475: The 5AM Miracle and the Free Time Formula: Focus on What Matters Most, Amplify Your Productivity, and Remain Flexible to Avoid Burnout with Jeff Sanders

Robert Plank 0:00 Jeff, marketer of the day, number 475, the 5am miracle and the free time formula. Focus on what matters most, amplify your productivity and remain flexible to avoid burnout. With Jeff Sanders, Hey everyone. We're so glad that you're listening to our conversation today. We're talking with Jeff Sanders, and Jeff is a keynote speaker. He's the author of the 5am miracle and he's the host of the 5am miracle podcast, and his latest book is called the free time formula, and you can learn more about it at Jeff sanders.com so super glad to be talking with you, Jeff. Yeah, I'm

Jeff Sanders 0:37 excited to be here today. Should be a lot of fun.

Robert Plank 0:39 I think so too. And you're a fast talker like me, like, sometimes I end up talking to you fast and have to slow things down. But we're gonna, like, rapid fire here, maybe. But yeah, so can you tell us about yourself and about what you have going on these days? Yeah. I

Jeff Sanders 0:52 mean, you hit a few of those points there. I do have life. I have a Miracle book came out two years ago. My next book comes out a couple of months and basically what I spend my time doing is thinking about productivity and how to enhance it. And I think that my first book was really all about how to get more done, and my next book was really about how to slow things down, which is kind of ironic for me, because I'm a very type, a go getter kind of guy, and I love to do a lot of stuff. And so my current focus right now is trying to figure out how to get all the things done that I want to but also make time for, you know, the things that don't really get my attention too often, like taking naps or slowing things down, or, you know, just hanging out and not doing work. I'm kind of workaholic in that sense. So my season right now is all about figuring out how to, you know, find the balance in my life. And it's going well, I'm having a lot of fun.

Robert Plank 1:38 Well, great. And I can definitely relate to both of those stepping stones, like the the first stepping stone of getting getting your butt off the couch and and being excited to start the day and getting a bunch of stuff done, but then getting the point where, geez, I'm stressed out. I'm getting all these things done. Now maybe I slow things down. Or now that I've tried all the rapid fire approach, now I can 8020 things and remove what's not working and choose to take a break or choose to relax or choose to slow down, because that's what I'm doing. That's not what's being decided for me.

Jeff Sanders 2:08 Yeah, exactly. I think that's kind of my focus has been figuring out, what are those few things that get the most results for me, and how can I spend my time on those few things, and then when I'm not doing those stop working and actually put down all the things that I would like to be working on, because I have an endless to do list. There's so much I could possibly be doing. And the past, I always said yes to those things. And my next season I'm in now is really figuring how to just say no to those so I can really get into the things that matter most.

Robert Plank 2:34 So how did you get that first season started? Like the kind of going back a little bit to the idea of the 5am miracle. I mean, what was your starting point with that? How did you was life just a mess for you? Were you unproductive? Like, why was there a need for you to figure out the system and make this first book?

Jeff Sanders 2:51 It's a great question. I think that it started really with me being kind of overly busy, in a sense that I had three big things going on. So I had a full time job at the time. I had a part time business, which I do now full time, and I had a marathon I was training for. And so in any given day, I was trying to work, you know, full eight hours at the office that was commuting, and I was building a side business, and I was trying to train and run every single day. And I realized this system is just crazy. I have no free time whatsoever. How does all these things fit together? And the answer, basically, at the time, was we'll just wake up early and go for a run and see if that will carve out the time that I need. And at the time, I was not an early riser. I had no desire to wake up early, but I tried it one day, and I loved it like absolutely fell in love with early mornings. And so I began to use those morning hours to run, and then I would go to the office and do my job there, then come home and work in the business, and the whole thing kind of had a nice little rhythm to it over time. As the marathon ended, I still use those morning hours to do important projects. So I'd wake up early and ask myself, what's the most important thing that I want to do today? And how can I spend at least, you know, an hour or two doing that first thing? And that focus changed my entire life, like I began to get so much done because I was addressing the most important things up front. And it was such a switch for me, because for the longest time, I was just kind of waking up haphazardly. I was stressed out. There was I was letting things into my life that were distracting me from doing what mattered most. And so my entire focus with the 5am miracle was asking that simple question of what is most important now, and how can I wake up and address that first thing? And so some seasons, that's, you know, working out, and other seasons, it's working on a business project. Others it's a personal project, whatever it happens to be at the time, I will address that first thing. And it is a game changer if you don't do that already, because it's such a powerful way to begin your day, and the tagline to the book in my podcast is to dominate your day before breakfast, with the intention of saying, when you get to the office that day, you've already accomplished something really important. You've already done something valuable. So then as the day progresses, you have that sense of accomplishment that follows with you throughout the day. And for me, that has been. A way that I have lived now for probably the last five or six years. And it is, it's truly amazing. Well, great.

