How CEOs Schedule Their Day

About this video

Martell walks through his schedule as CEO of a multi-million dollar company, saying fatherhood (his sons Max and Noah) forced him to stop catching up until 2:00 in the morning. His day runs from waking at 4:00 in the morning until passing out at 9:00 at night, fully allocated with no white space. The first 90 minutes minimum go to his number one priority — the ’leading domino,’ usually around fundraising, business development, sales or marketing — planned the night before, with mornings left until noon for creative work and no inbox or WhatsApp first. Meetings are sized by purpose: 15 minutes for first-time connections, 30 minutes for business partners and leaders who report to him. He batches similar work (e.g. shooting many videos together) because context switching is costly — he illustrates that counting 1 to 26 takes about 5 and a half seconds and the alphabet about four and a half to 5 seconds, but alternating 1-A, 2-B takes a minute to a minute and a half. He also uses ‘NET time’ (no extra time): hiking meetings Tuesday at 6:30 a.m., internal meetings during 3-hour Zone 2 indoor bike rides, and reading in the hot tub. He says this design lets him take 12 weeks a year off, per his book Buy Back Your Time.

Key takeaways

• Protect the first 90 minutes of the day for your number one priority, planned the night before; keep mornings until noon for creative output and stay out of your inbox and WhatsApp.
• Eliminate white space: allocate every block, and size meetings by purpose — 15 minutes for new connections, 30 minutes for partners and direct reports.
• Batch similar work together to avoid context switching, which he says can make a simple alternating task take roughly 20 times longer.
• Use NET time (no extra time): combine activities, such as hiking meetings at 6:30 a.m., team meetings during a 3-hour indoor bike ride, or listening to past meetings at 2x speed while running.
• Design the day around energy: workouts and creative work in the morning, meetings and collaboration later, and wind down before dinner with his kids so open loops are closed.

Episode details: published October 23, 2023 · 6:19 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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