Workday Snapshot

I wake up around 6:30 AM from some combination of sunrise or my hue lamp gradually brightening. If neither of those work I have an alarm that goes off at 6:45 AM: currently Jocko Willinks 'Good'. Maybe a bit extra, but also a great mindset to start the day with.

The first thing I do is check my company's slack which is an endless stream of interesting science that is probably a little too addicting for me.

I start a pour over coffee with a Kalita Wave and some Illy, and while the water is heating up make some breakfast. Lately it's been eggs over easy (trying to perfect this) + Skyr vanilla yogurt + a peanut butter Perfect Bar.

While I'm eating I check email and start (re)-prioritizing my todo list (Todoist). I run my day off the Today view which invariably becomes overfilled with leftover tasks from the day before and having planned a few too many things already. I'm working on viewing my today view as a commitment to actually do all the things on it, but when I get super busy I let the task minimalism slide a bit. Goals for this year.

Once I've done some level of re-prioritization I usually end up with 20-30 items on my Today view. Some very small like a reminder to drink more water or hit my protein intake for the day, some way larger like "send investor update", and everything in between.

I check off as many as the small ones as I can and then work on email for a bit. I use Superhuman and try to hit inbox zero as often as I can. I snooze anything non-urgent, archive or respond to anything that takes less than a minute, and then start on the rest.

I usually get down to around inbox 30 by the end of a day and hit zero like once a month (for both work and personal). I've definitely gotten better at this over time as I've put more effort into a) unsubscribing from bullshit (Marie Kondo-ing is a great method for this), b) delegating things that don't actually require my input, and c) just generally trying to respond to the emails that are the hardest as fast as possible.

For the last I've noticed that if I get an email that I'd normally procrastinate on and instead just dive right in and fire off a quick reply I can save myself a bunch of wasted time. Part of this is because procrastination, for me at least, comes from perfectionism. And the longer I wait to respond the higher the bar is for perfect because I could've spent all that time making my response amazing. The quick reply skips all that because it's obvious that I am prioritizing speed over perfection, and in retrospect I almost always hit an acceptable quality bar as well.

After an hour or so of this I'll sometimes go do a HIIT class or workout at my gym until 8 or 9 AM. Or I'll keep working on email and spend some time syncing up with various people on Slack before my calls start for the day. I usually have at least a few hours of calls a day, sometimes I'll be fully booked up, other days (like Wednesday my "no calls day") I'll only have one or two. In between I read papers, communicate with the team, and work on various recruiting, fundraising, and ops stuff. Our lab is in SF so when I am not super booked up I'll work from there so I can interface with the team better.

During the day I usually snack on nuts and cheese and fruit. If I'm at home I'll make a protein shake for lunch (currently: Kachava + frozen blueberries + a Garden of Life fiber blend + milk + creatine = a healthy ~55g/protein). If I'm at the office I'll just snack or run to Plow for a quick second breakfast.

I try to have 3-5 PM blocked from calls so I can spend it on deep work which is only sometimes successful. Usually around 5 I'll work out, go for a run or swim, or do a heated yoga class. At least a few times a week I'll sauna after that and then have dinner. Sometimes I have dinner before and just a small protein shake after working out instead since I definitely sleep better the earlier I eat dinner.

I recently moved into a new apartment and finally set up my kitchen in a way that I enjoy using so lately have been really enjoying making dinner as well. Nothing super fancy, just focusing making simple things well.

I usually work for another hour or so in the evenings after dinner. At 7:30 PM an alarm goes off to remind me to drink more water. I've found that hydrating well a few hours before bed really helps me sleep through the night without needing to wake up to get a drink or micturate. I recently got one of the Stanley mugs that have somehow become a pop culture phenomena and I'm obsessed with it. The best thing about it is how much it lowers the friction for me to stay hydrated. It's got a big handle so it's easy to carry around. It holds a decent amount of water (40 oz) and keeps it cold all day long. And it has a straw that you can drink from at any point with basically zero effort. The fact that the amount of work I need to do to move water into my body is as minimal as possible definitely makes me drink a lot more! It's interesting to me how tactical this feels regarding habit formation. I need to do more friction logs for other things in my life…

At 8 PM all the lights in my apartment turn red which is my cue to start winding down. I try to stop working around 9 and read a book or meditate or just text friends/fam. I usually just turn all my lights off at this point and sometimes light candles. Lately I've been doing Rob Burbea meditations which has completely re-invigorated my love of a good guided meditation.

At 9:50 PM my AC turns on which is another great tactical habit because I hate being cold so it gets me moving towards bed. At 10 PM I have a Shortcut set up that plays three Tibetan singing bowl chimes on the speakers in my bedroom, and then transitions into my favorite Yoga Nidra track. It feels bad to miss any of the latter so I'm almost always in bed before it starts. It's a really nice way to end the day. Setting an intention, doing a full body scan meditation and trying to be fully absorbed in each part of my body, and ending with a short gratitude and relaxation meditation. Doing the ritual of a body scan after intention setting in particular feels like a powerful way to deepen whatever intention I set.

After the twenty minute Yoga Nidra track is over my speakers transition into the Star Trek ambient engine noise, which I personally happen to find deeply relaxing, and I drift off to sleep, ready for another day :)