Robert Plank 5:05 And there's a lot of lots of great stuff to unpack in there, and I can definitely relate to waking up early, and of not being a natural early riser, but in giving it a chance and and letting it pick up speed and in in basically, have those morning hours, to have the calmness, to have the quietness, to have to have time to reflect that way I can think about things before acting, and I can choose where to focus my day, as opposed to just jumping in and always hurrying around and always being late and just just picking up on what yesterday was, and then working myself super tired and then just stopping, and then being kind of caught in that day to day cycle. I can definitely relate to a lot of that, and in the whole idea of sort of making your bed first thing in the morning, so to speak, and in whatever form that takes. So that way we get that huge amount of momentum. We get a lot of quick things done in the morning before most people are even awake. So that way, when it's time to really hit the day, then we've already got so much accomplished it's hard to stop, but not in in the way that it's that it's a bad situation, it's that we got a lot of stuff done, and it's like the momentum of the day just just carries us. So I can definitely relate to the the power in that waking up early and getting things done early, but but also in resisting it and not getting to it soon enough.

Jeff Sanders 6:25 Yeah, certainly it's a transition to make if you don't naturally wake up early. I mean, I was not my life for most of my life. It's been I was a last minute kind of guy. I had to get out of bed at, you know, literally, like, five minutes before I had to be somewhere. But to change that and say, I'm going to wake up, you know, maybe an hour or two early and spend that time on something that's important. It is a mindset shift that has to take place, but once it happens, and you see the potential, and you get those results, and then you see what happens because of those choices you made, it's a reinforcing, you know, habit that you really want to continue over time, and then you get, you know, more amazing results from there,

Robert Plank 6:58 yeah, yeah, and and feeling like, Whoa, it's 10 or 11 in the morning. I've already got so much done that it used to take me all day to get at this point. Now I have, like, almost day number two begins around noon time and so, so with this, it sounds like you kind of mentioned that. So it sounds like your morning time or your that kind of quiet early reflection time. It sounds like it changes a little bit, like sometimes you focus on your business or your health. Did I hear that? Right?

Jeff Sanders 7:25 Yeah. So it's seasonal for me. So if I have a specific goal that I'm working on, or a big project, I will make that my focus. And so in my current season, right now, with my next book coming out, my number one focus is that next book. So I'll wake up in the morning and that's my first thing to address, you know, what's the next major step that I can take to push the book forward, whether it's marketing or editing or whatever else I'm doing the time. And so that's what I do first thing. And then later on the day, I'll address the other things I'd like to do as well. But right now, in this season, that's what I'm focusing on, and the next season, when it shows up, I will shift gears then as well. And I think that having seasons, in that sense, allows you to say, you know, there's one important thing right now that matters most, and I'm gonna give that my full attention right when I get out of bed in the morning. And if you do that, it's amazing how much faster that one specific goal gets accomplished, as opposed to saying, well, I'll get to it later today, after I deal with that phone call, the text, the email all the people in my life are asking me questions, like, there's so many distractions in the world and so much noise, you have to have a way to filter that stuff out, to get to those very few things that actually matter to you right now in your life. And I have found that early mornings are the best time for that, because no one else is awake. It's your time. You could do what you want to do, and if you have even just a little bit of discipline the beginning to be getting to get that started, you can get a whole lot

Robert Plank 8:44 done. I love it. And you're reminding me that I read some, I read some, like, really short book years and years ago that was all about how, like, there's some chemical in your brain, and when you wake up, you have a lot of it, and it helps you make decisions. And then as the day goes on, you run out of that chemical. And that's why a lot of you know drunk driving and crime and things like that happen at night and not early in the mornings, because people run out of that, that that chemical. And so you mentioned about how, like, there's, there's these seasons. So is there, like, a specific reason why you change, change that up, like, is it like to avoid the monotony, or is it just like that goal that you're working on, that time is completed? Or what's the reason for having these seasons here? Well,

