APRIL 26, 2025
The invisible time suck (and what to do about it)
READ TIME - 3 MINUTES
Time is the only asset that isn’t renewable. What we uncovered was mental and emotional drains that were burning through her time and sabotaging her productivity. I call them invisible time sucks. If you’ve found yourself on the dreaded hamster wheel of x, I’ve got your back. Stressing over day-to-day tasks, challenging people in her life, her children, whether or not she was going to be able to fit a workout in, stressing about stressing too much and its impact on her health. Knowing what to do — Need to address it at the subconscious level and use repetition to wire in new habit. “One of the most profound and challenging aspects of being a CEO is the emotional roller coaster that comes with the role. Leading through crises and making high-stakes decisions can take a toll on anyone’s emotional well-being. Whether it’s navigating economic downturns, managing investor expectations or dealing with unexpected market shifts, the pressure to make the right decisions is immense.” I recently watched “Steve! (Martin) A Documentary in 2 Pieces“, and he loves using the Hungarian term "Pihentagyú," meaning "relaxed brain". “It is a phrase that Steve Martin uses to describe his current state of mind, suggesting a sense of calm, ease, and a lack of pressure compared to his earlier, more ambitious career. He has described it as feeling like he's "not under the pressure that I put myself under" and that he's "not out to prove anything,"“
One of my clients recently jokingly told me “If you can help me add an extra two hours to my day, I’ll pay you twice as much.”
My clients are ambitious, driven people who accomplish more in a day than most do in a lifetime.
Despite their ability to achieve at super-human levels, many of them come to me to help them create more time in their busy schedules.
They come to me, because they know “time management” is ultimately an inside job.
What most time management and productivity experts overlook and rarely address is the amount of unproductive time spent between one’s own two ears.
More specifically, time spent stressing and ruminating on worst-case scenarios.
How many collective hours of sleep and life force has the human race lost to this type of thinking? How many hours have you lost? (Why in the world do we meditate on everything that scares the shit out of us? Because our brains are designed to.)
Most time management and productivity advice is aimed toward controlling our environment and circumstances. Why? We have had more practice controlling our outer world than our inner world.
It’s also aimed toward the process of elimination, which can be a losing game.
We waste countless hours, days, weeks, months eliminating things — eliminating relationships, distractions, interruptions, unproductive meetings, email overload, procrastination, multitasking, lack of prioritization, disorganization, overcommitting, micromanaging, doing other people’s work, excessive social media use, mindless internet browsing — when we can spending it actually enjoying our lives.
I don’t know about you, but reading that list felt like a huge time suck.
Winning the inner game of time management is about playing the game of focus, rather elimination.
It is about focusing your energy (thoughts, emotions, behavior and actions) towards what you want vs. what you don’t want.
Time isn’t something that needs to be managed, your focus and energy are what need to be mastered.
We aren’t formally taught how to focus our energy.
Let’s replace the phrase “time management” with “energy mastery”.
Successfully, mastering time is about having mastery over your energy and where you focus that energy.
Why is addressing this time suck important?
Because it’s also a threat to your overall well-being and the #1 cause of stress and burnout.
According to Psychology Today, “New research finds that those whose amygdalas hold onto negative feelings longer report more negative emotions and experience lower psychological well-being over time.”
The amygdala is part of the brain within the limbic system, primarily involved in emotional processing, particularly fear and anxiety, but also in social behavior, memory and motivation.
Not only are you burning through time, you are wreaking havoc on your body.
How to take your time and power back
MEAT — Tools to master energy;
Fire your inner critic. Pay attention to inner dialog for the next 24 hours. How often do you tell yourself, “I don’t have enough time.”
Parting words: Personal mastery is the catalyst that speeds up the realization of our goals and desires.
As Tony Robbins says, “Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.”
“One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.”
"What's your biggest secret for growing your business that you haven't shared publicly?"
A well-known marketer posed this question to me recently during a 1:1 call.
I paused, knowing my answer would be a disappointing one. Because my biggest secret is that there’s no secret at all. If you ask me, success isn't about unlocking secrets — it's about doing the boring stuff, day in and day out.
But most people obsess over some hidden path to success. The shortcut. The hack. The thing nobody else knows.
I see this in my inbox every day: "What's your secret to growing your newsletter?" or "What's the one thing that made your LinkedIn account take off?"
And the real answer is always the most boring one.
I write. I write every single day. Even when I don't feel inspired. Even when nobody seems to care. And even when it feels like I'm talking to an empty room. I've now written for over 2,100 consecutive days without missing.
But of course, that's not what people want to hear.
The Boring Truth
Funny but true — most successful people aren't doing anything revolutionary. They're usually just doing boring things with an insane level of consistency. And they've built systems to make sure they don't miss.
At Ship30, Dickie Bush and Nicolas Cole have designed a system that guarantees daily writing output. Their computers are set up the night before, their phones stay in other rooms, and their writing environments are distraction-free. The result? Thousands of words flow every morning before they even think about checking email.
My friend Ray built a multi 6-figure coaching business through a systematic approach to customer research. He conducts three 30-minute customer interviews on the same day every week, using the same seven questions, and documenting insights in a structured database. After 500+ conversations, he knows his market better than anyone.
And Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income podcast succeeds through an ironclad production system: recording every week on the same day and time, same studio setup, same editing team, same distribution checklist. Fifteen years and 850 episodes later, that system still drives his success.
But notice — the "secret" to success isn't just doing the boring work. It’s also building systems on top of the boring work, that make the work automatic.
Why We Hate This Reality
Here's what makes this truth so uncomfortable for people: It strips away the best excuses.
Because when success requires some secret knowledge, we can tell ourselves: "I just haven't found the right information yet."
Or when it requires special connections, we can say: "I'm just not in the right network."
But when success comes from consistency with basic, boring actions? That's harder to rationalize away. Because the path is clear. But it’s demanding.
Sahil Bloom covers this concept beautifully in his new book, The 5 Types of Wealth. As I was reading a chapter this week, I was reminded of how important doing the basic stuff really well is.
And he perfectly captured my thoughts on the topic with this picture.
And Sahil is right — once you embrace the boring basics, everything gets easier. You stop wasting energy looking for shortcuts. You stop second-guessing your approach. You stop jumping from strategy to strategy. You stop trying to be occasionally extraordinary!
Instead you focus on being consistently reliable. You pour your energy into showing up every day and doing what works.
How to Use this Information
Pick your boring basics and get good at them. And then build systems that make showing up automatic:
If you're building an audience — Write for 30 minutes every morning before opening any browsers. Create five content pieces per week by creating a topical calendar. Schedule all your posts every Sunday for the week ahead.
If you're selling products — Block an hour at the same time every week for customer interviews. Create a standard feedback form after every sale. Review customer insights on the first day of every month.
If you're growing a service business — Create delivery checklists for every service tier. Set up automated follow-ups at 7, 30, and 90 days. Ask for referrals after every 5-star review using a templated outreach system.
The key isn't just doing these boring things, but also removing every possible barrier that might prevent you from doing them.
The Bottom Line
What's the real secret?
There isn't one. Just like I told that marketer, success is usually a result of the mundane, daily actions that compound over time. And the path isn't hidden — it's just boring enough that most people won't stick with it long enough to see any results.
So get good at boring. Really good at it. Better at boring than your competition.
And then build systems that put your boring work on auto pilot.
Because boring, executed systematically, becomes extraordinary.
And that's all for today.
See you next Saturday.