Order of Man - Optimize Your Day, Optimize Your Life

00:00:00.000 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart

00:00:04.980 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.

00:00:10.440 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:17.160 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.700 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler.

00:00:27.500 I'm the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast, The Movement. Welcome here. Welcome

00:00:32.440 back. If you're new to the show, what I want to do on this Friday, Field Notes, is give you

00:00:36.980 some information, some ideas, and thoughts that I've been thinking about from throughout the week

00:00:40.840 that are going to serve you as a man more effectively. It's going to help you as a

00:00:43.800 father, a husband, a business owner, a community leader, really just any facet of your life.

00:00:49.040 So today, we're going to talk about daily optimization, how you optimize your day,

00:00:53.860 and how if you can stack enough optimized days together, that starts to create long-term wins.

00:00:59.580 And in turn, you can optimize your entire life by focusing on the daily unit. So we're going to

00:01:05.180 talk about that. Before I do, just want to mention my friends over at Origin USA making some big moves.

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00:01:55.180 All right, guys, let's talk about optimizing your day, which in turn will lead you to optimizing your

00:01:59.720 life. Fortunately, I've been pretty good at this over my lifetime. Not always perfect,

00:02:05.420 not always dialed in, but somewhat effective, which has led me to some tremendous results.

00:02:10.700 And when I've deviated from what I'm going to share with you today, it leads to, if you stack

00:02:15.500 enough deviation to obviously poor performance and poor results, but it's very simple. And I don't

00:02:22.040 want you to overlook the power and importance of what I'm going to share with you today, just because

00:02:27.320 it's simple. I would challenge you to take the next 30 days and do these five or six things that

00:02:32.600 I'm going to share with you, and then go back after and evaluate whether the last 30 days changed.

00:02:37.880 If it did, great. Keep doing it. If it didn't tweak, adjust, fix it where you can. But I can assure you

00:02:44.380 that your life is going to get better if you do this. Number one, start your day. If you want to

00:02:49.600 optimize the day and make the most of every single moment, start your day the night before. All right,

00:02:54.560 when you wake up at five or six or seven or nine or whatever time you wake up, your day should be

00:02:59.500 entirely planned out, entirely mapped out. The only thing that you're going to need to change is if

00:03:04.700 something happened throughout the night, or maybe you got an email that needs to be addressed, or you

00:03:11.100 had a little emergency or a fire that needs to be put out. But really, your day should be almost

00:03:16.700 entirely planned. I'm talking 90, 95, 98% completely planned. And I found that if I have my next day

00:03:24.380 planned out the night before, then I get up enthused. I get up with energy and excitement for the day,

00:03:31.460 because I know exactly what needs to be done. And everything's in place from my daily plan,

00:03:36.860 my computer, my office is set up. If I'm going to the gym, the clothes are out, the drinks ready to

00:03:42.360 go. I've already looked at what the workout is. There's very little guesswork because the more

00:03:47.220 friction you put between you and optimizing your day, the less likely it is you're going to get it

00:03:52.740 done. And the more likely you're going to get side railed, distracted, and fall off the wagon

00:03:59.760 because everything's coming at you from advertising and demands for your time and attention and phone

00:04:06.360 calls and emails and requests and sales calls, soliciting. All of this comes at you a thousand

00:04:12.560 miles an hour. You need to know what you're going to do from day one. So what I do at the end of every

00:04:17.860 single day is I get my battle planner out. I'll show this to you. If you're watching on YouTube,

00:04:22.620 youtube.com slash order of man. I've always got my battle planner right here within your arm's reach.

00:04:28.000 I get this out. I do my checklist. So I'm going to go through and see what got done,

00:04:33.920 what didn't get done. And I'm going to roll over tasks that did not get completed to the next day.

00:04:39.240 So I'm ready to go in the morning. So guys plan out your day the night before. Don't ever leave your

00:04:43.140 office and don't over close your eyes without planning out that day and thinking about how

00:04:47.880 the, that, that current day went so you can make it better tomorrow. All right. Number two is when

00:04:53.000 you wake up, have a morning routine, have a, and a routine is good. I would even go so far as saying

00:04:59.420 have a ritual, right? If you have a ritual in place that's completed every single morning, you're going

00:05:06.180 to be more likely to do it. It's going to be much more efficient. You know, it's going to produce

00:05:11.240 results. You've already evaluated it. If it isn't working, you can tweak and adjust along the way,

00:05:16.340 but a morning ritual is something that you can do every single day without fail. And you know,

00:05:22.420 it's going to set you up on the right path. If you're not already doing a morning ritual,

00:05:26.780 then I would suggest that you do it. Obviously get up, get going, map out what you're going to do.

