Daniel Clough

One dude. Seven foundational health habits.

Life

Think for yourself

For the last few years, I’ve become default sceptical of the ‘herd’ view.

There’s far too many human errors, agendas – and quite frankly corruption in government, mainstream media and within industries to blindly accept their information.

This naturally led me to find the contrarian view for most things. But I’m realising that this is no better than simply blindly conforming.

The point is to think for yourself. Have an open mind. Challenge what appears the norm.

You might think it’s easier than ever to do that – but it might actually be more difficult than ever. There’s simply so much information available for free (good and bad), and so many conflicting opinions that it quickly gets overwhelming. Often there’s also quite a lot of peer pressure to conform to the majority view.

But, it’s worth the effort. No one has your best interests at heart more than yourself. The information you accept and decisions you make, affect your health, career, family, finances and friends. You owe it to yourself and those around you to take the time and effort to think and make decisions for yourself.

A few examples that quickly come to mind are 1. the food pyramid and 2. early covid vaccine claims. Information on both of these topics has changed and evolved significantly over time. Many of the early mainstream views on these topics have not aged well at all. In fact many were downright lies.

More often than not, putting in the effort to think for myself leads me to a view that is at first contrarian – but then softens to something in the middle. It seems going against the grain has something going for it. In fact, nowadays I worry when my belief is a majority belief. I think that just reflects how broken various mainstream information sources are.

But the point isn’t to conform, be contrarian, or even arrive in the middle. It’s to think for yourself. And then, land where you land – importantly, with your own conviction.

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How to maintain a healthy body weight (or gain or lose weight)

I want to give you a really simple strategy for how to reach, and maintain a healthy body weight. I’ve used this strategy myself to lose weight, and I use it today to keep my own body weight at a healthy level, and to stay lean.

It’s not complicated – in fact, once you understand the key principles, it’s really straight forward.

Before we jump into the how, I want to explain why it’s so, so important to maintain a healthy body weight. There are three main reasons.

The first is longevity. It is well established, beyond any doubt, that being at a healthy body weight helps to lower the risk of chronic diseases – including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, and hypertension.

You don’t have to take my word for it. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found a strong association between higher BMI (body mass index) and increased mortality. In the most extreme case, being very obese can cost you up to 13.5 years of your life. Even being just somewhat overweight, you can expect to lose 2-4 years of your life.

In short, you will live longer, and have less disease if you keep a healthy body weight.

The second reason is quality of life. It’s not just about living longer, it’s about having a good life. This is what someone like Peter Attia would call Health span. When you maintain a healthy body weight, you have less inflammation, better mobility and general physical function. This means it’s easier to do day to day things – move around, play with your kids, pick heavy things up, put heavy things above your head etc. At a healthy body weight, life just feels easier, better and is more enjoyable..

The third reason is mental health. I’ll use myself as an example here. I used to weigh 220 lbs. Whilst I wasn’t obese, I was kind of just overweight. At that time of my life, my energy used to be all over the place, and I was regularly tired. I also struggled with a lot of self esteem issues and anxiety.

Today I am 175 lbs and fairly lean with it. One of the biggest surprises to me has been how much better I feel in myself. I have more energy, more confidence and more optimism. I rarely have any anxiety anymore. For me, this has actually been the biggest and most obvious impact of being at a healthy body weight. I just feel a lot better mentally. I’m way more comfortable in my own skin,

I hope that makes it nice and clear why being at a healthy body weight is super, super important.

Before we jump into the how (we’re getting close!), I want to just quickly cover one more thing.

I suspect some people are reading this and thinking – this doesn’t apply to me. I don’t feel obese. I’m not obviously overweight.

I want to share with you two statistics that will blow your mind – and maybe even give you something to think about for your own situation:

1/ Two thirds of the adult population in the United States and at least half the populations of many other developed countries are currently overweight or obese. Yes, TWO THIRDS..

2/ A 2018 study found that only 12% of American adults fully met the criteria for being in optimal metabolic health. They measured metabolic health as having the following 5 things in a good place – blood glucose levels, triglycerides, cholesterol, blood pressure and weight circumference. This means that nearly a whopping 88% of people are metabolically unhealthy and failed on at least one of these metrics.

