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Discipline equals freedom.
—Jocko Willink
Bill Gates has a lot more money than you do. Okay, duh. No earth-shattering revelation there. But in at least one respect, you and Bill are equals. You both get 24 hours every day to do something with your respective lives.
Be More Productive Than Slothful
If you want to get ahead financially, you need to do a lot of things right. And the best place to start in this regard is by being more productive than slothful. “Win” the day routinely over the course of several years and you dramatically increase the likelihood of you knowing financial nirvana. It’s as straightforward as that.
So how do you win the day? Again, if you turn to Functional Brain Engagement (FBE), the answer is pretty straightforward. But before I reveal that answer, I have to make a few assumptions. Here they are.
Assumptions
- You sleep 8 hours a day.
- Your sloth is relatively harmless. You watch reality TV, play video games, or get lost in Facebook. You don’t smoke crack, get blotto, live at the racetrack, or hang out in ISIS chat rooms.
- By productive, I mean you’re either making money, honing your skills, or learning how to be a better steward of your life and your money.
Okay, if you’re sleeping 8 hours a day, that leaves you with 16 hours to be either productive or slothful. If you’re productive for 8 hours and 1 minute, and your sloth is basically harmless, you’ve won the day. Let’s now see how you can win the day painlessly by using FBE.
Winning the Day Painlessly
| Action | Description | Time in Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Mindful Commute to Work | Listen to a podcast or a YouTube video that pertains to personal finance or self-improvement. | 0.5 |
| Mindful Work | Perform your duties and use any down time you come across to hone your skills. | 8.0 |
| Mindful Commute Home | Listen to a podcast or a YouTube video that pertains to personal finance or self-improvement. | 0.5 |
| Total Hours | 9.0 | |
The cornerstone of FBE is sniffing out opportunity and doing something with it. Your commute, whether you’re walking, sitting on a bus, or driving a car, is an opportunity. It’s a half hour or longer in which you can safely multi-task. So don’t waste it by listening to talk radio or music. Do something productive. Use your smartphone to listen to a podcast or a YouTube channel that pertains to personal finance or self-improvement. Here are some of the podcasters and YouTubers I currently listen to.
| Show | Type | Subject |
|---|---|---|
| Beat the Bush | YouTube | Personal Finance |
| Brian Johnson | YouTube | Self-Improvement |
| Happier with Gretchen Rubin | Podcast | Self-Improvement |
| Minority Mindset | YouTube | Personal Finance |
| Radical Personal Finance | Podcast | Personal Finance |
| So Money with Farnoosh Torabi | Podcast | Personal Finance |
| Stacking Benjamins | Podcast | Personal Finance |
| The Art of Manliness | Podcast | Self-Improvement |
| The School of Greatness | Podcast | Self-Improvement |
| The Tim Ferriss Show | Podcast | Self-Improvement |
FBE can serve you well at work too. After all, you’re trapped there for 8 hours. Why not take advantage of every opportunity you stumble upon during that sentence?
To make the most of work, you got to be productive on two fronts. First, do your job very well. Be competent, dependable, and affable. Do this and you’ll get your fair share of bonuses and promotions. Second, don’t waste any downtime you’re blessed with by flitting around on social media or by bullshitting with your buds. Use this time where you can safely ignore your job (i.e., your inattention won’t screw your boss or coworkers) to improve your skills or knowledge.
How much downtime you have during the workday, and what skills or knowledge you wish to improve during that time, will depend on your job and your interests, of course. In my last job, for instance, I had an hour or so of downtime on most workdays. And since I was a data analyst, I used that downtime to hone my database and programming skills. What productive use you make of your downtime is entirely up to you. The bottom line is this: Unless your job is super intense, downtime won’t be an ultra-scarce resource. Use whatever comes your way wisely.
“Okay, okay,” I hear you rumbling. “I get how being mindful with your commute and your workplace downtime will ensure a productive day. But what if I don’t want to eek out a marginally productive day? What if I want my productive hours to totally blow away my slothful hours?”
Ah, I love it. How much poorer this world would be without plucky go-getters!
For those of you who want to be super productive, your waking hours need to have 3 productive hours for every 1 slothful hour. This means you must have 12 productive hours during the day. It can be done, of course. But it means carving out productive hours before and after work. The following table is an example of how that might be arranged.
