Brian Johnson argues that masterpiece days begin the night before. Your evening shapes your morning energy and thus your entire day. He presents 10 ideas for optimizing your PM routine: recognize that PM counts twice, choose actualization over entertainment, practice a complete shutdown, institute a digital sunset, and discipline your evening through iterative experimentation.
Chapters
You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimize Mastery series. Today we've got module four, Carpe Diem Part two, the PM bookend. Before we jump in, let's step back again, do another quick review, remind ourselves of the game we're playing and how to play it well. Module one, Eudaimonology. We hung out with Aristotle and with Martin Seligman, and we studied what a good soul looks like. That would be you and yours. They told us, look, you want to win the ultimate game, you need to flourish via putting your virtues in action. Eudaimonia via arete. Module two was hero ology, in which we studied a good hero. That would be you. We looked at the science of facing our obstacles, operationalizing Joseph Campbell's wisdom. Before we move to module on the big three times two. Energy, work, love, identity, virtues, behaviors. And then we said, hey, when's a good day to put all this into action? And we said, today's the day. Which leads us to Carpe Diem module four. We're going to spend two months helping you become a master at creating masterpiece days. Last session, big picture today, the PM. Then AM, then energy, then work, then love. So our 10 big ideas for today. Remember, big idea number one. Today's the day, and today started last night. We want to make the connection, which is our second big idea, between the things we're doing at night and how we're feeling the next morning. And as a result, the rest of the day. Remember, PM counts twice. So we make the connection. Then we make a decision. Are we going to be actualized and go for that, or are we going to be entertained? It really ultimately comes down to how are you spending your time at night? What are you trading off to have less energy the following morning? Make the decision. We're going to revisit the dojo here as well. Then the fourth idea is idiosyncratic rhythms. And we're going to revisit the patron you of optimizing the universal, the unique, the ultimate quest. What are your idiosyncratic rhythms? There are some general rules that apply to all of us yet. You're going to need to figure out what your life looks like. What is your PM bookend look like? Which leads us to 5, 6, and 7. Ideas will be energy, work, and love. I want us to see the day, the masterpiece day we're creating, and in this case, the PM bookend, and our lives through the lens of our big three how can you optimize your energy, your work, and your love in your PM bookend? We'll talk about some ideas there which will lead us to the practices. The eighth big idea is shut down complete. This is the start of a solid PM bookend. We'll talk about Seneca, we'll talk about Cal Newport, shutdown complete. Which then will lead us to our digital sunset. The sun goes down, we want to think about turning our electronics off because the biggest inhibitor to us getting a great night of sleep so we can show up the next day strong is all that technological stimulation. Digital sunset will be a core practice today. Then our 10th idea is whoop it. Then practice, practice, practice. And again, be that artistic archer in a lab coat collecting data and wearing a gi. Gonna throw a GI on. So you're officially in that dojo going for mastery versus going for through the motions. That's the PM bookend. Let's hit it. All right, our first big idea. Today's the day, and today started the night before. Most of us, when we sit down, we want to create a masterpiece day. We draw the little day and we say, okay, cool. How am I going to start my day? Okay, I'm going to wake up at this time, then I'm going to do this, then I'm going to do that, then I'm going to end my day here. Well, that's nice, but. But I suggest that you want to have two sides to that day. The first part is actually the day before. How you end the day before is obviously going to directly impact how you feel as you start the next day. Therefore, we need to recognize the simple but profound truth that today started the night before. When you look at our carpe diem journal, you'll see on the top left corner, we've got these little, you know, rectangles that represent Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Right? But we have an arrow connecting the PM to the am, the PM to the am, the PM to the AM Again and again and again. We want you to see the rhythms that your life is full of and that this particular bookend here, the PM bookend, is absolutely essential to getting right if we want to create those masterpiece days en route to creating masterpiece life. So one more time. Today started the day before. That's why the PM bookend counts twice and is so important. It's the underappreciated asset of an awesome day. We're going to shine a bright spotlight on it and help you optimize it. Hey, this is Brian again. I hope you enjoyed that overview of a Mastery Series session and got some wisdom out of it you can apply to your life today. What was it again? You can learn more about our Optimize Coach program at Optimize Me Coach. And here's a fun little video we put together featuring some of our Optimized Coach graduates describing what they got out of our program and why they loved it so much. You can also check out hundreds of other testimonials at Optimize Me Coach. Have an awesome day and let's do this.