The reason I refer to these stats, is to highlight that the majority of people are indeed not at a healthy body weight. The majority of people are indeed likely to be metabolically unhealthy.

You don’t have to be obviously very overweight or obese, to find yourself at an unhealthy body weight. Like me when I was 220 lbs, you may just be carrying that extra bit of weight that you assume naturally happens as you get older.

If that’s the case with you, the good news is that you can absolutely change that and get some really big health, longevity and mental health benefits from doing it. In some cases, there may well be many years of extra life to be gained.

Now that we understand why maintaining a healthy weight is so important, let’s talk about how to do it.

Calories in vs. Calories Out

If you’re going to reach and maintain a healthy body weight, the first thing you need to do is to understand the principles of energy balance.

Energy balance is essentially calories in vs. calories out. This is what determines whether we gain weight, maintain our weight, or lose weight.

Let me explain a bit further.

Calories in (i.e energy intake) is the calories you take in every day by eating and drinking..

Calories out (i.e energy expenditure) is the number of calories you burn as a result of being alive, moving around your day to day business and any type of physical activity you do.

To understand how calories in and calories out affect body weight, you need to understand the relationship between the two.

If your calories in and out are the same – you will maintain your body weight. For example, if you consume 2,000 calories through food and drink, and also burn 2,000 calories through activity, your bodyweight will remain roughly the same.

If your calories in are greater than your calories out, you will gain weight. For example, if you consume 2,500 calories through food and drink, and burn only 2,000 calories through activity, your bodyweight will increase. This is called a calorie surplus, and In this case it’s a 500 calorie surplus.

Lastly, if your calories in are less than your calories out, you will lose weight. For example, if you consume 2,000 calories through food and drink, and burn 2,500 calories through activity, your body weight will decrease. This is called being in a calorie deficit, and in this case it’s a 500 calorie deficit.

It really is as simple as that.

Not all calories are equal

I want to address an argument that you might have heard before – not all calories are equal.

What I said about calories in and out and how that affects your weight is absolutely true. However there is something important to understand about the argument that not all calories are equal.

You can’t just ignore what types of calories you consume. For example, if you consume all of your calories through processed foods and junk foods, you’re going to struggle to achieve whatever goal you have for your weight. That’s what people, who use the not all calories are equal argument are getting at.

The problem isn’t that the calories in vs. calories out model is broken. That’s still the most important thing.

However, of the calories you consume, there needs to be a reasonable amount of protein and whole foods.

Why? Surely if it’s all about energy balance, as long as you run the numbers correctly, why does it matter what types of calories they are?

Well, when you are trying to gain, maintain or lose weight, protein is necessary to help you either preserve, maintain or gain muscle for those goals. If you skimp on it, your lean muscle mass is going to be low, which will affect not only your metabolism, but also how good you look 😉

Secondly, the body just operates more efficiently on whole foods. Your overall health and metabolism will be in a much better place, which will help you achieve your bodyweight goal more easily.

Lastly, protein, and the fiber that comes from whole foods is satiating. So, you’re going to find it a hell of a lot easier to regulate your appetite and consistently hit your target calories in, if you’re prioritising protein and whole foods.

Here’s Greg Glassman explaining this perfectly in under a minute.

You know this is true. Try and eat a four egg, whole food omelet. I can guarantee it will leave you feeling full for many hours. Compare that to eating some biscuits, and some chocolate of the same amount of calories. Sure, you feel full at first, but soon after you’re ransacking the pantry for more of those types of foods.

So, whilst calories in vs. calories out IS the most important thing, you have to pay attention to the quality of those calories. If you don’t, not only will you fail to be consistent with eating your target calories, but you’re also not giving your body the best chance to achieve whatever your body weight goal is.

So, in a way, both are true.

Calories in vs. calories out is absolutely the most important thing you need to consider if you want to control your body weight. But, you will fail if you don’t keep an eye on the quality of those calories. You should be eating a reasonable amount of protein, and sticking as many whole foods as you can.

OK, so we’ve covered quite a bit so far – a quick recap.

You should want to achieve a healthy body weight. It will help you live a better, and longer life. And the harsh reality is that more people are either overweight or obese, than at a healthy body weight.

