I Haven't Been Living By My Brand...

Jim wakes up at 4:30 a.m. and reluctantly climbs out of bed.

He gets in the gym, goes to work, then comes home.

This is where most people stop.

Instead of grabbing a bag of chips and jumping right into a Netflix show, he starts on his side hustle.

By the time he’s wrapping up with work, it’s already 10:30 p.m. Jim consistently gets less than 6 hours of sleep.

By the end of the week, he’s burnt out. Not only is he not seeing the results he is looking for, but he feels tired and lost…

Have you ever heard that line before?

It couldn’t be more true.

You only have so much time in the day and you must make the most of it.

So why am I telling you this?

The #1 Lesson I’ve Learned From Working 100+ Hours A Week.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been putting in well over 100 hours a week between going to school, growing my personal brand, and working for a marketing agency.

This past week I learned a major lesson about productivity, consistency, and energy.

And surprisingly, it had nothing to do with discipline or working harder. It’s actually the exact opposite…

You see, I knew that this routine would not be sustainable from the get-go.

Humans are not supposed to work 16+ hours a day. After all, we are hard-wired to rest for 1/3 of the day.

So what was this lesson?

I Haven’t Been Living By My Brand. (Falling Into The Hustle Trap)

As the weeks passed, I started to slowly break down and become unmotivated. 

What used to be my passion had to become systemized in order to fit into my schedule.

Multiple times a week I began burning out & struggling to continue on, forcing myself into taking breaks.

I began relying on caffeine to keep me going with something that I used to truly enjoy doing…

I wasn’t doing the very thing I preach: prioritizing health > wealth.

I fell into the hustle trap.

The Annoying Truth: You Can’t Do Everything At Once…

The annoying truth is this: You can’t do everything at once.

Without natural energy, you can’t be consistently productive.

Sure you can drink an energy drink…

Sure you can take a nap…

But how long will you be able to stay consistent having to rely on these things?

How To Allocate Your Energy To Avoid The Wrath of Burnout.

Jim is always working on something.

He has so much going on in his life that it becomes a struggle just to maintain where he’s currently at, let alone get ahead.

His focus is split into 8 different directions, trying to improve himself in every way possible all at once.

This is simply not sustainable and he will burn out.

Mike has one or two responsibilities. That’s it.

He’s able to easily and consistently make progress in those areas as his energy is going in fewer directions.

The reason you feel you aren’t making progress is that you are adding into so many different buckets that you can’t make a difference in one.

The fewer buckets you have, the more progress you make.

How I Saved Myself From Burnout With The Eisenhower Matrix

With my focus split 5 different ways, I found it incredibly difficult to make meaningful progress in any area of my life.

I knew exactly what I had to do to get back to my usual productive self…

In the latest Elevated State Podcast Trung and I discussed the importance of prioritization when it comes to staying productive.

Dwight Eisenhower was the most productive President. He was well-known for being able to stay ‘locked in’ for not years, but decades at a time.

So what was his secret?

He used a system to make decisions that would later be named after him.

Here’s how it works…

The 4 Components of the Eisenhower Matrix

• Do: Tasks that need to get done ASAP.

• Decide: Tasks that can be scheduled to do for later.

   

• Delegate: Tasks that can be done for you.

• Delete: Tasks that should be eliminated.

When I looked at this for myself, I realized how much time I was wasting on tasks that did not matter.

It’s as simple as that.

Limited time is a blessing in disguise.

You have to spend your time on the right tasks and cut out everything else.

Final Thoughts

This experiment has taught me countless lessons on energy & productivity…

But the #1 lesson I’ve learned is the importance of energy.

Not only is vital to prioritize your health (you can’t enjoy wealth without health), but it’s essential to getting that wealth in the first place.

Everybody is after wealth, but very few realize that health is the key to wealth.

It has become a competitive advantage.

Those who dial in their health…

• Have more energy to put into their work.

• Have better focus to create better work.

• Have more consistency to build over time.

So I’ll leave you with this…

I hope you enjoyed this week’s letter!

Yours Truly,

-Matt “Hustle Trap” Harriman

PS:

Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help:

1. Grab my FREE self-reflection guide to break your burnout & make consistent progress in life & business easy.

2. Check out my Consistency System which I’ve used to build amazing habits that have helped me scale my personal brand & add several pounds of muscle in the last 5 months.

3. Book a 1-1 Strategy Session to gain clarity on your routine, habits, and systems.