I love. 0:17:43.150 --> 0:17:47.970 It's the productivity rain dance. We'll perform all of these rituals, 0:17:48.010 --> 0:17:51.290 hoping they'll summon this perfect state to do great work 0:17:51.350 --> 0:17:54.179 and What I learned is that you don't need to 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:56.980 get into flow before you start. Starting is often what 0:17:57.020 --> 0:18:00.300 will put you in flow. So now my morning routine 0:18:00.340 --> 0:18:03.450 is really just a few essentials. I drink a big 0:18:03.510 --> 0:18:06.369 glass of water. I like to think of this as 0:18:06.410 --> 0:18:09.710 an internal shower. I make myself an espresso, which is 0:18:09.750 --> 0:18:12.830 just one of my simple pleasures. And then I do 0:18:12.869 --> 0:18:16.699 a 10-minute guided meditation from Sam Harris' Waking Up app. 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.440 So the whole thing takes 20 minutes instead of 2 hours. 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:23.990 And then I'll just start on my most important work 0:18:24.030 --> 0:18:27.250 for the day, which is usually writing or something strategic. 0:18:27.770 --> 0:18:30.590 And then after that, four mornings a week, I'll go 0:18:30.630 --> 0:18:33.690 to Barry's boot camp, which is just 50 minutes of 0:18:34.100 --> 0:18:37.360 high intensity interval training. All to say is you don't 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:40.540 need some extravagant morning routine to prove that you are 0:18:40.940 --> 0:18:45.080 worthy of success. There's usually a straighter path. You'll do 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.050 a few high ROI things to take care of yourself 0:18:48.090 --> 0:18:50.820 and then maybe some things to take care of people 0:18:50.859 --> 0:18:53.439 in your family too. And then you can get to 0:18:53.460 --> 0:18:55.390 the work that moves your life forward or the things 0:18:55.410 --> 0:18:57.070 that genuinely make you happy. 0:18:57.850 --> 0:18:59.810 I love it. I love that productivity rain dance. I 0:18:59.830 --> 0:19:02.750 think I'm going to have to quote that one. We 0:19:02.770 --> 0:19:05.570 see a lot of that in people's routines and rituals. 0:19:07.490 --> 0:19:09.129 So then what happens after that? How do you like 0:19:09.170 --> 0:19:12.190 to structure your work days in order to get a 0:19:12.210 --> 0:19:12.630 lot done? 0:19:13.490 --> 0:19:16.730 So I try to define what a productive day looks 0:19:16.810 --> 0:19:20.940 like before the day starts. I personally use something called 0:19:21.220 --> 0:19:25.020 the 3-3-3 method, which comes from Oliver Berkman. So that's 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:28.480 three hours on my most important project, three shorter tasks, 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:32.220 and then three maintenance activities. I love this because it 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:34.760 solves a problem that I think a lot of ambitious 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:37.820 people have, which is no matter how much you get done, 0:19:37.859 --> 0:19:41.879 it never feels like enough. And there's actually a term 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:46.720 for this called productivity dysmorphia. And just like body dysmorphia 0:19:46.770 --> 0:19:50.480 distorts what you see in the mirror, Productivity dysmorphia. distorts 0:19:50.619 --> 0:19:54.600 how you see your own output. You could cure cancer 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:56.590 before lunch and your brain would be like, yeah, but 0:19:56.630 --> 0:20:01.130 did you answer that Slack message from Greg? And part 0:20:01.150 --> 0:20:05.090 of this is structural. I think in the industrial era, 0:20:05.190 --> 0:20:08.560 done was very obvious. Your shift ended, the mail route 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:12.140 was finished. But in knowledge work, There's no natural finish line. 0:20:12.180 --> 0:20:16.180 The goalposts just keep moving because we never planted them 0:20:16.220 --> 0:20:19.060 in the first place. So the 3-3-3 method will give 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:22.740 you that finish line. So for me, the first three hours, 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:24.899 I'll do all my most important work, as I was 0:20:24.940 --> 0:20:28.800 mentioning earlier. That's my offense. That's the creative work during 0:20:28.820 --> 0:20:32.120 my peak energy. And then I'll do three shorter tasks, 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:35.920 things that matter but don't necessarily require my best energy. 0:20:35.940 --> 0:20:38.500 I try to move all my meetings into the afternoon. 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:41.869 So my small company... We have this policy that we 0:20:41.890 --> 0:20:44.590 don't do meetings in the morning so that people can 0:20:44.710 --> 0:20:47.250 do their more creative and strategic work in the morning instead. 0:20:48.250 --> 0:20:51.389 For these shorter tasks, maybe it's feedback on something, reviewing 0:20:51.430 --> 0:20:54.169 a proposal. And I'll try to batch those together. And 0:20:54.890 --> 0:20:57.990 then three, maintenance activities. And I'll be honest, life asks 0:20:58.030 --> 0:20:59.730 a lot of us. So it does end up being 0:20:59.930 --> 0:21:02.919 a few more than three maintenance activities. But this is 0:21:02.980 --> 0:21:07.060 things like email, exercise, meal prep. 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:09.500 And that's it. When I hit my 3-3-3, I'd. 0:21:11.430 --> 0:21:15.010 Do my best to close my laptop guilt-free because I've 0:21:15.030 --> 0:21:16.150 done enough for today. 0:21:16.170 --> 0:21:19.880 And obviously, you can tune the numbers to your own life. 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:20.439 I think an. 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:24.240 Executive that's in a busy season, he might need five 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:27.500 hours of deep work. A parent with a newborn might 0:21:27.540 --> 0:21:29.879 only need one or be able to get one. I 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:32.780 think the exact numbers matter less than the principle of 0:21:33.220 --> 0:21:38.060