To achieve a healthy body weight, you need to get your calories in and calories out in a place where it supports your goal – being in a calorie surplus to gain weight, being in a calorie deficit to lose weight, or eating the same amount of calories as you burn, to maintain your weight. Keep protein high and eat mostly whole foods.

So, the only thing left to explain is exactly how do you put all of this into practice?

The first thing you need to do is get to the point where you know what your maintenance rate is – essentially how many calories you need to take in to maintain your body weight. That will put you in a position to then adjust things to support your body weight goal.

When I started thinking about this article, I had a grand plan to explain in great detail how you could find your maintenance rate exactly. The problem with this, is it requires tracking your foods and activity in a very consistent and detailed way. As I thought about it more, I realised that if you haven’t done this before, it’s going to be very overwhelming. And actually, most people will either not do it, or find it really hard to do.

Instead of that, I’m going to give you a more high level, rough way of going about it which will definitely work. Then, once you’re into it, you can decide if you want to take it to the next level and get more specific about it.

Here’s what you want to do. You need to run a test for about 4-6 weeks.

To start with, don’t change anything about what you eat or drink (i.e calories in). Also, don’t change anything about the way you’re being active (i.e calories out).

Here’s what I want you to do. Once per week, weigh yourself and record the number. When you do weigh yourself, try and do it at the same time per week, so that the number you get can be a good comparison.

Do that for 4-6 weeks.

If your weight hasn’t changed much at all, then you’re pretty nicely maintaining your weight at the moment, through how much you’re eating and drinking (calories in) and how much activity you’re doing (calories out).

Regardless of what the specific number of calories in vs out is, you know if you keep things roughly the same on both sides of the equation, you’ll stay at the weight you’re at.

Let’s say you want to lose weight. You will need to make a small adjustment to either reduce the calories in (i.e less of what you’re eating and drinking), and / or increase the calories out (i.e more activity). This will put you in a calorie deficit.

If you do that and continue to monitor your weight once per week, you should see your weight start to decrease. Keep doing that, until it stops working (it tends to stop working after a while because you have achieved a new maintenance rate). When it does, you have to do the same again – until you reach your target body weight.

Like wise, if you want to gain weight, you just do the opposite. You will need to either increase the calories in (i.e more of what you’re eating and drinking), and / or, decrease the calories out (i.e less activity).

Again, if you do that and continue to monitor your weight once per week, you should see your weight slowly and consistently increase. Keep doing that, until it stops working. When that happens, simply adjust again until you’re at your target body weight.

There’s one last thing I’ll say about this. When you’re running your maintenance test, or indeed trying to maintain, lose or gain weight – you want to try and keep calories in and out consistent. Remember, we’re not meticulously tracking the exact number of calories in and out (i.e the overwhelming bit), so you are doing this more by feel.

My best advice for this is to try and stick to the same type of eating and drinking patterns (calories in), and try and stick to the same level of physical activity (calories out).

For example, if you’re running a marathon one week, and being mostly sedentary the next week – it just won’t work because there’s too much change at the same time. The same would be true if you were to be fasting aggressively one week, and then completely off the wagon the next week.

My maintenance rate

I want to wrap with an example of my own maintenance rate, and how I use this to either gain or lose weight. I think this will be some useful context that can help make everything even clearer.

I know my maintenance rate, based on how physically active I am, is 2,300 calories.

You might notice that in my case, I know my exact number. That’s because I went through a more detailed process of tracking my food intake (i.e using an app to track my calories), whilst at the same time keeping my level of physical activity extremely consistent (sticking to the same type and amount of workouts, and steps). It’s basically the same type of test as I explained above, but using real numbers for the calories in (i.e food and drink).

Broken down in a bit more detail…

When I weight train three times a week, do 2 hours of zone 2 cardio, and walk 10K steps a day – AND when I eat 2,300 calories – my body weight stays the same. I literally did this for 6 weeks and during that time my body weight stayed very much the same. I was kinda lucky it stayed the same, because it meant I didn’t need to go through any trial and error (i.e adjustment up or down) to hone in on my maintenance rate.

This information is very valuable to me. By knowing this, I can now precisely manipulate my body weight.

Earlier in the year, I wanted to lose some weight for my summer holiday. So, here’s what I did. I simply ate 2,100 calories – 200 calories less than my maintenance rate. I also swapped out one of my three weight training sessions for a conditioning workout (increasing my physical activity slightly). This put me in a calorie deficit of at least 200 calories, but probably more like 250 taking into account the increase in physical activity also.