00:05:34.000 It starts the night before, but my morning ritual looks like this. I wake up and depending on what

00:05:39.840 morning it is, I don't, I try to stay off the phone. First thing, I don't want to get on the

00:05:43.820 phone and check emails and all that kind of stuff, because then I'm putting myself at the whim of

00:05:47.920 what other people want from me. So don't, no phone. And then I go straight into exercise again,

00:05:55.340 depending on the morning. So if I'm going to go train jujitsu, I'm going to get up, I'm going to

00:05:59.660 change all my clothes are out from the night before, no phone. I'm going to get some water. I'm

00:06:04.620 going to hydrate because I went eight hours plus without any water. So I'm going to get some water in

00:06:08.860 my system. I'm going to get those joints in the body moving again, no emails, no phone,

00:06:13.640 nothing like that. I'm going to go do my workout. I'm going to come home. And one thing I do with my

00:06:18.760 family is we do a morning meeting. So we get together every morning at seven 30 in the morning

00:06:23.840 and we discuss what the day's like. And that could take us two minutes one day and 11 minutes the next

00:06:29.900 day. We don't have a set time on that, but we do that every single morning. And it gets all of us

00:06:35.000 as a family unit on the same page, working towards the same goals and knowing where all of us are

00:06:40.520 going to be. So that's very simple. All right. I've seen people have morning routines that are

00:06:46.300 like two hours or three hours and they have 17 steps. No, for me, it's get up, hydrate, exercise,

00:06:53.860 morning meeting, go shower, clean up, change, get ready for the day. And then the next part of my

00:06:59.140 morning routine is to come in and get out that battle planner and look at it from the night before

00:07:04.920 and start planning and mapping out my current day. And that might take me about 10 minutes.

00:07:10.500 I'm just going to review for the most part, but that's the time where I start checking emails,

00:07:15.800 messages so that I can plug in anything that needs to be plugged in into my battle planner that may have

00:07:21.340 come up overnight or needs to be adjusted or changed on my calendar. Okay. So again, start the night

00:07:28.620 before morning ritual. And then number three is don't negotiate with your calendar. Now, I just

00:07:36.440 told you that if something comes up overnight or there's a little fire or the priority changes,

00:07:41.820 then I may have to adjust my calendar, which is fine. Okay. And I'll tell you how you do this in a

00:07:47.060 minute, but I live and die by my calendar, right? If it's not on my calendar, it's hit or miss. If it is

00:07:53.200 on my calendar, it's going to get done. My wife has access to my calendar. My assistant has access

00:07:59.660 to my calendar. Both of them plug things in, whether it's date night with my wife or Brandy,

00:08:05.280 my assistant may say that she needs or set up a podcast for me or a phone call with somebody.

00:08:11.220 So she'll throw that in the calendar. So I live and die by the calendar. And it's much more effective

00:08:17.860 when you do. I know people who don't even have calendars. Maybe they just jot it down. I don't

00:08:23.080 even know how they do it. But what I would suggest is that you don't negotiate it with it. Do all of

00:08:28.380 your negotiation with your calendar before you put it on the calendar. Because once it's there,

00:08:33.560 once it's inked on the calendar, it's a done deal. Now things are going to come up, right?

00:08:38.960 Fire, little fires are going to happen. One of your kids is going to break their arm.

00:08:43.500 Your wife is going to have an emergency. Your boss has a new priority at work. A client calls and it

00:08:50.480 takes precedent over something else you might be doing. Some of that stuff comes up. So here's

00:08:54.420 what I would suggest to you. Always build buffers into your calendar. This is how you do not negotiate

00:09:00.240 with your calendar, but you place those buffers in place. So I typically work in hour blocks. So 60

00:09:06.800 minutes. But what I do is I always put a buffer before and after. That means that if I have a call,

00:09:14.060 for example, at 10 o'clock or a podcast, that meeting block is actually 9.30 to 11.30. Half an

00:09:22.720 hour before, half an hour after. And so my next meeting, if I have an hour long meeting at 10,

00:09:28.780 my next meeting cannot take place until 11.30. And that allows for a time that maybe a conversation

00:09:35.780 goes longer, or there's a couple of emails I need to check between appointments, or there's a follow

00:09:40.660 up to a conversation I have that I need to address and be aware of. It gives me time.

