The daily routine of 17 CEOs
February 2 by KylePott 73 Shares | Lifestyle
Jim Citrin at Yahoo! Finance set out to study the daily routine of 20 CEOs. Surprisingly, he received responses to his survey from 17 of the 20 CEOs polled. Jim’s questions were focused around their daily routines. There was overwhelming similarity between the daily routines of all the CEOs. The following are the most interesting to me:
Start early.
This is the part of your morning routine over which you have the greatest control. To fit it all in, it’s a must to start early. The latest any of the surveyed executives wake up is 6 a.m., and almost 80 percent wake up at 5:30 or earlier.
The early-bird-gets-the-worm award goes to Padmasree Warrior, chief technology officer for Motorola, who rises at 4:30 a.m., spends an hour on email, reads most of the news online, and then does an hour of either cardio or resistance training each morning. This allows her to get her son ready for school and drop him off, and still get to work by 8 or 8:30 in the morning.
Exercise every morning.
It’s often difficult to find a way to fit exercise into your busy schedule, but knowing that some of the most successful businesspeople do so might motivate you to find a way to work it into your routine.
More than 70 percent of the business leaders in my survey perform their exercise in the morning, while 15 percent find a way to do it during the day (one does it late at night before turning in). Only two of the executives admit to not exercising on a regular basis, although one said, “I know I should.”
The individual who demonstrates the greatest exercise discipline is the CEO of a high-performing global technology company (I promised him anonymity so as not to blow his cover). “I exercise at lunchtime,” he says. “I block the time every single day. This is because I’m a runner and that’s the best time to run outside all year long.”
Make family time.
Many business leaders find that the morning encourages important family time. Some have breakfast with their families or make taking kids to school a central part of the morning routine.Clayton, Dubilier & Rice managing partner Kevin Conway lingers at home when he can to help send off all three kids to school. Greg Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media Corporation, says, “I try to talk one of my kids into going outside to get the paper, but end up getting it myself. I then have breakfast with my wife and kids, help the latter get dressed, and drive the older boys to the bus stop at 7:40 a.m.”
The CEO daily routine – [Yahoo! Finance]
The article you reference is a portrait of workaholism. Not what I want to emulate. Working from 5 a.m. until midnight? Sad.
[...] HT: Lifehack.org [...]
Workaholism? Most CEOs I deal with have an excellent family life and love their work.
The schedules above are par for the course for motivated entrepreneurs. One CEO, not my client, leaves work at 4:00 pm or so, to pick the kids up at school or attend after school events, sports, and so on. He will always have dinner with the family. We have coached our daughters’ summer softball teams regularly.
To do this, he tries to be in bed by 7:30 or 8:00 pm. He rises at 1:30 a.m., leaves for the office where he works out for an hour, and starts his day at 2:30 or 3:00 am, when he can be productive with few interruptions for four or five hours before people start coming in. No TV, other than occasional sporting events. Same with the kids.
It’s a great life, they love their work, and they are all very well off. While they have “other interests,” those are on hold until financial goals are met.
What time does their day end? 5 AM to ??10 PM?
I should have added that my CEO friend takes one to three 20 to 30 minute naps during the day whenever he can. Not my choice, but he’s been doing this for 22 years +/-.
Here’s the question to ask: what are these CEOs working 12+ hours per day for? I’ve spent the last five years researching and interviewing to get individual answers to this.
I am a fan of money, but once it’s the driving motivation for even a few years, the job becomes your identity (this is true of entrepreneurs especially), and work becomes the default mode. Not to work all the time leaves a frightening void once other hobbies and interests have atrophied.
This isn’t preaching — I worked 60+ hour weeks for years and was a huge fan of the results-by-volume approach. Having thankfully hit my mid-life crisis early, I now believe that to have all you want and more, there is no “need” to spend more than two hours per day maximum on income-generating activities. Most things matter little, if at all.
Once you narrow things down to one or two “to-do”s that really matter on a daily basis (whether the 5% of customers who bring in 90% of your income or otherwise), there are no excuses to be a workaholic except the most common explanation: fear of creating meaning outside of the office when the rest of the world is postponing life to make a dollar more than the next person.
Sad but true. I’ve been there.
Tim,
I believe that if you are passionate about something and find a way for your passions to pay off as well there is no such thing as being bored. That meaning that you speak of outside the office could very well be what you need to seek out and in turn make profitable.
Some people have hobbies that make them millions. I doubt they think they’re spending too much time on them because they’re fun. Same thing with professions that help other people. If you find a way to make profit while helping others than you can be very happy with the 60+ hour weeks.
This advice is, of course, to be taken only if you want to emulate overworked CEOs.
Otherwise, rise at 9, eat whatever you want, exercise at will, read blogs throughout the day and get your work done while keeping a quality of life.
[...] an article by Lifehack.org called The Daily Routine of 17 CEOs. Jim Citrin at Yahoo! Finance set out to study the daily routine of 20 CEOs. He found that almost [...]
[...] noticed this post on LifeHack.org. He seemed to get it from Yahoo! Finance. This in more regards towards a morning [...]
Talk about being over worked!!! Well, I consider my life to be pretty good as I love what I do and do what I love! And can be found doing it 24/7 at any hour. I’m a Graphic Designer, Cafe Owner, Youth Leader & Mentor, and active in my community. Everything is designed to be enter-twined with one another.
Check out: myspace.com/reds_november
[...] people.” (If you think you’d rather read about the routines of successful CEOs, click here.) Next I came across Martha Stewart’s lovely routine in Martha Stewart Living Magazine. [...]
I totally agree with Tim Ferriss in that, I truly actually work around 2 hours a day and make millions, most job’s and tasks just arn’t worth even caring about if your smart enough to know where you really need to apply yourself. There is really only afew things that really matter. Unfortunately, most staff don’t understand this and need to be trained not to bother you about the useless things.
However in agreeing with you that 2 hours a day is enough, I love my work and find my self in the office for days at a time!
Also, yes, sometimes we spend to long in the office because we fear the world outside our works. For us successful CEO’s we only feel in total control of our life’s only while we are working.
I normally get to the office just as everyone is leaving. This way I can know what happened that day. Then I have the entire place to myself for uninterrupted thought, idea’s & work until about 7am where I go home just before everybody starts coming in.
In-case I am to tired to drive home in the morning. I have a executive apartment built onto the premises in which I can sleep, shower and eat break-feast in.
I have been running international multi-million dollar corporations since age 18.
[...] But I’d like to see how that goes. Did you know that 80 percent of the top CEOs wake up at 5:30 a.m. or earlier? Dooce wakes up at 6, too. Zen Habits listed some great benefits of rising [...]
Hey Australian CEO,
You say you only work 2 hours per day?
But you also say you stay up all night and leave 7am when the other workers get to the office?
I guess you are batman?
Maybe just a fail troll… Multi-million dollar CEO's don't waste their time writing comments about daily routine.
I applied to a company called Ryan Gordon Industries in Boston Ma, and I found out that the Ceo prays everyday and works on all the top projects his self. The company is known for it’s inventions and products. The daily routine of the Ceo is actually a role model for all new hires.
seriously?