What do you know, I consistently dropped weight over an eight week period – a total of about 10 lbs (just over a lb per week). It dropped off quicker at the beginning, probably because I got close to the maintenance level of my new weight towards the end. However, the overall result was exactly what I had hoped for.

Now that I’m back, I have the opposite goal – I’m trying to very slowly gain weight. So, I have increased my calories to 2,500, which should put me in roughly a 200 calorie surplus based on a 2,300 calorie maintenance rate. As a result, I’m now slowly putting on about 1lb per week.

Like I said, I’m tracking things in a much more precise way than the beginner way I described earlier. But, the concept is the same. You have to be able to know what it takes to maintain your weight when it comes to how many calories you’re taking in (i.e food and drink) and how many calories you’re burning (i.e how physically active you are). When you know that, you can simply adjust either of those to achieve any type of body weight goal you want.

Wrap up

I hope that’s useful and can help put you in a position to more easily reach and maintain a healthy body weight. I hope you also know now just how important it is to do exactly that – it will give you a longer, better quality life.

It’s worth reflecting on where you are on the spectrum of needing to lose or gain weight. And from there, consider running the maintenance rate test to figure out your maintenance rate – and then adjust accordingly for whatever your body weight goal is.

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A major setback (and how I will come back stronger)

I hurt my back in the gym this week. My initial reaction was one of frustration, because I’ve been here plenty of times before. This is going to mean a painful week of not doing much – followed by a couple of weeks of walking and then gently getting back into things. I’m probably six weeks away from training properly.

For a few hours following the injury, the frustration turned to anger. I was so pissed off with facing the reality of a setback. My mind started to go into a dark place. Is this going to turn into six months of pain, like I’ve experienced before?

But, then I surprised myself. I took a step back. I can’t let myself think like this. OK, it’s fine to feel sorry for myself for one day. But, that’s it. Now I have to take this situation by the scruff of the neck, think positive and move forward.

And that’s exactly what I’ve done. As I look back on how I’ve had to think about this setback, a framework became clear to me.

There’s always a silver lining

It sounds cheesy, but it’s true – there usually is a silver lining. Sometimes you just have to stop being pissed off to notice it.

I’ve been struggling to shake off some pain in my shoulder and hand recently. There’s not quite enough time between weights sessions to give them the rest they need. In the five days I’ve not been able to train, the pain has already reduced a lot. This period of rest is perhaps exactly what my body needed right now to shift these smaller injuries.

Take the learning

Every time I get an injury, I’m able to reflect and see why it happened. Whilst it’s frustrating not to notice in the moment, it becomes a learning moment that will make me stronger going forward.

This week, I switched my usual warm up for some back core endurance movements I want to focus on. Whilst these movements are exactly what I need to do for long term back health, they are not the best warm up. The best warm up is one that prepares me for the session ahead.

I’ve been able to get stronger on the landmine squat for the last 8 weeks. My previous warm ups were great, because they prepared my body specifically for this movement. Everything had been feeling so good. It’s not a coincidence that as soon as I removed my specific warm up, I injured myself immediately (literally, on the descent of the first rep!).

I just got a very painful reminder on how important it is to warm up specifically for my workouts.

You get to come back stronger

Setbacks suck, but if you take the learning, you absolutely will come back stronger.

Here’s a visual I stole from the internet that describes that really well:

Once I’m able to get back into things, I can guarantee I will do my specific warm ups with twice the resolve, and twice the intention. I’m gonna be the WARM UP GUY. I’ll be more prepared going into the training session than ever before.

It’s an opportunity to re-prioritise

If you ‘re no longer able to do X, it now becomes an opportunity to focus on Y.

I’ve been procrastinating on stretching my chest every day to help with the shoulder pain. I now have no excuse. This is the perfect opportunity to double down on this and make it happen.

Work is also going through a very busy period. When this happens, I always struggle to balance work and life. Less time in the gym means it will be easier to give work what it needs in this busy period.

I’ll also triple down on the base of the pyramid.

—

Look, I’m going to be fine. If I look at the big picture, this is nothing more than a mere blip – one that will only make me stronger. That’s how I need to look at it. I will simply redirect my focus and discipline towards what this new situation needs. And, do it with a positive attitude.