00:09:45.620 When I get impatient and frustrated is when I don't have enough time to do what I need to be doing

00:09:52.720 and I'm rushed. So I built this buffering system in years and years ago, and I can tell you it's a

00:09:58.620 lifesaver. And some people might say, well, if you have all this buffer time, is that just downtime?

00:10:02.580 No, not at all. I'm not saying don't be effective. Don't be productive in that time.

00:10:07.860 I'm saying you can be the most productive because you got a half an hour window to crank out 10 emails

00:10:13.020 or 20 emails, or maybe read a portion of a book, or take some notes in your journal, or make a few

00:10:19.760 calls, or send your wife a text to tell her you love her, or whatever it is, you've got that buffer

00:10:26.540 and that downtime to do it. And it keeps all of your meetings intact on the calendar.

00:10:32.400 Next guys, learn to delegate. Okay. We have to learn to delegate. Everything needs to get done,

00:10:38.820 right? But you don't need to do everything. And that's what so many men struggle with in their

00:10:44.500 lives. They think that, well, they even say things like, well, you know, if you want it done right,

00:10:49.460 you have to do it yourself. That isn't true. You're just saying that because you're not willing

00:10:55.420 or able to take the time to find somebody who could do something better than you can do.

00:11:02.260 I mentioned Brandy and I use the term assistant. That's probably not the right term because she's

00:11:07.620 so much more than that within the organization. And she does certain things about this business

00:11:14.040 significantly better than I can ever do. And so I used to think, well, I have to do it all.

00:11:19.740 No, she's going to handle a lot of that because she's talented with it. She's good at it. It takes

00:11:25.920 it off my plate to focus on the things that I'm talented with and good with. And then it allows

00:11:30.500 everything to keep moving because it all has to get done. So guys, get out of the trap and the mindset.

00:11:36.040 If you want to optimize your day and optimize your life of thinking that you need to do everything,

00:11:41.440 you don't. Okay. You should, as my friend Bedros Koulian says, focus on your, I believe the term

00:11:49.260 he uses is a zone of genius. And so my zone of genius is podcasting. I'm not saying that I'm

00:11:54.860 God's gift to podcasting. I'm saying that's what I'm uniquely gifted and qualified of doing.

00:12:00.080 And that's what I enjoy doing and want to do. But I don't want to send emails. I don't want to follow

00:12:05.060 up. I don't want to run our store. I don't want to edit the podcast. Chad does that. Okay. I don't

00:12:10.760 want to video the podcast. Todd does some of that. Like I've got a team around me when we run events.

00:12:16.160 I don't want to do all the logistics. I don't want to look for the porta potties and rent those

00:12:20.420 things. I don't want to figure out how to, how to get ahold of everybody and, and, and points of

00:12:26.140 contact and emergency and application. I don't want to do that. So Chris Gatchko, our event coordinator

00:12:30.900 does that. And all of those people that I've brought on in these departments, even within our iron

00:12:35.880 council, I don't want to do membership and billing stuff. I want to talk with the guys.

00:12:40.040 I want to inspire them. I want to entertain them. I want to educate them and inform them

00:12:43.440 and help them become better men. I don't want to input their credit card information

00:12:48.000 or, you know, like refund a payment if, if something got out of whack. So we have Drew

00:12:54.720 and he takes care of that, right? So we have a team in place to handle all of this. And this

00:13:00.140 is how I get so much done. And you might look and think, oh my goodness, Ryan's getting all this

00:13:04.280 done and look at all these podcasts and look at all these guests and look at the iron council.

