How to become a high-performance entrepreneur: 17 high-performance habits and routines of the most successful entrepreneurs that you can start using to your advantage

How do the most successful high-performance entrepreneurs perform on a consistent basis in business and life?

Every week I listen to 20+ hours of podcast interviews with some of the most successful entrepreneurs and high achievers.

Some of the similarities they share in common include:

• Ruthlessness when it comes to opportunity management and time management;
• Optimizing their lifestyle and completing the most challenging work at a time of the day that suits them best; and
• Resilience and drive for success.

The differences between them are the skills and the core strengths they use to achieve success.

However, these high-performance entrepreneurs have all identified a core set of habits and routines that help set them up for that success.

I’ve identified 17 of the most common high-performance habits and routines they use and how I’ve tried to incorporate them into my daily routine to achieve high performance.

How to become a high-performance entrepreneur: 17 high-performance habits and routines of the most successful entrepreneurs that you can start using to your advantage

• How to Start the day with a morning routine
• Daily high-performance habits that keep you focused and productive
• How to disconnect from work
• Key Takeaways

1.  How to Start the day with a morning routine

I started my morning routine about 10 years ago. I was working as a full-time property lawyer and launched my first business, a commercial cleaning company.

My job was pretty demanding with long days.

The only way I could find time to work on my cleaning business was to be intentional about how I started my day. That meant waking up earlier and developing a morning routine.

My morning routine has been evolving ever since.

It's easy to underestimate the benefits of having a morning routine when you don't currently have one.

My morning routine has helped me develop self-discipline, start meditating and commit to a journaling practice at the start of every day.

The biggest anchor of my morning routine is exercising. Taking care of my body first thing in the morning helps to wake up my brain and boost my energy levels.

"As the body moves the brain grooves."
- Jim Kwik

Accomplishing these tasks in the morning helps to build momentum at the start of my day. One task completed turns into many tasks completed.

Winning the morning helps me to win the day.

Some of the most successful entrepreneurs have a morning routine. It allows them to reach and achieve high performance on a consistent basis.

From Tim Ferriss to Bob Iger, their morning routines include one or a combination of the following:

1. Making more time at the start of your day by waking up earlier
2. Connecting with your bigger goals by journaling
3. Meditating to prepare for the day
4. Exercising within 30 minutes of waking up
5. Drinking a glass of water in the morning

2. Daily high-performance habits that keep you focused and productive

After starting the day on the right foot, my focus turns to maintain my productivity for the rest of the day.

The high-performance habit that’s had the single biggest impact in this regard is not checking my phone in the morning.

Our phones are always with us - in our pockets, on the desk at work, and in the bedroom. It’s an easy escape from boredom. It’s an instant gratifier for boredom. It also kills our productivity.

Checking my phone first thing in the morning used to trigger stress responses and put me in reactive mode for the rest of the day. Now, I leave my phone alone until midday.

This allows me time to focus on completing my most important tasks in the morning. The stuff that takes me closer to achieving my goals.

“When we don't purposely and deliberately choose where to focus our energies and time, other people—our bosses, our colleagues, our clients, and even our families—will choose for us, and before long we’ll have lost sight of everything that is meaningful and important.”
- Greg McKeown

Timeboxing helps me complete my heavy lifting in the morning and plan the rest of my day. It helps me to batch my work throughout the week to make sure that I’m always making progress.

I’ve started working in 90-minute chunks after learning about ultradian rhythms and how they affect our ability to focus on The Huberman Lab podcast.

After each 90-minute session, I take a break. Most of my work is online so during my break, I try to do things that don’t involve any sort of tech.

Washing up or going for a quick walk around the block are my favorite escapes. This switches my brain from focused to diffuse mode.

During these breaks, I often realize new ideas or make connections between the stuff that I’ve been working on.

When these ideas and connections come up, I use the Getting Things Done system to capture them, before organizing them in my Second Brain for future reference.