Jeff Sanders 9:28 I think it's a personal thing for me. It's a good question too, because there are some people that I know that have had the same routine every morning for decades, and they do the exact same thing every day that I've had the exact same time, kind of like a robot. They're doing the exact same thing, and that works for them. You know, if they have a routine that fits and gets their goals accomplished, you know, that can be a way to live personally that drives me crazy, like I cannot do the exact same thing every single day. I need seasons just to know that my life is moving somewhere and I'm changing and growing. And so I intentionally. Mix things up. If I have a routine that's the same for more than a couple of weeks, I will intentionally change it, because I need that sense of freshness and newness to keep me more interested in my routine and to make sure that I'm always doing something that's helping me to grow. And so it's a personal thing. Whatever fits you best is gonna fit you best, and you have to know what that is, and know your personality type, but once you have identified that the key, then, is to make sure that that is actually happening, and so you execute on whatever that is you want to do. I think seasons are great. I think having variety is amazing. I think that intentionally focusing on your most important goal in your current season gives you that sense of priority. And all of us go through seasons. We all change our focuses all the time. And I think that if you apply that to your morning routine, you can get a lot of value out of that time.

Robert Plank 10:45 Yeah, and this is all very reassuring, because I noticed that that my morning routine has changed over time as well, like I used to go to the gym, but then I noticed that I'd only use the running machine, so that I changed to running. But then I noticed that if I was running, then I didn't really have time to think. So I changed to super long walks, and then I even found myself changing up the route just to make things up. And then even on some mornings now, I skipped the walk completely, or do it later in the day, or do a lot of them during the day. But this is all great, because I, up until now, I thought maybe I was maybe not a bad person, but maybe I was backsliding a little bit on the morning routines. Because a lot of these people that when, when you mentioned morning routine, they show you like this 20 point checklist, and they talk about, you know, drinking a gallon of water and reading for two hours and writing for an hour, and it kind of makes me feel bad, but what you're saying is, if we don't have a crazy list like that, or we change things up over time. It's completely okay. Yeah.

Jeff Sanders 11:44 And one thing to address that too, I know that in my book, I talk about this because I tried this for a few years where I had basically three or four different routines of different lengths. So I'd have one that was kind of like my fast action, kind of get out of the house in 20 minutes routine, and then I had my kind of medium like one hour, two hour routine, and then a much longer like three or four hour routine. And so depending on the day of the week, I would pick the routine that fit best for me. So it was a Saturday morning, for example, I could do a three or four hour routine that involved a lot of reading and exercise and personal development time, and I could fit all of that in because I had the flexibility to do so. Versus a weekday where I had a meeting really early on the morning, I would do a really fast routine and get to that next activity. And so it's was figuring out, kind of like, how does your life look what does your schedule look like? What can you fit in? And you can mix up what you do on different days. So for example, you might say, instead of saying I will read for 30 minutes every single day, you could say, I'll read for 30 minutes twice a week. And that'll at least give you the chance to say, well, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'll read for 30 minutes on monday wednesdays and fridays, I will do yoga for 30 minutes. You can mix up what you do and when you do it, so that over the course of the whole week, you have done a variety of habits that you enjoy. You've had, you made time for the things that matter to you, but you're not going to try and do all of it every single day, because that by itself, is exhausting and almost impossible to pull off because there's so much to do. And so if you have a variety of habits that you want to hit, whether it's yoga, reading, you know, working out, those things can fit in your calendar on various days, and then over the course of a longer time period, like a week or two, you'll address all of them, and your life will still move forward. You'll still get that progress. It just won't be the exact same routine every single day.

Robert Plank 13:23 Interesting. So in a way, you have different templates depending on what else you're facing in that day to fit in the other things. So that way, your morning routine doesn't take over your day. And this is great too, because for a while I had the habit of I'd wake up at 4am I'd make some bulletproof coffee that would give me enough energy throughout the day. But then these last few weeks, I've been waking up more like 6am and not doing the bulletproof coffee. So that way I can actually cook a breakfast and enjoy the breakfast, because I just the routine I had for a while wasn't working. So so this is great. So we can plug in different templates to do different activities or different lengths of time. So that way it's not just the same old monotony every morning Exactly. I

Jeff Sanders 14:05 think it's really helpful to have a variety of options to choose from. You know, like, once again, like, I'm the kind of guy that likes to have the variety. So if you have one routine that's best for you every single day, you can follow that. But if that's not your lifestyle, then have more routines. Like, have five or six or 10 or 100 like whatever it takes to make sure that on any given day you can do the thing that matters most for you on that day. And you know, every day changes, so have the flexibility built in to be able to say that I'm okay with the fact that today I'm only going to read for 10 minutes, and then tomorrow I'm not going to at all. And that can be fine, as long as you know ahead of time and you're being proactive about it, and say, This is how my life's gonna be scheduled. You can map that out for yourself in a way that still is flexible and addresses all the goals you want to hit.