00:13:08.280 Yes. All of that is getting done. I am doing very little of it. I'm, I'm, I'm the, I'm the

00:13:14.960 face. Okay. And, and the voice maybe. And then we have all of these other little components and

00:13:20.340 everybody else, all these talented players in the right place to do these things that are going to

00:13:25.760 keep the machine running. Get over yourself, let go of the ego so you can win. Isn't that what we

00:13:32.660 want? You can't win on your own. Okay. Life, business relationships. Those are not individual

00:13:39.000 sports. Those are team sports. Get your teammates involved. All right. Number five, this is actually

00:13:45.800 along the same lines, but even before, maybe I should have made this number four instead of number

00:13:50.120 five, learn to say no. Okay. You don't need to do everything. You don't owe everybody a response.

00:13:59.260 You don't have to make other people's problems, your priority. You don't have to do favors at every

00:14:05.780 turn. Now, of course you want to be helpful. We should be charitable with our time and our attention

00:14:12.220 and our services. We should strive to serve other people. We should give back. We should donate to

00:14:17.660 charity. We should get involved with our community. Yes, absolutely. But you can't do it all. It's just

00:14:24.240 not possible. And when you say yes to something that you know you don't want to do or know you

00:14:30.080 shouldn't be doing, then what you're actually doing is simultaneously saying no to the great

00:14:34.820 opportunities where you could genuinely serve and help other people. So you don't need to respond to

00:14:41.080 every email. Not everybody needs a text back. I actually had to learn this the hard way on social

00:14:47.020 media because I used to believe that if somebody reached out, I need to respond back to everybody.

00:14:52.020 And I've gotten to the point now, I just can't do that. And if I spend all of my time responding

00:14:58.600 to every comment, responding to every message, hitting everybody back, I just won't accomplish

00:15:05.360 what I want, which is to have powerful conversations that are ultimately designed to serve you guys as

00:15:11.000 men. So learn to say no. Here's the trick. It's hard at first, but every time you say no,

00:15:18.900 it gets easier. The hardest time to say no is the first time. But when you learn to assert yourself

00:15:25.220 and you learn what's important and you learn what's not important and you say no as often as you can in

00:15:32.220 the appropriate places, then it's going to become easier for you. And then with whatever's left,

00:15:38.980 either you do it or delegate, which was point number four. Okay. And the last point that I'm going to make

00:15:43.860 for you for optimizing your day. Again, a very short list, but it doesn't need to be 27 things

00:15:50.040 you need to do. It's very simple. If you just implement these six things, I guarantee your life's

00:15:54.880 going to get better. Not today, not this week, the rest of the year, the rest of your life, do this.

00:16:00.980 The last one is close down your day. All right. Every paragraph has a start and a stop. Every book

00:16:10.560 has a beginning chapter and the end, right? Every season has a beginning and an end. Like every day

00:16:19.060 should have a beginning and an end. We don't want our days to roll over indefinitely forever because if

00:16:26.540 you don't close out your day, you're not putting a period at the end of the sentence. Okay. You're

00:16:31.800 not putting a, the end at the end of that chapter, that book, close out your day, ask yourself, wrap

00:16:38.220 it up. How did this go? What did I get done? What didn't I get done? Where was I good? Where was I

00:16:44.720 effective? Where did I say no? How did I free up time? How did I serve other people? Who did I care

00:16:50.480 about today? Who did I make feel important? How did I move my business forward? How much more money

00:16:56.860 did I make? What debt did I pay off today? How much debt better does my grass look because I took a

00:17:02.280 little time and mowed it this afternoon? Like go and review your day and then put a period on it.

00:17:08.420 And the way that you do that is you wash your hands of the day. You said, I did what I could do.

00:17:13.640 Maybe it was good. Maybe it wasn't good. Maybe I could do it better. Great. That's where you can

00:17:19.020 roll it over to tomorrow. So if you get to the end of your day and you're capping out your day and

00:17:22.840 you're like, man, I was like 80% productive. And this 20% of activities that I didn't get to,

00:17:30.160 I couldn't do it because time wouldn't allow for it, but I'm going to do that tomorrow.

00:17:34.600 And then jot it down in your planner, whatever planner you're using, jot it down. And then what

00:17:39.600 that allows you to do is to be home and to be present and to be focused on your wife and your

00:17:48.180 children or your charitable activities or your neighbors or your friends and family and the

00:17:52.780 barbecue you're going to go to. It allows you to be fully present in those moments. I had a friend

00:17:57.920 who at the end of the day, he would drive home and he would turn off the radio. He would just sit in

00:18:03.500 silence and that gave him some buffer time to think about how he was going to serve his family.

