The Power of Routines: How Small Habits Can Transform Your Life
In this solo episode of his "15 at 5" series, Jake Burhans explains what routines are, why they matter, and how he uses them to boost productivity, preserve mental energy, and reduce anxiety. He opens with a definition of routines as subconscious, repeatable actions that free up brain space, and illustrates the concept with Brandon Turner’s surf‑spot rut analogy. Burhans outlines three core benefits of a well‑crafted routine: increased production through clear daily tasks, higher mental energy by minimizing attention‑switching, and reduced anxiety via predictability. He then shares his personal time‑blocking system—90‑minute focus blocks, hard cut‑offs, and flexible boundaries—detailing a typical Wednesday from a 5 AM business‑system work session through gym, lead follow‑up, admin, cold calling, and an evening wind‑down that includes screen‑off time, reading, and meditation. He extends the discussion to specific routines for the gym, hockey warm‑ups, and morning rituals, emphasizing that consistency in any activity creates comfort and efficiency. Burhans advises building routines through trial‑and‑error, continuously adjusting calendar blocks, and maintaining some consistency even on weekends to protect sleep. He closes by inviting viewer questions and teasing an upcoming guest, Oscar Velasquez, who will discuss building a multimedia business.
Chapters
What is going on, people? 15 at 5, number 4, I think. Um, today we're talking about routines. Isaiah couldn't make it, he's at a property right now, but I'm gonna do a little solo action, a little solo 15 at 5 here, talking about the power routines, how I use them in my life, uh, and hopefully how maybe you could take some of the things that I use, maybe use it in your own life, or maybe just kind of open up your mind to the importance of routines. So what are routines, right? So routines are just something you do day in and day out. And I feel like from what I've read, the point of a routine is to have it become kind of just ingrained in your life. It's like subconscious, like you wake up and you do the same thing every single day so you don't even have to think about it. And that's kind of the point, right? So you can free up your brain space for doing other things besides just, thinking about what you need to do, you can focus on the tasks that you actually need to get done. Um, Brandon Turner, real estate investor for BiggerPockets, he brought up a good analogy about routine. So he's told this story about— he lives in Hawaii and there's a secret surf spot, right? You can only get to it through a back road. So over the years, more and more people learned about the secret surf spot and everyone traveled on the same road, right? So the ruts started to get deeper and deeper and deeper, and now the ruts on that back, that that back road to the surf spot are like so deep that only a lifted 4x4 truck can get down that road. So those ruts are essentially what a routine does in your life, right? As you begin to do the routine more and more and more, it creates those ruts, and all you have to do is just get in the car and just drive forward, right? Car being you going throughout your day, and just drive forward. You know what to expect, there's predictability, right? And like I said, you can focus on the tasks versus just focusing on figuring out what you need to do for the day. So I think that's a good, a good analogy for that. So benefits that I specifically see from routines in my life are increased production. And the main thing is because I know what I'm doing every day, right? I'm not sitting there in the morning trying to think about what I need to get done. I already know what I need to do so that I can focus all my time, effort, and energy on doing these specific tasks. And for me personally, that breaks down into time blocking. So I will time block, then I'll get into that time block and I'll just like tunnel vision. I'll set a timer for 90 minutes and I'll just do what I need to get done. But increased production for sure is one thing. The second thing is more mental energy. So one thing I learned from Limitless is that when you're constantly switching your attention from one thing to another, it drains your mental energy, right? So you only have so much energy throughout the day. And if you're, say you are, you're calling, right? You're calling someone, but you're also trying to read a newsletter at the same time. At the same time, or you're also going through emails while you're calling. That constant switching of like, I'm reading the email, then someone calls me, okay, focus on the call, now I'm on the call, and then I got— okay, the call is done, focus back on the email. That constant switching of your attention drains your energy really quick. So by just staying focused on one thing throughout the day and not jumping around and knowing what I'm doing, because I have that routine, I have that schedule in place, I have more mental energy through throughout the day, right? And I'm not wasting my time figuring out what am I gonna do today? I already know, right? I'm just