Perhaps one of the best things to come out of this setback, is this framework for dealing with a setback. Next time I get hit with a setback, I’ll be thinking about these five things:

  • Allow myself to be pissed off – but only for a very short while
  • What’s the silver lining?
  • What’s the learning?
  • How will it make me come back stronger?
  • How will I now re-prioritise?

As soon as you get clear on these, the comeback can begin!

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You’re using social media completely wrong

Using social media is a massive net negative for most people. But, it doesn’t have to be.

Social media is addictive, time wasting, distracting, anxiety inducing, [fill in the blanks]. However, the benefits also can’t be ignored. It can help you connect with new people, learn, be inspired, grow a business, build a career, [fill in the blanks].

Here’s the kicker. Social media products are designed to get as much of your attention as possible. This is their singular goal. Your attention is tied to the business model. The longer you spend on them, the more money they make. You ARE the product. Social Media companies have some of the smartest product people and engineers in the world to be the best at getting your attention. You don’t stand a chance against them.

Most people don’t even realise how big a net negative their use of social media is. If you’re a parent, you know. Because at some point your child has enthusiastically wanted to show you something that they really care about – and you’ve told them to ‘wait a minute’ because you’re engrossed with something on Twitter or Instagram that doesn’t matter. I’ve done it, and you’ve done it.

But, there is absolutely a way to use social media to a massive net positive – to have your cake and eat it. You can get all of the benefits, and hardly any of the negatives. But, you have to flip everything on its head.

At the heart of the problem is four things:

  • not knowing why you use social media
  • following people too loosely (linked to the first one)
  • using the feed
  • using it daily

I use social media in a way which negates all of the above things.

Firstly, I know exactly why I use social media. I use it to get ideas, learn and to be inspired. The areas I care about are health and mindset. That’s it. I don’t care what my friends are up to. I don’t care about the news. I don’t care about celebrities. I don’t care about businesses.

If you use social media without a goal (or too broad a goal), you’re going to get completely lost. So, take some time to decide exactly what you want out of it.

Secondly, I don’t ‘follow’ anyone, and I never use the feed:

This is the opposite of the normal user experience of social media products. Following a lot of people and using the feed is at the heart of the addictiveness of these products. Trust me, you have no chance if you use them this way.

Now, the obvious question this brings up is – how the hell do I actually consume content if I don’t follow anyone, or use the feed?

Easy. I bookmark (using my computer) the profiles of people whose content I want to consume. And I categorise them to organise everything:

Here are my high level categories:

Here are the profiles I have bookmarked in my health category:

This leads us to the mistake of following people too loosely. You have to curate these profiles very strictly. Every one of these people consistently produces content that is useful and matches why I want to use social media. I also look for people who have a high ratio of usefulness / number of posts.I don’t want to wade through lots of unuseful posts, to find one useful post – it’s too time consuming. Now and again, a profile will fall outside of my rules (maybe they end up posting more frequently, or I find their posts less useful). When that happens, I remove the bookmark. You have to stay on top of curating the profiles you follow.

Now for the last mistake – using social media daily (or like 50 times a day for most people!). It’s a terrible idea and completely unnecessary. It’s much better to batch everything and have one weekly session. In that weekly session, you consume all content from your curated list of bookmarked profiles.

I set aside an hour at the weekend to review the last week’s worth of social media posts from the profiles I’ve bookmarked. I start by firing up the bookmarks manager in Google Chrome. Then, I head over to my first category folder (Health). I right click it, and choose to open each profile in a different tab. Fourteen tabs immediately pop up – one for each profile. I skim through each one and review the last week of posts. I usually find something interesting or thought provoking for each profile – an idea, something I didn’t know, or something that inspires me. But, at the very least I will come across a handful of very useful posts across all profiles. That makes my hour very easily a net positive.

I’ll give you a real example. I spent about 45 mins yesterday (Sunday) doing my weekly social media check in. One of the things that stood out was this post – Choose Allies Over Comfort. It’s stuck with me since. It got me thinking about my friends and how this principle shows up (and where it doesn’t). This alone is well worth 45 mins of my time.