Winning the Day Audaciously
| Action | Description | Time in Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Acquaint yourself with a Foreign Language | Do several Duolingo lessons or watch something that's spoken in your chosen language. | 0.5 |
| Exercise | Move and do resistance training. | 0.5 |
| Clean | Clean something in your house or apartment. | 0.5 |
| Mindful Commute to Work | Listen to a podcast or a YouTube video that pertains to personal finance or self-improvement. | 0.5 |
| Mindful Work | Perform your duties and use any down time you come across to hone your skills. | 8.0 |
| Mindful Commute Home | Listen to a podcast or a YouTube video that pertains to personal finance or self-improvement. | 0.5 |
| Participate in Dinner Beyond the Act of Eating | Either prepare dinner or clean up after dinner. | 0.5 |
| Read | Read anything that doesn't pollute your brain. | 1.0 |
| Total Hours | 12.0 | |
Talking Trash with Mr. Groovy
Okay, groovy freedomists, that’s all I got. What say you? Are you more productive than slothful? Is my understanding of productivity valid? And how about my plan to “win” the day? Is it really as straightforward as being more mindful with your commute and your workplace downtime? While you ponder those questions, I leave you with another episode of Talking Trash. Have a swell weekend. Peace.
Oh….my dream is to be hyper-productive and not waste any time. But, alas, I’m addicted to social media.
Well, when I want it badly enough, I’ll get unaddicted.
BTW–for podcasts, you can also brush up on other, non-finance topics (though I would add Dave Ramsey to your list). Freakonomics, Stuff You Missed in History, Radiolab and Planet Money are all fascinating and educational.
Another idea is to listen to books on tape or, if you are learning a foreign language, books on tape in that language.
Love the morning routine Mr.G. I try and be more productive than slothful. If I do plan to goof off, I use it as a reward, making sure I get all of my productive stuff in first.
Exactly, Brian. Being hard on yourself early in the day allows for some guilt-free sloth later in the day.
Thanks Mr. Groovy for the Duolingo tip. Just had my first lesson and am now 7% fluent. Maybe if you add that to my few words of medical Spanish and my food Spanish I might be at 10%.
Hey, Alicia. Learning Spanish is a slog. My Duolingo streak is now up to 597 days. And I’m still lost when I watch La Raina Del Sur on Netflix. But I can discern the meaning of most articles in Spanish newspapers. So it’s coming along, however slowly. Good luck.
I have been trying to be more disciplined with the way that I spend time. I have been waking up at 5am in order to work out for an hour in the morning and I feel terrific after the workout. Although I am definitely dragging by the end of the day. I definitely need to add more podcasts on my commute home. I usually zone out which is not nearly as productive. So thanks for the great reminder!!!
Strategically used, podcasts are a godsend. Mrs. G and take advantage of them on our trips to and from Wake Forest. Without them, three hours of radio would be tough. And I hear you about dragging by the end of the day. On the days I get up at 4:30, I’m pretty much useless by 9 pm.
I definitely lack productivity on certain days. I have found that when I get back from a trip it takes longer to adjust and I find myself wasting a ton of hours doing absolutely nothing. I think I need to get back to a check off list to help navigate my day when autopilot is all I can muster so this post is going to come in handy!
FYI – another great podcast some of your younger or non FI readers may be interested in is ChooseFI. If you haven’t given them a listen check it out! 🙂
Hey, Miss M. I hear you about the lack of productivity. I find that if I don’t do my morning miracle, so to speak, I run the extreme risk of being a wastoid for the day. For me, sloth definitely begets sloth. And thanks for the podcast tip. I never heard of ChooseFI before. Mrs. G and I will listen to it today on our walk.
LOL, he’s heard Choose FI before but didn’t know the name. And I’ve been in touch with Jonathan and Brad to get Mr. G on for an interview.
The episode we heard yesterday was excellent — Justin from Root of Good. Anyone bent on retiring early and especially with children, should give a listen.
Time is money. The way one spends time determines whether one is losing money or making money. We need to invest our time wisely.
Very true, my friend.
Really interesting article. I like the idea of just aiming to win each day.
I love the idea of Duolingo in the morning. Learning a foreign language is always on my “Someday, Maybe” list, but I never actually get to it in any meaningful way.
I get up before everyone else and start my day with some stretches, some exercise, a walk, meditation, and a page of journaling. I’ve found that actually checking those things off my to do list first thing in the morning helps me get a jump start to my day.
You win the morning, you win the day. After reading Tim Ferriss’s Tools of Titans, I’m intrigued by meditation and journaling. Those two habits seem to be very common among the Titans. Check out Duolingo when you get a chance. It’s a very painless way to start the learning process.