focusing on the task. Reduced anxiety, right? So it means your day is predictable. So in a world that's very chaotic, you have some predictability in your life because you know what to wake up, or you wake up knowing what to expect. Now, obviously things happen throughout the day that you don't expect to happen. I mean, that's just life, right? Life doesn't unfold according to your plans, but at least you have something to revert back to the next day. And one thing I wanted to note about this too is like, just because you have a schedule doesn't mean it's rigid, right? Like I don't always stay exactly within my time blocks, right? Sometimes I go over, but at least the next day I have that same schedule to revert back to. So say 8 to 9:30 I'm calling, I might go over that for 9, over 9:30 when I'm calling, right? But at least I know the next day I get back 8 to 9:30 again, right? So it just kind of gives you that predictability. And some structure within the day. So I just want to go through my routine really quick. So there's all sorts of routines you can do. Obviously, a routine can be anything you do, right? You could— it could be your whole day is your routine. You could have a gym routine, you could have a warm-up. My old warm-up routine for hockey, right, it was the same thing. Um, it could be a morning routine, pretty much any activity you do. Um, so I want to share my routine, if I can get on here. So perfect. So this is like my, like one of my days that I may be— it's like a typical day. There's nothing at— there's nothing, um, extra on this, right? This is a typical Wednesday for me. So my routine is starts in the morning, 5 AM, right? I wake up, um, and I'll work on the business. So this is me doing like SOPs, working not in the business but on the business, right? So doing standard operating procedures, working on the systems, catching up on emails, doing anything that helps, doing anything that helps our employees work better and ultimately create that business, which is just a system of systems, right? So ultimately we can get out of the business and work minimal hours. So 5 to 7, and then 7 AM is, I try to have a hard cutoff, 7 AM. That's when I get ready for the gym, right? Get dressed, I'll take my pre-workout and I'll read the news like Morning Brew and Daily Stoic, which is what I read every morning. And then I give myself a little bit of space and then I can get to the gym at 7:30 to 8:45. And again, it's nice 'cause I can wake up at 5:00 AM, I don't have to think about anything. I know exactly what I'm doing. I'm going to my computer, I have some tasks and I'll even write stuff in here. I don't have it in here, but I'll write stuff in the description about what I need to do. So I just wake up, go to my computer, click on this tab and I'll be like, okay, this is what I need to do for this period. I'll get to work on that. And then I know at 7:00 I'm doing this, 7:30 I'm going to work out, right? And then hour, 15 minutes, and I give myself a little bit of time to come back, shower, and get ready for daily huddle with Grace, who's our cold caller, which is where we just go over some basic things to start the day, keep the morale up. And then I get into my lead follow-up 9 to 12, right? So I know exactly what I'm doing, right? Workout, come back, boom, get right into lead follow-up.. And then I'll just be laser-focused in this session. Typically I'll do 90-minute sessions, so I'll set a timer for 90 minutes. I won't even look at my phone and I'll be getting texts and stuff, but I'll just leave it because if anyone's— if it's important, they'll call me. So I just— I won't look at texts. And then when that 90 minutes is done, I'll check my text, respond to anyone I need to, and then I'll set another 90-minute timer. And if my lead follow-up's done, maybe I go to cold calling or something else. But, and then I have my lunch, obviously. Then some admin work, which is like, again, checking emails, doing any other administrative stuff I need to do midday because this is not a great time to be calling people. And then I'll just do some more cold calling here. I'm trying to figure out, well, currently trying to figure out the whole probate process and using this new dialer we have. So it's a whole other thing. But, and then I have hard cutoff at 6, right? Set some boundaries in here. 6 o'clock to 8 o'clock, no work, right? I try to get outside. And then I turn all my screens off at 8 o'clock, so I'm in bed by 9. And then I do read and like meditation, 8:30 to 9. But it's just something that allows me to go through the day and have a flow and just know that I really just need to get through whatever task I'm on. Like maybe I'm having a bad time cold calling, I'm having a bad time with lead follow-up, had some tough sellers I had to talk to. But I know that like if I can just get through this time block, whatever, I get to lunch, that part of my day is done. I can go to admin, I can go to cold calling. And a lot of times I don't follow this perfectly, right? Things pop up, calls pop up, I have to deal with things, put fires out. But at least I know the next day, right? The next day