8 Things I Did to Stop Wasting My Evenings After Work

About this video

Martell presents eight hacks to stop wasting evenings, drawn from years of, in his account, 16-hour days and losing all his free time after his first son, Max, was born. Hack one is to use your feed to feed your mind: search for what you want to learn, comment ‘FYP’ to signal the algorithm, unfollow or mute accounts in a ‘friend inventory,’ and integrate what you learn by saving, collecting, and teaching it. Hack two is to forget work-life balance for work-life integration — he says he works seven days a week, with Tuesday as date night with his wife and mountain biking on Wednesday — and to use evenings for important-but-not-urgent work under the Eisenhower matrix, such as strategy, ideation, reviewing data, and relationship building. Hack three is to schedule family time and be present: weekly date nights, planned activities away from home instead of watching a show on the couch, and a bedtime routine where he asks his kids ‘did you fail today?’ and celebrates it. Hack four is to defend downtime: he says about 13 years ago he worked 100-hour weeks and got adrenal fatigue and shingles; now he blocks challenging, recurring hobbies such as mountain biking, wake surfing, snowboarding, and hiking on the calendar. Hack five is never eat alone, credited to Keith Ferrazzi’s book of that name, using founders hikes and dinners because loose ties bring the biggest opportunities. Hack six is to avoid the dragon rather than slay it — environment beats willpower — by removing snacks, his own peanut butter and chocolate, from easy reach and moving his video game console to the office. Hack seven is an evening reset using the 5-minute journal: reflect on the day, review goals three times a day, and plan tomorrow around 8:30 after putting the kids to bed. Hack eight is a bedtime alarm: he says he posts at 4 in the morning and gets up without an alarm because he goes to bed at 9:00.

Key takeaways

• Hack your social feed instead of deleting it: actively search for topics, signal preferences, unfollow or mute draining accounts, and save and teach what you learn.
• Replace work-life balance with integration and reserve evenings for important-but-not-urgent activities — strategy, ideation, data review, and relationship building.
• Schedule family time like work: a weekly date night, a planned activity out of the home, and a bedtime routine that asks kids what they failed at that day and celebrates it.
• Design your environment so the good choice is the only choice: remove tempting food from the pantry you open repeatedly and put the game console somewhere inconvenient like the office.
• Protect sleep with a bedtime alarm rather than multiple morning snooze alarms; he says his own routine is bed at 9:00 and waking around 4 in the morning without an alarm.

Episode details: published May 6, 2025 · 11:43 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dan Martell’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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