By using social media like this, you’re much more likely to get value out of the content you consume. You could also easily reduce over fifteen hours of social media usage per week [1] down to one hour. That’s FOURTEEN hours of your life you get back.

Two last tips for you.

Remove all social media apps on your phone. There’s not enough friction between you and the app to avoid the temptation to use it several times a day. Instead, limit your social media usage to your computer, and a time blocked session once per week. After, close the browser, and get on with your life.

If you’re creating and posting content on more than a weekly basis, try and also do it from the computer. Post, and shut the browser. Some apps make this hard (i.e Instagram). I literally delete and re-install instagram on a daily basis to make daily posts and check any replies (I really need to find a better way of doing this!).

[1] Daily time spent on social networking by internet users worldwide from 2012 to 2023

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The fear mongering news cycle

The fear mongering news cycle is so obvious, but it works every time.

  • The media decide to rally behind something that will trigger fear in us (i.e a there is a risk that a shortage of lorry drivers may cause some petrol shortages)
  • The media sensationalise the story with the goal of selling papers or getting clicks (i.e we’re going to run out of petrol and we’ll all be screwed)
  • A minority of people panic, react and do stupid things (immediately rush to drive to the petrol station to fill up their cars, petrol cans etc.)
  • This behaviour actually causes the sensational story that the media were responsible for to come true (so they look like they were right AND they sell even more papers and get more clicks as they continue to cover it)
  • Everything goes back to normal and settles down. We forget about it and move on.
  • Repeat

It’s depressing that our media and news system is so broken. It’s one sensational story after another with either an agenda or simply the goal of stirring us up to sell more papers and get more clicks.

Life is much better when you ignore the news. You won’t become ignorant and you won’t miss out on anything that actually makes a difference to your life. You’ll just shut away the noise so you can focus on the things that matter in your life.

I’m not perfect at ignoring the news. I used to be, but the COVID Pandemic pulled me back into a bad habit of checking the news every day. Whilst I’m not part of the group that panics and reacts, I’m still exposing myself to unnecessary noise. So, I’m going to make a big effort from today to let go of my daily checking the news habit.

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Five things that have helped me be effective at work in lockdown

Lockdown has been very challenging for me. It’s taken me much longer to adapt to working from home than I would have expected.

I’ve struggled with a lot of things – video call fatigue, work / life balance, focus and motivation – to name a few. If I’m honest, I lost my edge at times. I feel like I’ve had the least impact I’ve had over a three month period for a long time.

That said, over the last few weeks I’m getting into a much better place with it. I’ve been reflecting on what’s helped the most, and five things came to mind:

Lowering my expectations

I got very frustrated in the first half of lockdown. I wasn’t able to operate at the level I was used to – perhaps, about half as effective. I felt detached from what was going on.

It’s really important for me to feel like I’m being effective. I have to be able to see how I’m having a significant and obvious impact. And this kinda slipped away from me.

I got frustrated and was very hard on myself. It took one of my colleagues to remind me that it was unrealistic to perform at the same level. Our whole world had been turned upside down after all, and it was going to take some time to settle into it.

Immediately, something clicked into place for me. From that moment on, I lowered my expectations and was kinder to myself. That helped me see things more clearly, and I was able to more calmly re-organise myself.

The balance between meeting, doing and thinking

Before lockdown started, my week was beautifully organised. There was an almost perfect balance between meetings, doing and thinking – which I think is essential for any manager to operate at peak. This was no fluke, I designed it that way.

As soon as we went into lockdown, it went out the window. Meetings expanded to fill most of the space in the week. I found myself on back to back video calls, with hardly any time to do anything – let alone space to think.

I fell behind on things and made some rushed, poor decisions. Urgent topics dominated my day. I found it harder to spot problems heading our way, and felt super overwhelmed.

Only recently have I been able to get this balance back – and WHAT a difference it’s made. I’m back to feeling in control, and on top of things. I’m spending more time on important things, and less on urgent things. I’m still in alot of meetings – but, I now have time to get stuff done, and also some space to think. How did I get that balance back? That leads me onto the next thing…

Re-organising my calendar, and my time

When I was at my most overwhelmed, I decided to take a step back and make some ruthless changes to my calendar. I’ve always been very good at managing my time, but my old system wasn’t dealing with lockdown very well.