Robert Plank 14:47 Makes perfect sense. And so if people are having trouble making these routines stick, do you have any advice there? Is it just a matter of tracking things or having a calendar? How do we make sure that people. Say, Well, I want to have these better morning habits, or I want to try things out and then figure out what's best for me. How do we make sure that we just don't have these nothing mornings?

Jeff Sanders 15:09 That's a big question, because there's a lot of factors that play into it. I know that for me, in the last few years, what tends to work best is if I have a guaranteed system that says that I'm going to do these very specific things. So I'll the night before, for example, I'll write down tomorrow morning, you know, at 530 I'm gonna do these three things, and I'll plan that out. I'll set my multiple alarm clocks to guarantee I get out of bed on time, and then I will hold myself accountable for doing those things. And if I miss that routine, if I don't get out of bed, if I don't do those things, then I can feel that kind of the consequence of that action, right? I know that if I don't do it, I see what happens the rest of the day, because I missed it. And so in that sense, I'm kind of self reinforcing that I want to hit my own goals because they matter to me. For other people, that's not enough. You need to have accountability built ins. You might have a spouse or a partner or someone at home to help you get out of bed and do these things. Some guests have, out of my own podcast, have hired personal trainers to come to their door at 530 in the morning to guarantee they're out of bed, to work out because there's someone knocking on your front door. You can't ignore that. And so it's really about figuring out, what does it take for you to make sure you do what you said you're going to do? And there's various levels of accountability can be built in, you know, the smallest being that you kind of just have your own self discipline and your own systems, and then the most extreme being you have someone come and force you to do things you don't want to do. And so somewhere in that spectrum, you find where you fit best, and then you build that system to guarantee you're always going to hit the goals you want. And it's not an easy answer, because accountability can be tricky, but if you find someone who's a good partner to work with it's really powerful to do that. I think one of the best ways that I've seen over time, for most people, is to not do this alone. So be in a group, have a partner, do something that involves somebody else, because you're so much more likely to follow through with it, that if it's just you by yourself, it's so easy to skip your own goals, but so much harder when someone else is going to meet you somewhere a certain time. You know you can't just blow them off every single day. So really, the trick here is figuring out, what will it take to make sure that you're always doing you said you're going

Robert Plank 17:11 to do? That's a great way of looking at it, that how, like, the sort of the level one or level zero is just willpower. Like, well, if you're the kind of person that says you're gonna wake up at five o'clock and get a bunch of things done, and great more power to you, but for the rest of us, maybe we need to escalate and put more and more physical things in place, like the alarm clocks or the accountability or having someone come to your door or just whatever, whatever, multiple layers of physicality to make that happen. And what that reminds me of is I had a friend in high school who did swimming, who was on the swim team, and I guess that's like a really early morning thing to do. I've never been on a swim team, but I guess you have to wake up really early for that. And then they had some kind of rule where if you were late to the early morning practice, you had to buy a second alarm clock and put it in a different room and set it off. And then if you were late again, you had to buy another alarm clock. So some of these people had been late four or five times and were at the point where it was, it was like Doc Brown from Back to the Future, there were like five alarm clocks going off in the other room, just because it was like they need, needed more and more the outside factors to get them to where they needed to go. In this case, it was just waking up and showing up at a meeting.

Jeff Sanders 18:24 That's what it takes. That's what it takes. It's really figuring out, like, what will it take to make sure you do what you said you're going to do? And it's not always the best answer to say, I'll have five alarm clocks, but if that's what it works for you, then make it happen. I'm all for like, doing what it takes to make sure your goals are accomplished. And so in some case, it takes a little creativity or a little willingness to try something new. But once you get to that point where you are doing those activities, like once you are, you're out of bed, you're doing the routine, you see the results from that. It is so much easier than to say yes tomorrow morning and the next morning, because you know it works. You know you feel better. You know you're getting things accomplished. You're it's a reinforcing system. And so the goal is to figure out, how do I get that momentum built up so I could feel those results happening and see those results in place? Because once that's there, it's really hard to then turn that down. It's hard to stay in bed, because, you know, you want to get up and do really great things for yourself. And so that's my goal. Is to figure out, how can I bounce out of bed enthusiasm and feel fantastic? And it takes a little bit of work. It's a little, you know, it's a proc, a practice to get there. But once you're there, like, it's a life that I just really can't ignore, because it's just, it really is so