I batch checking my emails and social media towards the end of my day.

I’ve got an autoresponder set up for my emails, which notifies people of this when they send me an email. Something I picked up from Tim Ferriss in the 4-Hour Work Week.

How I use social media requires very little focus, which is why I schedule it right at the end of the day. My main purpose is for engaging and to find content ideas and problems that people have when it comes to productivity, lifestyle optimization, or growing their cleaning business.

Because of this, I batch my social media time with time in the evening when I’m winding down with a bit of TV in any case.

These are some of the habits and routines that I’ve learned after listening to hundreds of hours of podcasts with some of the world's most successful entrepreneurs and high achievers:

1. Skip the phone and email first thing in the morning
2. Eat the frog (tackle something difficult when your energy is highest)
3. Schedule (and take) more breaks
4. "Batch" similar work together
5. Set hard limits on certain activities
6. Schedule your email and Messenger time (or create "office hours")
7. Use Getting Things Done to build a habit of staying organized

3. How to disconnect from work

It’s easy to overlook the end of the day when all the focus is on starting it in the right way.

While my morning routine sets me up to crush the day, having an evening wind-down routine that helps me reflect and prepare for tomorrow, today, is just as important.

“How we close out the day matters. The decisions we make. The reflection we encourage. All of it is about finishing well…because then and only then can we start tomorrow better too.”
- Ryan Holiday

My evening shutdown routine consists of 3 steps:

1. Deciding on my most important tasks for tomorrow. This has helped me become more organized and intentional about the work I need to focus on and get done.
2. Journaling and reflecting on the day. Doing this has allowed me to become more reflective and self-aware.
   
   When things have happened throughout the day that weighs on my mind, I write them down. I can track things that impact my mood, my mindset, and my productivity. That way I can do less of the things that have a negative impact and more of the things that have a positive impact.
   
   A micro version of Tim Ferriss’ past year review.
3. Going to bed at a set time. I try to go to bed around the same time every day. I go through stages where I’ll be in bed between 9.30-10 pm, and other times I’ll be in bed between 10.30-11 pm. Having a consistent bedtime and waking up time conditions your body, which makes waking up less painful.

For the last 18 months or so, I’ve stopped using my phone past 9.30 pm at night. I also leave it outside the bedroom when I go to bed. Doing this cuts out distractions and allows me to focus my attention on getting ready to sleep, even if my day finishes late.

I started developing an evening routine after listening to Arianna Huffington on the Pursuit of Healthiness with Blake Griffin and taking Ryan Holiday’s New Year New You challenge.

They both encouraged a combination of the following:

1. Reflect on your accomplishments and write down 3 good things that happened
2. Journal on your day
3. Make space for mental solitude
4. Prepare for tomorrow, today, with a ‘shutdown ritual’
5. Turn off your devices at least 30 minutes before bed

Key Takeaways

The 17 most common high-performance habits and routines used by the most successful entrepreneurs are:

1. Making more time at the start of your day by waking up earlier
2. Connecting with your bigger goals by journaling
3. Meditating to prepare for the day
4. Exercising within 30 minutes of waking up
5. Drinking a glass of water in the morning
6. Skip the phone and email first thing in the morning
7. Eat the frog (tackle something difficult when your energy is highest)
8. Schedule (and take) more breaks
9. "Batch" similar work together
10. Set hard limits on certain activities
11. Schedule your email and Messenger time (or create "office hours")
12. Use Getting Things Done to build a habit of staying organized
13. Reflect on your accomplishments and write down 3 good things that happened
14. Journal on your day
15. Make space for mental solitude
16. Prepare for tomorrow, today, with a ‘shutdown ritual’
17. Turn off your devices at least 30 minutes before bed

It's taken 6 years to incorporate all of them into my daily routine. And they keep evolving as I find new habits and routines that are more effective.

The key for me was to start with one habit, which was waking up earlier.

What habit can you start with today?