What Is The Dailey Routine Of CEO Or Entrepreneur
You may be surprised. As you’ll see, I have more down time than I think many expect and many who know me even realize. But that comes with a few disclaimers before I get to my schedule.
First, our entire firm is remote. Thank whatever gods may be. We meet in full once a month over zoom and once a year at a retreat. We email daily but who doesn’t? Second — we have a president who runs the largest arm of our firm. For our size, that’s rare and a gift to me. Finally, I’m way front-loaded. So it might seem frenetic, and some days are legitimately off the rails, but I do get to call it a day sooner than most because of this early pace. And I have no commute!
As you’ll see in my “typical” day (one of the great joys if running a business is no day is ever the same), I have a decent amount of time to creatively work on building new programs. This was a calculated decision as with the world is changing at a lighting speed, if you aren’t trying new things you’re dying. I hope if you are reading this and leading a department, firm, or team, you try to find time to do the same. Again, stagnation is death. Note I didn’t say “failing” I said “dying” (and all business eventually die which is why we try to optimize for stability versus ROI). Failure is just data — we know we are going to fail at some things. One of the biggest mistakes businesses make in my opinion, which sort of goes hand in hand on wanting immediate ROI, is they spend too much time planning and not enough doing. Do something, see what happens, and do it again with small or large adjustments is a better approach to me a 200 page business plan any day in my opinion.
But back to my schedule. Again today or any day won’t look precisely like this. But here’s a pretty good proxy for what non-business trips days would look like if I regressed to the mean.
Schedule
3:30 AM: Wake-up.
3:45 AM: Catch-up email work.
4:30 AM: Break to move around, stretch.
4:45 AM: Brainstorm with our very first second team member many years ago, who is now also up.
5:00 AM: Write. My job requires a great amount of writing be it for the firm, for clients, or for my second job as an author/speaker/podcaster. This is likely the first atypical divergence from what a more historic CEO schedule would look like.
6:00 AM: Hike. I’m exercising, with my dog and often a friend (and if not Im listening to an audiobook or podcast) as the sun comes up. This clicks on just about everything remotely healthy you can do in your day — companionship, caretaking (pet) exercise, sunshine, etc.
7:30/8 (depending how long my hike was): Friends again. I generally have a schedule where I have two sets of friends who I see around this time before they head into the office. The first set we are often talking work the second health and mental health.
9:00 AM: Email and now texts.
9:45 AM Lifting weights (every other day).
10:45 AM: Call with out firm’s President.
11:00 AM: Writing mixed with a deluge of work calls.
12:45 PM: Errands.
2:00 PM: Lunch.
( Note I just had a 2 hour break, my second of the day)
2:30 PM: Business development. This means talking to new connections, social media brand work, planning travel, planning new projects, doing new projects. Anything “new” fills this slot.
4:30 PM: I’m essentially done. I told you it’s not quite as crazy as it seems. I’ll stick with the rest but it’s almost no work.
4:30 PM: Reading/Doom scrolling to catch up on news and links of interest.
6:00 PM: Dinner.
7:00 PM: People, movie, shows or all three.
8:30 PM: Generally reading in bed and asleep by 9. I have made a deep effort to not sneak a peak at email or social media at this time. It’s just running the risk of keeping me up all night, and it will most assuredly be there in the morning.
Mike Spivey