Robert Plank 19:30 beneficial, yeah, and that's a great way of looking at it. But like, once the momentum is going, it's not like you're just going to drop off. I mean, you might slowly degrade over time and let these habits follow the wayside, and then that's just a matter of, you know, keeping things going, but, but, but, yeah, that's pretty reassuring, that once things are rocking and rolling and you have these good habits in place, then it's easier to stick it's a lot easier to stick with it than it was to get things ramped up. So you have this 5am Miracle book. And then for people who you. And want to get that ongoing, you know, updates and training and things like that. There's the 5am miracle podcast. So can you tell us about this podcast? I mean, it looks like you have some pretty crazy guests and pretty crazy topics on there.

Jeff Sanders 20:11 Yeah, it's a fun show. I've had the podcast going for four and a half years now. I've got probably 270 ish episodes live on the feed, and there's a lot of content there. I've interviewed hundreds of guests. I've had lots of shows where I teach a lot of topics on productivity, healthy habits, personal development, you know, whatever it takes to help somebody live a better life and get more accomplished with the things that matter, most of them, and that's really the focus of the show. And I've been a lot of fun. I've loved doing it. You know, four and a half years in, I don't see a stopping point for myself anytime soon, so I'm gonna keep this thing going as long as I going as long as I can. And yeah, it's a lot of fun. So

Robert Plank 20:45 any interesting commonalities with those interviews, or just anything that you think is super relevant nowadays?

Jeff Sanders 20:53 Well, with all my guests, I always ask them about their ideal day. So I'd say, like, you know, if you had an ideal morning tomorrow, morning, like, what would that day look like for you, and the answers to that question are fascinating, because everybody gives answers that at first seem fairly similar, but everybody has their own kind of take on what an ideal day looks like. For some people, that includes exercise. For others, it's meditation, you know, for others, it's having a morning shot of whiskey that was one woman's answer before. Like, whatever it takes to say, like, I'm gonna start my day off the way I want to begin my day that they give the answer that's best for them. I think it's interesting to see that we're all similar, but we all have our own unique take on what a great day would look like. And so it's great to be able to kind of dissect all of those different perspectives and then say, well, based on all of these, what is my ideal day like? How can I craft my kind of perfect morning? What would that look like? What would it include? How can I have that ideal day more often? And so I think it's really wonderful to be able to talk to these amazing people who are getting a lot of things accomplished. These are very successful people, and so there's a lot to take from what they're doing, because there's so many great nuggets of wisdom there. And not all of them apply to everyone, but many of them do, and it's great to be able to pick out all the ones that you could think, Oh, that's a great new idea. I could try myself tomorrow morning. Let's go see what happens. And so that, alone, to me, is worthy of the show. Yeah. I

Robert Plank 22:10 mean, it sounds like it builds the swipe file, so to speak, as far as possible things for the morning, because, like, you can't just say, oh, wake up and figure it all out. Have fun. But then you also can't say, well, here is exactly how Deepak Chopra does this day. There's somewhere in between. And so by, by, look, hearing and looking at what other people do, and kind of getting some ideas there and then experimenting from some of our own stuff, it sounds like we can flush out a few of these daily templates and figure out what what the middle ground is, or what works best for us? Yeah,

Jeff Sanders 22:41 exactly. There's a lot of options to choose from, like we said before, there's so many possibilities, but I think it's just interesting to be able to kind of break those down to the few core things that will give you the most value in your day. And once you have those few core things, you can repeat those as often as you want. And then I think that for me personally, has been most helpful over time, like I know, for example, that if I go run on the trails early in the morning, that sets my day off in a way that nothing else does. So that for me is kind of like my ideal morning is going to the park, going for a run on the trails, and that makes my day feel so fantastic. If I do other things, I still feel good. But that I know for me is one really fantastic way to begin my day. And so if you find your core thing, whatever that thing is, you could do that as often as you want, and then your day is just set off that much better. And so I think it's so valuable to discover what that is and then be able to carve it into your schedule.

Robert Plank 23:36 And as far as this ideal day concept, does this extend past the morning. Like, do people say, like, what their their entire ideal day is, or just what the best setup for it is?

