January 27, 2023

CEOs time management / iPhone automations / The 10-3-2-1-0 sleep rule / A grilled cheese hack / Playing instruments from ice

Jan 27, 2023

Welcome to the second issue of Further Faster Fridays! Our goal is curate the best content in personal development and leadership to help you go further, faster.

Thank you to all of you who subscribed, as well as those that sent encouraging messages! It was very nice to have more than 1 person (namely, myself 🤣) enjoy the content. I hope you found the first issue helpful!

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Now, on to the content!

🕰️ How the Best CEOs Get the Most Out of Every Day

A fascinating article from First Round Review:

This year, I spent several weeks leading up to our annual CEO Summit catching up with people I know who do a superhuman job at managing their time. My goal was to capture the tools, tips and hacks they use to make every work hour count. Below, I share eight strategies that have worked for them and for me, so we can all stop wasting time and missing out on opportunities.

A couple tips I found particularly helpful:

Creating a “No template” - I’m a big believer in the understanding that when you say yes to something, you’re also saying no to something else. That’s very hard for me to accept, as I want to say yes to it all. This tip gives some good tips and language for some standardized ‘no templates’.
Managing your energy - I’ve been trying hard to work on this one already this year. Carey Nieuwhof also has some super practical tips in his latest book, “At Your Best”, including the concept of breaking your day into green, yellow and red zones. The tips in First Round’s article are similar, including the 7-minute workout. (Haven’t tried that one yet!)

📱 Seven iPhone Automations You Deserve to Make Life Easier

Being a tech guy, I’m almost ashamed to admit most of this article was new to me. I mean, I’ve heard that you can do automations with your iPhone, but this article has some really great tips. In particular, I’ve set up an automation for my Apple Watch to change the watch face on a schedule. At 7 AM, the automation runs to change my watch face to a ‘modular’ watch face I set up previously that has a lot of info on it (calendar, date, battery, weather, etc). At 5 PM, a second automation runs and changes my watch face to one with just the time, temperature and battery, plus a nice calming blue background. It helps me signal a break to my day. I’ve really enjoyed that, and I’m just scratching the surface on automations.

🛌 The 10-3-2-1-0 Sleep Rule

This article recommends the following for a great night’s sleep:

10 hours before bed – cut out caffeine
3 hours before bed – stop drinking alcohol
2 hours before bed – stop working
1 hour before bed – turn off your screens
0 – never snooze your alarm

I’ve been taking this for a test spin the last 2 weeks. I’m not a coffee guy, so the 10 hours thing isn’t really a big deal. Regarding the 3 hours, I’ll occasionally have a cocktail but not often enough to be considered here. The big pieces I’ve had to contend with are no screens an hour before bed, and never snoozing your alarm. I’m proud to say that I’ve been doing well with eliminating screens an hour before bed. (In a moment of “Really?”, I bought a fiction book to read on my Kindle before bed, which I can justify that as not a screen, since there’s no backlight turned on. I don’t know that I can say just yet how it affects my sleep, but I’ve really been enjoying reading fiction before bed. The last fiction book I bought was my wife’s third book, several years ago.

Regarding the 0 hours… yeah, that’s still a work in progress. Good reasoning in the article, but I’ve still been hitting the snooze! 😕

🧀 How to get a gooey grilled cheese sandwich

A simple, quick tip we’ve been trying out - next time you make your grilled cheese, make it as normal, but leave some room in the pan and put a bit of water on the pan, then cover with a lid. Melted cheese everytime! 😂

🎻 Video: Playing Instruments Made From Ice

“I was an ice sculptor for many years. I decided for one of my sculptures, I’d like to build a giant violin. I had a friend that was building guitars, and he said, ‘Gee, I wonder how that’s going to sound’. That question has swallowed much of the rest of my life.”

Super fascinating video. Cool to see how they light the instruments in the ice as well.

Words to wrap up:

“Be careful what you say to yourself. You are listening.”