The 60:40 Rule For Managing Your Time
5 Apr 2023 · 7 min
In this podcast episode Brendon Burchard explains his 60:40 time‑management framework, which advises allocating roughly 60 % of one’s weekly hours to "needle‑moving" activities that directly advance personal or professional goals, and the remaining 40 % to routine, administrative, and personal responsibilities. He argues that without consciously identifying and scheduling these high‑impact tasks, people operate in a reactive mode, merely responding to meetings and emails, which prevents true freedom and fulfillment. Burchard outlines practical steps: each week, determine the specific needle‑movers, create a "Friday Finishers" checklist, and block dedicated calendar time for those tasks. He contrasts this focused approach with the common "100‑100" mentality of trying to squeeze every possible activity into the day, which leads to burnout. Throughout, he promotes his progressmode.com resources, the Ultra private group, and emphasizes that effectiveness, not sheer hours worked, drives results.
Chapters
If you just show up and you're working through your calendar based on meetings other people put on there and you don't know what will move the needle for your week, you're not yet living a conscious life. The more you go, there's that block of time and that you teach yourself to do that. The more effective with time you are, the more time you have for freedom, for enjoyment, for fulfillment, for completion, whatever it is. The most successful people who also maintain their happiness and good relationships with other people clearly said that they spend 60% of their time on what we would call needle moving activities. And 40% of the time they're human, just like us. They gotta manage the kids, manage the house, answer the emails, do the DMs, return the voice messages, do stupid stuff that they feel like, I wish I didn't have to do this administrative stuff. That's life. They got to pay taxes just like you. I hope you're paying tax. So this is what you have to do. You have to go, oh, okay, I need to look at my week and make sure 60% of that week is really oriented towards activities that significantly move me forward towards my goals. And your goals might be a lifestyle goal, a revenue goal, a completion goal, a project you're trying to do. But this is what's important. 60%, this means, you know, we gotta have like three and a half days where you're really focused on moving things forward. Okay, 60% of your time. Now for a lot of people that gets overwhelming, but, but I tell them, oh, it's so easy to do if you think about it on an eight hour type workday, you know, we don't actually need that much time. I basically need you to be incredibly effective and focused, maybe till around 1 o' clock each day. So if you start your work day, it's like, okay, I need to make sure the most important things that are happening are going to happen this day. But 60% of your day is about that. So 60% of the day is really focused on the big things that move the career the most. 60% of the time on the big things that lead to progress or reward or fulfillment the most. I can't tell you what your needle moving activities should be, but you have to know what they are. And if you want to be high performing, 60% of your week goes to that. The other 40% is everything else you have to do. Everything else people put on your plate, the emails, the admin, the stuff, right? It just is real. Hey guys, it's Brandon. I'm Jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've gone to progressmode.com to join the newsletter because I have a resource for you related to this episode and I have an upcoming meetup with my private group, Ultra. If you've ever liked to be in a private group with me where I help you get more progress towards your passion projects or to build your business or your brand in a bigger way, just go to progressmo.com click on private group to apply to. See you can get into Ultra and we can take it to the next level by getting in person and meeting up virtually once a month online as well. Just go to progress mode.com a lot of people, what they do with their time is they try to do 100, 100. They're trying to squeeze everything in, every single ounce, every single day. And they burn themselves over time. What high performers found, Instead of running 100, 100, they run 60, 40. And so because there's some slack in the system, there's no burnout. And so over a period of time, you know, in any given week, you think this other person, they worked 120%. You only work 60. Yeah, but it's not about number of hours. It's about whether or not you are doing the needle movers enough. That makes sense. You can work 50 hours doing something, but if most that's wasted time on things that have no quality of output, don't matter towards the goal or the result. Yeah, you wasted a lot of time. You worked a lot of time, but you wasted a lot of time. I want to make sure you're effective and efficient with your time. So the needle moving activities. So here's what you need to do. Every single week, you need to go, what would be the needle moving activities this week? Every week, you need to know that if you're new to Growth day, we teach this concept called Friday Finishers. You go into your plan section, you create a checklist called Friday Finishers, and these are the things you're going to complete by the end of the week and when. So, okay, I'm gonna write that first chapter by the end of the week because that's a needle mover towards me fulfilling my dream of my next book. Right? You might say, oh, I'm gonna reach out, I'm gonna 10 calls by the end of this week. Prospect calls that close. Great. That's moving the needle towards my sales goals. Whatever it is. You have to know that every week, if you just show up and you're working through your calendar Based on meetings other people put on there. And you don't know what will move the needle for your week. You're not yet living a conscious life. You're in reaction mode, not creation conscious, build mode. Every week I need you to do that so we can summarize. How simple is this? Every morning, I want you to look at your year before you begin each week. Most of us do this on Sunday, planning session. Maybe you do it early Monday morning, you go, okay, what would move the needle the most this week? And getting real clarity about that and those two touch points. Every day, looking at the big picture. And every week, knowing your needle movers, life change. Life change. Once you know your needle movers, you block the time to do those, right? That's what you saw a bunch of people saying, brendan, I do your block time. Block time is I block out in the calendar, the major needle moving activities for me this week. And it's in the calendar. It's not like if I get to it when I do it, it's like, nope, there it is. And the more you go, there's that block of time and that you teach yourself to do that. The more effective with time you are, the more time you have for freedom, for enjoyment, for fulfillment, for completion, whatever it is. Okay? So that's so important.