Jeff Sanders 23:47 Yeah. I mean, the ideal day can fall into your morning routine all the way through your ideal week. I mean, I've got schedules that go out quite, quite a bit in terms of what, how the morning routine will affect everything else that I do. And so, for example, if you were to set what I call kind of your F bot, your focus block of time, I do those throughout the day. So I might have one early in the morning for my first major objective, and they'll have a few more in the morning hours. And so as each kind of focus block is completed and each major task is completed, then I can see that progression going on throughout the day, and that will then affect what else is happening later in the week. And so if it's a good week and getting a lot of stuff done, I can kind of shift my ideal week to be even better, because now I'm gonna be even more productive and doing the things that matter more to me over time. And so that's the system I'm trying to create. Is how does the morning routine then impact the rest of the day, the rest of the week, the rest of the month, and all the major goals I'm working towards, and that's where it all begins. The morning hours is where everything starts. And so if that is set off, well, if the ideal routine is established, you can then apply those same lessons to your afternoon, your evening, your weekends, and then those become optimized as well, and then the potential for your productivity is just through the roof. And to me, that's where the. Benefit is, is you start with the routine in the morning, and then you see how that affects everything else. So

Robert Plank 25:05 with all these tools in place, do you still have bad days or down weeks, or is it minimized because you have these tools working for you?

Jeff Sanders 25:13 I mean, I certainly have bad days and bad weeks like everybody else, but I think that what's helped me over time is I have specific boundaries built in to kind of help keep myself on track. And so one system that I use is called a weekly review, and in that process, I will review what happened in the previous week. I will look at my, you know, mistakes that I made, my wins that I had, you know, what actually took place last week. And I'll use those lessons to figure out and what's going to happen next week coming up. How can I plan these next seven days more effectively. And so by having that stopping point every week to address, you know how last week was, I'm able to catch mistakes a little faster and then correct those and so because of that, yes, I still make mistakes, but there are significantly fewer than I used to a few years ago, because I have boundaries, because I have systems to review what I've done. And because I'm intentional about saying, you know, I want to have better days and better weeks. How can I do that? Am I just asking that question? I get answers, and I can then follow through and apply those and so that's really what it's all about. It's asking the question, you know, what's going on in my life right now? How can I make it better? Where's my DS? I can try. And then how can, how fast can I get those ideas, you know, apply to my calendar? Let's get those things started immediately. And that, to me, is so beneficial, because then I get results even faster, which allows me to then prevent mistakes even more. Yeah, sounds like

Robert Plank 26:33 a greater level of awareness. So in doing this sort of self examination, has it been painful in looking at the failures or the things that maybe weren't completed, and has it been also like difficult in enjoying the ups of your days as well?

Jeff Sanders 26:53 I mean, sort of it's, it's one of those cases where the more self awareness that I have, the more that I can see the mistakes I'm making a little faster, and so I'm a little I take it more personally than I probably should. So I see a mistake that's happened, or look back at things I've done that I would like to have changed. You know, I kind of get frustrated myself, because I feel as though, you know, I can do better. I have a really high bar for myself, and I want to make sure that if I have made a mistake, that that's not gonna happen again. And so in that sense, like I'm emotionally tied to my activities and my choices, and I feel that kind of emotional hit when I don't do something well, and so I'm trying to figure out how to prevent those as best I can. And it's not always easy, but it's important to be able to acknowledge those things and to be willing to look at your life honestly, because that's the only place you're going to have to grow from is your honest look at where you currently are. And when you have that, then you'll have the tools to be able to move forward and actually get real progress. And that's always my goal, not to lie to myself, not to cover it up, but to say, here's where I am realistically and here's how I can improve from

Robert Plank 27:58 here. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, because if you're in denial, then you're basically working off of incorrect information. And so, so you have the 5am miracle, you have the 5am miracle podcast, and then you have this new book coming out all about the free time formula. So can you tell us about that?

