Elon Musk famously worked 120 hours a week at one point.

Tim Ferriss inspired people to follow a 4 hour week.

I haven’t tried any of these extremes except another type of extreme when I did not work at all during a year-long sabbatical.

But I have tried many other routines in between.

Working only morning, evening, and nights. Working during the evening and nights. Work super early in the morning or very late at night.

Working through the weekend, or working only 4-days a week.

I have learned that following 5 things make me productive and more importantly help me grow.

• Having themed days
• Batching stuff I need to do
• Single-tasking
• Working more on what I love and want to
• Keeping a short to-do list
• Work on stuff that allows to take leaps and make a big impact  

The last one is the most important because if you are working on random stuff you will not get far despite working hard or being efficient.

Even if you find yourself working on mundane right now, you move to action that helps you take forward leaps.

The sheer force of will can work, and if you combine it with a strategic plan you’ll see better results.

You want to be in a place where at least 50% of your time is just learning + creating and 50% of your time is for addressing surprises + work you do.

So about 50-70 hours in a month for learning and creating, and 50-70 hours on working on what matters to you, deployed across different days in a month as per your temperament and how you want to design your life.

About 70% of the above should be planned 5-8 months ahead. Leaving 30% for unforeseen and also for experimentation and being open to new possibilities.

You can enhance your effectiveness by priming yourself for focus and performance in the morning.

You can try by spending an hour in the morning on your body and mind. You can include 10 minutes of Tony Robbins’s mind and body priming routine.

[I do a variation of this that I designed]

Then learning and family time, before you kickstart work 🙂 to win the day.

To take it a notch up, you can have themed days. So Wednesdays and Fridays (or one of these days) can be for learning. Tuesday and Thursday are for connection. And Saturday for creation. 

Sunday morning for setting the tone of the week. Of course, you can move around based on how you roll and how priorities are 🙂

With time in the day to listen to your favorite guitar riffs or playing one yourself.

And, close your days and week by working on what matters, rolling in dough doing what you love in a purposeful and authentic way, spending time with friends and family, and more than anything having the satisfaction of doing the best you can and making your time count 🙂

Wish you live a life like that or a version that is exactly what you want it to look like 🙂