00:18:07.880 And then he would get into his driveway and he would close the door behind him, his car door,

00:18:11.820 and he would walk to the front door. And at the front door, there was a big tree with a large

00:18:17.240 branch that hung out from that tree. And he would literally reach up, grab the tree,

00:18:22.820 that branch rather, and he would hang there for about 10 or 20 seconds every day.

00:18:28.420 And he told me about this. I asked him why he did that. He says, I'm literally leaving my troubles at

00:18:32.860 the door because I want to be there with my family. Well, he can do that because he has a system in

00:18:37.380 place. And part of that system, part of closing out his day is hanging on that tree branch and letting

00:18:43.260 everything go. Now you can't just do it because you want to do it. You have to have a system in

00:18:47.420 place to let it go. That's where a planner comes into play, a tool like that. So you can actually

00:18:52.740 jot it down and forget about it and know that it'll be there waiting for you tomorrow.

00:18:58.480 Guys, this is simple stuff. Very simple. So simple that so many of you will overlook it.

00:19:04.900 And you'll buy 17 books this year about how to optimize your day and to make the most of every

00:19:11.200 single moment. And you'll go to the conferences and read all the courses and all the books and

00:19:16.080 listen to all the podcasts. You don't need that. You just need to do these six things.

00:19:21.920 Religiously, continually, consistently start your day the night before. Do that today.

00:19:28.920 You're listening to this. I don't know if it's eight o'clock a.m. or p.m., but tomorrow starts right

00:19:34.440 now today. Number two, do that morning ritual. Experiment with it. You don't need 17 things.

00:19:40.460 You need like four things. Wake up, hydrate with water, maybe get a healthy bite to eat,

00:19:47.660 do your exercise, have your family meeting or your individual meeting, have a ritual for the way that

00:19:52.900 you get ready from your shower to the way you brush your teeth and everywhere in between.

00:19:57.040 And then get on with your day into your plan. Number three, don't negotiate with your calendar.

00:20:04.880 Negotiate beforehand, but once it's on your calendar, lock it in, live and die by the calendar

00:20:09.220 and create those buffers half an hour before and after meetings so you're not just killing yourself

00:20:14.940 because you're running from meeting to meeting to meeting. Number four, delegate tasks. You don't

00:20:20.160 have to do it all. You shouldn't do it all. And those people who say, if you want it done right,

00:20:23.520 you have to do it yourself, are wrong. If you want it done right, you have to have the right person to

00:20:29.720 do it. That might be you and it's likely somebody else. So learn to delegate. Number five, learn to say

00:20:36.180 no. So you can say yes to the things that are important. And number six, close out your day.

00:20:42.720 It's that simple, guys. It's very, very simple. Don't overlook its simplicity and don't think it

00:20:48.100 can't serve you. Do those six things today, tomorrow, the next day, next week, next month,

00:20:53.340 next year, forever. And your life will be better because you're optimizing the thing entirely within

00:20:58.740 your control, your calendar, your schedule, the way that things go. Granted, things are going to come up,

00:21:03.900 but the plans I gave, you're going to allow for some of those buffers and those hedges.

00:21:07.840 But if you optimize your day, I guarantee you're going to optimize your life.

00:21:10.880 All right, you guys go get after. Oh, by the way, this is coming out on Friday.

00:21:15.600 So we're having the weekend. Your weekend should be optimized too. A weekend isn't cheat time. It

00:21:22.600 isn't a time to deviate from what you want. It might adjust a little bit, right? You're not going to go

00:21:28.560 into work probably on a Saturday or Sunday. You might be going to church instead, for example,

00:21:32.160 but that doesn't allow you to deviate from the path. It just means you adjust the path a little

00:21:37.200 bit. Stay on the path on Saturday and Sunday. All right? It's not just a five-day-a-week thing.

00:21:42.140 It's a seven-day-a-week thing. All right, guys, get out there, take action, and become the man you

00:21:47.460 are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge

00:21:52.280 of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at

00:21:57.020 orderofman.com.

Order of Man - March 18, 2022

Optimize Your Day, Optimize Your Life ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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