Jeff Sanders 28:15 Yeah, so the free time formula started, actually about a year ago, when a publisher asked me to work with them on a new book, which I was excited to do. And they asked me, like, what would the topic be? And I gave them much of ideas they didn't like. And so we were discussing kind of, what's a good topic for the book, and in the middle of that season, discussing that I was extraordinarily busy and way too much going on, like I had been so productive, and I was doing so many things, I was burning myself out so much so that I ended up with a stress related condition, found myself in the, er, like it was a really big, just a catastrophe that was happening. And so I talked about publisher about this, and I was like, Listen, I've got a great topic for the book. I'm the best case example for this, because my life just kind of fell apart, and here's how I'm gonna build it back together. And so that became the topic of the book. Is how to take, you know, the type a high achieving, too much caffeine drinking personality, and turn that into, you know, a life that's more well balanced, where you are getting what matters most done and you have time to relax, you have time to see a movie, time to hang out with your family. You have time to live and also be able to say what mattered most was also accomplished at work and with my goals. And so the book is, yes, it's about free time. It's about how to have more free time, but under the guise of saying, because you identify what matters most, and those things got done now, you have the flexibility and to be able to choose more often what to do with the extra hours you now have. And so the goal is figuring out, what is that ideal for you? What does that balance look like? And the book addresses in a variety of ways, how to make that happen. And for me, personally, it's been quite the journey on my own to get there for myself, and so having to kind of live through that and then talk about those examples with my own life in the book has made it you know, it's very personal for me, because it's I'm living through it, right? Now myself at this very moment, but being able to then share that with others, to say, here's how you can craft your life in a way that has more balance, that has more flexibility, and then allows you to do what matters most to you without being burned out, without the stress. It's a difficult place to get to sometimes, if you're overly busy and you have too much going on, and that's the point in the book, is to say, I know you're busy, I know too much is going on. Let's address that head on. Let's figure that out. Let's cut some stuff out of your calendar, and let's make the space where matters most to you right now.

Robert Plank 30:30 And it sounds like the way you describe it, that I mean. First of all, like focusing on what matters most sounds great. Having that flexibility sounds great. Avoiding burnout, sounds great. But it sounds like there may be some emotional things to unlearn, because I can definitely relate to sometimes I'll be like, Well, I really want to get this, this project, done by Saturday, when, more realistically, you know, Wednesday would be better. But if I push myself, then that clears up time to focus on other things. And I had to have, when I got into business with my business partner, he had to tell me, you know, why don't you, like, take the weekends off some time. And I'm like, Okay, I'll take Saturday off and I'll spend all Sunday doing stuff. And he's like, no expend take all the weekend off. So that way you can have that time to reset, and you're not always running around and and even, like, you know, some of the things like you mentioned, like choosing to go see a movie in the middle of the day just to change the channel. So That way we're not just, you know, like, basically, like, hyperventilating or trying to get all get be a perfectionist. And so, I mean, do you have any, as we're writing this down? Do you have any quick, like, tips or tricks or things from that book to just to kind of unlearn some of those, the workaholic tendencies? It's

Jeff Sanders 31:39 a great question. I think that really does address kind of the the number one thing that I talk about in the book, which is cutting the nonsense. And so when I say that phrase, Cut the nonsense, what I mean is all that stuff on your calendar that you already know shouldn't be there. And I say that because we all have those things. We look at our calendars, you know, the next couple of weeks, we can see there's a lot of stuff on there we don't want to do, and we're not a fan of it. It's not a good use of our time. And so the question is, identify what those things are, and then ask yourself, How can I get rid of those things as fast as possible? So I look at my own calendar, I ask that question like, What is the nonsense? What can I cut? What can I postpone? What can I eliminate forever, if possible? And by doing that, I automatically will free up more time, and then that freed up time can be used for things that matter more. And so even right now, my current calendar, I know I have things on there, even today that I would like to kind of rearrange. You know, a calendar is a big puzzle to figure out, but there's always stuff to remove, and that is the most important place to begin, because that is the first and best way to actually give you tangible time to work with. So the rest of the things to move around is that much easier to do. And it always begins there, you know, how do you get rid of what does not matter? And then from there, you can address other things, like, what is my current season? What is my most important objective right now? But before you even get there, I think that just like taking some time to look at what can I cut as fast as possible will give you such a big win right off the bat that you're going to have that sense of enthusiasm to continue that process, to figure out how to make the calendar even better. And that, to me, is a lot of fun. I love that process, because then I feel like, Oh, I just freed up four hours on a Wednesday afternoon. What could I spend that time doing now and then, all of a sudden, I can fill an important project in that time slot, and then that thing gets done, and then I feel that much better. And that's really the important part, is being able to make those kinds of choices. But you can't do that if all of your time is booked up, if there's no flexibility, there's no margin, if there's no free space, you don't have the ability to make those kinds of choices. And the entire point of the book is to give you that power to say your time is your time. How can you grab control of it in a way that up to this point, you have not been doing as well as you could? And I know that's the case because we're all in that boat. We're always too busy. There's always too much to do, and so we have to be very intentional about what we're saying yes to and the yeses should be very few, and the no's should be very plentiful. And if that's the case, your calendar is going to be so much more friendly to use and fun to work with. I

Robert Plank 34:10 like the way you put that. So basically, you're optimizing that calendar and removing the stuff that doesn't matter and replacing it with things that matter more. And so was there anything that jumps out at you in the calendar that was difficult to give up or maybe took a while to finally take the leap and remove that thing from your calendar?