Great stuff. A successful life is a collection of days that we can say we won. The day provides so many opportunities for victory. Do your job, exercise, read, try to be creative, help someone, learn about new topics. The options are limited.
Agreed. Winning the day is actually easy if you’re a thinker and a doer. The problem is that too many Americans have grown too comfortable with sitting and complaining. And perpetual victims rarely win the day. Meh. Thanks for stopping by, Dave. There’s an awful lot of wisdom in your comment. Cheers.
I try to delete slothfulness but still enjoy an hour of tv a night. It’s a good time to get onto forums and discussions.
As for the rest- your right. Maximize and optimize – moptimize! Your day
TV was definitely one of my vices. That’s probably the biggest reason Mrs. G and I cut the cord. An hour of TV a night is reasonable. But we were watching way more than that. Cutting the cord made it easier to moptimize. Thanks for stopping by, my friend. And thanks for coining “moptimize.” Great freakin’ word.
I’m getting more slothful as I get older. I’m just not driven to be productive anymore. This hedonistic adaptation seems like a natural progression for early retirees. Now, I enjoy reading, cooking, and spending time with my kids much more than working.
Before I retired from my full time job, I was much more productive. Full time job, blogging 3x per week, and a baby. It was nuts.
Haha! I’m the opposite. I got less slothful as a got older. Prior to my late 30s, I was a bum. But we are the same when it comes to gainful employment. Don’t miss that at all. It’s much more fun working or keeping busy when it’s for things that excite you. Thanks for stopping by, Joe. And kudos to your productivity before you called it quits. Full time job + 3 blog posts per week + a baby + a wife = a tremendous freakin’ feat. You’re a far better man than I ever was.
I’m absolutely with you on enriching yourself during your commute. I only had a 15-minute commute at my job, but would usually listen to Tim Ferriss podcasts on the way there and back at 1.5x speed. I could get through an episode every day or two and the time between listening sessions gave me time to process what I had learned.
Hey, Chris. I was allowed to work from home before I discovered podcasts. I wish I would have known about them sooner. There’s only one main road heading east out of uptown Charlotte. If that road had just one minor accident, my commute home would double from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. Brutal. Podcasts definitely make the war of commuting much more tolerable. Tim Ferriss is a nut, but in a good way. Mrs. G and I queue him up every other week during our walks. I’ll have to give the 1.5x a try. Thanks for stopping by, my friend.
I definitely need to start learning another language! I love your plan and how you make that a priority. My father suffers from Alzhemier’s and one thing that is big in the literature to help prevent it is to keep learning and challenging our minds. Developing app’s, writing an ebook and a blog, learning a language – you’ve got this thing nailed, Mr. G! Love it!
My Duolingo streak is up to 586 days! I find that I can now make out the gist of most periodicos. But when I watch a Mexican novella or listen to Spanish radio, I’m completely lost. I may catch one word out of twenty.
Where this love of learning came from I can’t say. If I had to pinpoint one thing, though, it would be this. Do you remember Leo Buscaglia? I believe it was in his book Living, Loving, and Learning that he told about his father’s dinner routine. Every night when the family sat down to dinner, his father would go around to each of the children and ask them what they had learned that day. And Leo and his siblings had to come up with one thing. I always thought that was pretty cool. He forced his children to do at least one productive thing every single day.
Thanks for the kind words, Vicki. And God bless your dad. Alzhemier’s isn’t fun.
Thought provoking article. I try to follow many of the concepts here (been doing podcasting on commute for last year, and it has certainly helped my morale and personal outlook).
I always exercise in the mornings, though evening walks with my spouse might be a good thing to start.
I try to do some woodworking for the first hour I am home (or yardwork) but sometimes the motivation isn’t there.
I hear ya, Kevin. The longer I wait to do the things that are really important to me the less likely they’re going to get done. If I don’t do my workout in the morning or work on my ebook, I often find an excuse not to do either in the evening. Sigh. Willpower and discipline muscles that weaken as the day progresses.
Nice! I love being productive and winning the day. Days I don’t feel productive feel like failed days to me. I start early and stick with my plan!
I feel the same way. With just a little effort, there’s no reason why every day can’t be a win. Just listen to one podcast. Read one chapter in a book. Make a stranger smile. If I don’t do something productive, I feel like total slug. Love your style, Lance. Have a great weekend, my friend.