I went back to basics, and re-thought everything. I stopped some 121’s, and reduced others in frequency and length. I stepped out of some recurring group meetings, and decided others were now optional. I went back to an old system of reserved time blocks for interviews.

The above gave me a LOT more space straight away. At the beginning of each week I’m now much more disciplined about getting my calendar exactly how I want it. It has to be the right ratio of meetings, doing and thinking. I start by getting my meetings how they need to be. I then time box two or three blocks which I reserve for focused work. After that, I need to see enough free space around the meetings and focus blocks. This gets used for spontaneous things, or as space to think.

This week was a perfect example. Monday morning was full of meetings, with the afternoon mostly free. Tues was back to back meetings (rare, but I had a lot going on). I had the entire morning Weds for focused work, and the afternoon for meetings. Thurs is off (I work four days a week). And Friday is about 2 or 3 hours of meetings, and the rest would have been a mix of focus work, and free space, but is now a holiday (more on this below). I’ve felt great the whole week, and already feel confident the week will end well.

Shutting down

Over the last few years I’ve gotten very good at being on when I’m on, and off when I’m off. I leave the house, commute to work, and then double down on work. When I’m done, I commute home, walk in the house, and then my laptop rarely comes back out. I have no work emails, messengers or calendars on my phone. This structure helped create a separation between the work and my own life.

Lockdown disrupted that pattern. I found myself working later, and also into the evenings. Part of it was because I no longer had a clear separation between work and the rest of my life. The other part was, I was feeling overwhelmed and my expectations were running away with me. So, I compensated by trying to work more (never sustainable, and usually always a bad idea).

It took awhile for me to lower my expectations, and re-organise my calendar and time to get into a better place. I also took some of Cal Newport’s advice about having a shut down ritual. I am trying to be more conscious about setting the time at which I will stop working when I plan my day out. At the end of the day I try and clear any unread emails, and then I shut my laptop.

This is still a work in progress. I completely failed at that last night. I opened my emails to check on something about 8PM, and from there got sucked into some other email topics. I ended up doing that until about 9.30PM. I wish I hadn’t because some of the frustration of those topics stuck with me and I found it much harder to sleep. I knew when I was doing it, it was stupid. But, I did it anyway and and then felt stupid afterwards 🙂

That said, I’m much better than I was a few weeks ago, and it’s helped me get most of my evenings back.

Walking calls

This seems to be something a lot of people I’ve spoken to have found useful. There’s something about being on video calls that is draining. It also tends to keep you in the same spot for a long time.

I started to take some of my meetings on my phone, and whilst I walked outside. This broke up the day. It got me moving, some fresh air, and away from video for a bit. The days I do this and far less exhausting.

Don’t try and multi-task looking after a five year old, and doing work

If you’re on the ball today, you’ll notice this is the sixth thing 😉 I couldn’t resist.

When you try to multitask parenting and work, all that happens is you do both badly. My heart goes out to people that are forced into this because of their situation. Ella and I feel very grateful and lucky. We’re both continuing to work and have income. Ella works part-time, so has been able to handle the bulk of the home schooling. She’s also a teacher, so she has a leg up on most people. I really do appreciate how lucky we are.

But, there have been times when Ella has had to go to work, and I tried to juggle both. It left me super frustrated at doing neither well. I rushed my work, and neglected Fearne (my daughter).

Fearne’s school shuts down at midday on a Friday, so they can deep clean in the afternoon. Ella works Friday, so I have been on childcare for the last two Friday afternoons. I’m also on the hook for the next 4 weeks.

I tried to juggle both in the first week, and it was a car crash. I’ve since booked my Friday afternoons off as holiday for the next four weeks. That way, I can just focus on having a nice time with Fearne. A far better way of going about it!

I hope you find these useful. If you’ve found something particularly useful, feel free to drop me a line and let me know.

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Three reasons morning routines don’t work (and how to stick to one you love)

Waking early and making good use of the early hours is the biggest life hack there is — no exception. It’s a competitive advantage that almost feels like you’re cheating. You’re getting stuff done whilst most other people are sleeping like babies!

But, it can be hard to find one you like doing and will stick to (these are linked).

In my experience, there are three things that are at the root of not sticking to a morning routine:

[Read more…] about Three reasons morning routines don’t work (and how to stick to one you love)