Jeff Sanders 34:29 It's a great question. Actually, I just made a switch from that a week and a half ago. I've been doing my own podcast every single week for four and a half years. That's literally 234 weeks in a row with missing zero weeks, so I literally had a podcast episode come out, you know, four and a half years straight. And as much fun as that's been, it's exhausting to do. It's a lot of work. Podcasting is, you know, a challenging thing to pull off. And so I switched to doing a podcast every other week. And so that alone freed up time for me every every other week to have more time. On my calendar for other projects that I want to work on, and it was hard to give up, because I'm emotionally attached to my show. I love doing. I love podcasting in general, but to be able to say, you know, there are other projects that need my attention, there are other goals that matter to me, how can I ensure that those things get the time they need? And so I had to make that decision. I made that cut instead I'm going to scale back my podcast production, and that frees up and my calendar about a full day's worth of work. And so that's a full day every other week that I get back to then work on other projects. And so that's been a focus for me. There's other things I know that I'll be cutting next year, and I'll continue that process of refinement to ask those questions, where am I going next? How can I remove what's in my way to get there? And sometimes that's a hard decision. Sometimes you're emotionally tied to those things you want to need to let go of, but those are usually the things that matter the most and need to get cut the fastest, because that's going to give you the most leverage to move forward. Very

Robert Plank 35:58 interesting. So maybe we have these things in our businesses that we've that have just kind of been been stuck there, and it might have gotten to the point where we're still doing something, and we're still doing something to a certain extent, where maybe it's superstitious, or maybe it's a matter of the actions and the thinking got us up to this point and helped us, but they're also holding us back from getting to that next level. So we always need to be re examining and rearranging and, you know, trying things out and optimizing to get to whatever that next level is. And so everyone needs to definitely check out the 5am Miracle book, The 5am miracle podcast and the free time formula book. So where can we what kind of links do we need to go to check out these sorts of things.

Jeff Sanders 36:42 Well, Jeff sanders.com is the place to go for all of that. You'll find a link to my new book there. You'll find the podcast. You'll find my other book. It's all there. Jeff sanders.com is my home base and whatever I'm working on next you'll find right there.

Robert Plank 36:54 Super awesome. So Jeff sanders.com is the portal to get to whatever you have going on by the time people listen to this and check out those other books in the podcast. And so is there anything that you wish you could tell your younger self, maybe five or 10 years ago to maybe shortcut things or make things better for you? That's

Jeff Sanders 37:13 a good question. I think that the best answer I would give myself is stop wasting time on the little stuff. And I say that because I'm the kind of guy that you know as a type A productivity guy. I like to check boxes, I like to feel productive, but feeling productive often just results in being busy. And busyness does not equate to results. Most of the time, busyness just equates to overwhelm and stress and feeling better, even though nothing actually got accomplished. And so that's a personality quirk of my own. I've had for my entire life, and I'm still working through that. But I think if anything, if I had addressed that more head on years ago, I would have shaved off years of nonsense work that I spent time on, of projects that went nowhere, of little, you know, tweaks to my website that meant nothing to anybody, you know, just small stuff that took a lot of time that ultimately was not going to push my goals forward. I think that, if anything, my life today is more along the lines of asking the question, what is the big goal I'm trying to achieve, and what is the absolute fastest way to get there? And that almost always involves only a couple of steps, and everything else that I might want to work on is a distraction to doing those few steps, and that's what I'm trying to get to now, is what is the big thing, and how do I get there as soon as possible? And that alone has revolutionized my entire life, my business, everything I'm working on. And if I had done that years ago, it would have been a big, big deal. I

Robert Plank 38:34 love it. So in other words, don't be such a control freak. Don't Don't spend so much time on the little details that only you will notice, because it gets in the way of what you actually want to accomplish. So so great stuff and great message. And everyone, make sure to go to Jeff sanders.com that's j, e, f, f, s, a, n, D, E, R, s.com and check out Jeff's podcast, his books and all those other resources. So Jeff sanders.com We'll see you there, and you'll be glad you went there. So thanks Jeff for stopping by today.

Jeff Sanders 39:01 Thanks. A lot fun today.

Robert Plank 39:04 Don't wait for perfection. Don't spend more than one hour at a time at the computer. Don't do more than four things per day, and don't let projects take longer than three days. These are just some of the insights you'll discover in our new book The Checklist mindset, claim your copy at WWW dot checklist mindset.com, right now, today, you.