How I Manage My Time as a $100M CEO

Stop wasting time. I'm gonna share with you the three time rules I followed to go from broke to multimillionaire.
See, when kids come up to me and I'm driving one of my supercars, they always ask, what do you do? And I always say to them, it's not what I do, it's what I did. Welcome to the Martell Method.
I went from rehab at 17 to building a $100 million empire and being a Wall Street Journal bestselling author. In this podcast, I'll show you exactly how to build a life

and business you don't grow to hate.

My bestselling book, Buy Back Your Time, is out now.

Grab a copy at buybackyourtime.com

or at any of your preferred online retailers.

Starting with rule number one, the 4D framework.

Getting Things Done by David Allen

is one of the best books ever written on doing more. I fell in love with it.
I loved it so much that I actually went to one of his seminars. And because of that experience, he taught me a completely different way to work that I want to share with you now.
This is the 4D framework. The first D is do it.
The rule is if it takes less than two minutes, you do it now. You don't even write it down.
It'll take you more time to write it down and to just get it done. So if that means sending a text message, calling someone, I literally was just talking to somebody and they were like, I wonder if we can make this work on YouTube.
I said, one sec. I called the person, asked the question.
We got it done right away. We don't even write it down.
The second D is delegate it. If someone else can do it, let them.
Stop working on stuff you don't need to do. The third D is defer it.
This is really important for things that are not now. They need to get done.
They're just not a this week, even this month. So I always try to put it in a place where I know I'm gonna review it so I don't get bogged down by the pressure of having all these open loops for things that don't need my attention today.
The fourth D is delete it. If it doesn't serve your goals, even if you want to do it, you'd like to do it, you got to learn to say no.
Here's the deal. A yes is a no to your goals.
A no is a yes to your potential dreams. You have to learn to say no so you create the space so it's available to you when you have the opportunity to execute to make the thing happen.
Here's what I like to tell people.

If you don't have a framework for managing time, time will manage you. But time isn't the only thing you need to manage.
Which brings us to rule number two. You don't manage time.
You manage energy. When I first started getting going, I was so worried of missing opportunities that I said yes to everything that my calendar was like a tapestry of meetings that made no sense.
I mean, I used to say yes to meetings at 9am in the morning, breaking up my most creative time for some meeting that I could have done in the afternoon. Understanding how you naturally want to flow through your day so that you're available for the work that you need to get done is a game changer in business.
Here's the mental model to consider. You can't do more if you don't have energy for more.
If you're loving this, these are my energy management principles. Number one is schedule for energy.
When I look at my day and I think about the three blocks of morning, afternoon and night, there are certain things that I want to do in the morning that is completely different than my afternoons where I'm scheduling most of my calls because I like to collaborate in the afternoon. And at night I do things like research, review my calendar for the next day.
It's a completely different energy. If I tried to do that in the morning and then the creative stuff at night when my brain is wasted, I would have lost my whole day of productivity.
The second thing is batch work. And the whole idea is to ask yourself, what kind of flow do you need to be in to do certain types of work and put it together? If it's a lot of writing, you're right.
If it's a lot of meetings, you talk and you put them together so that you don't have to pay the cost of context switching. I see people do this all the time.
They go from finance meeting to a sales call. When I think of like doing media tours, for example, I'm going to do all the podcast interviews first, then I'm going to do any speaking or book meetups.
And only at the end of the day, do I do like a founder's dinner because I want to be in that energy of that work. The third is net time, which stands for no extra time.
This is like when I'm flying down to Nashville on the jet, I'm doing a mastermind with other business people. When I'm doing my one-on-ones, I do them on scooters because I really enjoy being out on a scooter.
It is a game changer to be more productive and also manage my energy. Before we get back to the episode, if you want to jumpstart your week with my top stories and tactics, be sure to subscribe to the Martell Method newsletter.
It's where you'll elevate your mindset, fitness, and business in less than five minutes a week. Find it at martellmethod.com.
But you can't keep the same schedule every day and expect exponential results. Which brings us to rule number three, you're allowed to adjust.
I remember the other day, one of my friends came to me and he was like overwhelmed and stressed out. And I was like, dude, calm down.
What's going on? And what happened was, is that he had said yes to a bunch of things months ago and his calendar calendar was just slammed. He had all these commitments, he didn't know what to do.
And what I suggested that he do that I want you to consider is to make a list of things that you wouldn't have said yes to if they were today and renegotiate those commitments. The truth is, is that you're allowed to adjust, you're allowed to renegotiate, you're allowed to sit down, reprioritize and say to somebody, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be able to do that.
You're allowed to hold that truth. What I like to tell people is if you don't take your time seriously, nobody else will.
So here are three strategies that I use to get the most out of my calendar. The first point is to review.
I look through my calendar on Sunday for the week and I ask myself, is this something I should still be doing? I know maybe I said yes six months ago, but I'm allowed to review and decide, does this align with my goals? Things that used to give me energy, might've turned into things that are mediocre or worse, they take my energy. You're allowed to change your mind.
The second part is to adjust, actually renegotiate those commitments. Have those tough conversations.
One quick strategy that changed the game for my wife and I is that if the thing somebody's asking me was tonight and I would say no, then it's a no even if it's three months into the future. So just say no today if you wouldn't go tonight.
Number three is expand. Once you've got that new time, think about the goals you want, the relationships you wanna to build, the skills you got to acquire, and add the new.
And my favorite thing is to figure out what would make me the most uncomfortable starting or creating. Whatever gives me anxiety is usually the right path.
Most people stay away from that. I use it as feedback to say, go forward.
The question I ask myself is, what will grow me even more? I choose goals to grow me, which is what I put in my calendar. When I think about people taking their time more seriously, I always go back to if you don't value your own time, nobody else will value yours.
And most people don't realize decisions around partnerships that cause issues or even saying yes to commitments that you know really should be a no. The people you love the most are on the receiving end.
So I always go back to reminding myself, if I say yes to this, I'm saying no to time with my kids. I'm saying no to time with my wife.
I'm saying no to calling my brother. I'm saying no to hanging out with my dad.
And when I put that into context, it allows me to feel okay in deciding to do something different. Thanks for listening to Martell Method.

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