I'm back to the same thing. And obviously Thursday's a little different. We have a meeting for Maple Birch, but next day, same thing, right? Working, waking up at 5:00 AM, working on the business. I have my notes in here. You have your admin stuff, you have your workout, you have your lead follow-up. Lunch, admin, cold call. So especially in the entrepreneurial world where things are, things are very chaotic and it's hard to find structure, it's nice to be able to have that, a routine like that too. Yeah, I'm not sure why it looks like that. Did it look like that the whole time? I don't think so. But anyways, it's nice to have that routine to be able to have structure. So, and like I said, you could have routines for anything. You could have routine for gym. Like, even for me, for gym, I'll get in, I'll warm up for 10 minutes, and then I will stretch for like 15 minutes, and then I get into the actual lift, and then I'm done, right? So every single time I go into the gym, I don't even have to think about what I'm going to do. I already have my workout planned, like day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, right? So I go in, do my warm-up, um, 10 minutes of like cardio or whatever, do my stretch, and then do my lift, and then I'm out, right? I don't even have to think about what I'm doing. I'm not wasting my mental energy figuring out, um, what I am doing. I'm just spending it on the actual task or the actual activity. Same thing for hockey routine. For my hockey warm-up, I honestly don't even remember, which is terrible. But I mean, it'd be the same thing, right? Get to the rink and, um, I'd go off, do some visualization. I'd do like a run, I'd stretch, I'd do like ball work on the walls. Um, and it's the same thing every single time.. So it didn't matter if I was in a new environment, a new game, a new situation. It's like I always had my same warmup routine, which gave me comfort. And then a thing that I think people can relate to is a morning routine. Everyone has a morning routine. So, or not everyone. That's probably one of the most common routines that exists. It's like having a morning routine. So it's just, I think it's good. And like Miracle Morning by Hal something, that's a popular book. But getting up and having your morning routine, right? Maybe it's you get up and you journal and you do a little stretching and you have a coffee and whatever. It just, it gives you some, some structure and something to look forward to. Like I said, some, uh, some stability in a chaotic world. Uh, so creating a routine for you, I think really a big thing for me is trial and error. So just figuring out what works best for you. So a lot of times I'll create a routine for the day. Like this, this Google Calendar was like a, um, this was an iterative process. Like, I put a schedule and then it didn't work, and I was adjusting, adjusting, adjusting, and I'm still constantly adjusting it. So, um, it's an ongoing process. You want to just pick what works best for you. Uh, but I think that, uh, trial and error and just figuring out what works best and constantly adjusting it is a good strategy. And then again, time blocking. So if you're doing a daily routine, it's different, I guess. I guess you still time block as an employee, as a worker. Definitely as an entrepreneur, you time block because there's no structure in your day if you don't create it. But I think even working, you probably time block anyways, right? 'Cause you have your meetings and you have to call or you have to do your paperwork, right? And then even time blocking before work and after work, which you wanna do, is really helpful. And like I said before, Time blocking is not about, I'm doing something 9 to 10:30, at 10:30, I have to stop completely. And if I don't, then my day is a failure. That's not time blocking. Time blocking is a, it's a, I don't know the right word for it. It's not rigid though, it flows, right? So it's flexible. So yes, I time blocked 9 to 12 lead follow-up. Maybe I'm on a call at 11:55 and it goes till 12:15, that's okay. Sometimes it's gonna go over, but I'm just gonna cut my lunch a little shorter, have my lunch only be 20 minutes and try to get back on track with the next activity, right? And even if the whole day is a mess, I'm still going to have the next day to revert back to 9 to 12 lead follow-up. Hopefully I can be done by 12. If not, it's not the end of the world, but, um, it just keeps you on track every single day. Uh, but yeah, I just want to talk about routines a little bit here. I thought they're really important, and now that I've been out of school, like, having my routine has just been bread and butter. It's been amazing. So it's been— I've been very thankful to have that routine. Uh, and yeah, it's a big— it's really important. I think even on the weekends too, uh, if you go out on the weekends, it's kind of tough because you can break your routine a lot. You're going out, and if you drink, and then you get up and all this stuff. But, um, I don't know, I think keeping your routine even constant throughout the weekend is crucial too for your sleep and all that. And sleep's a whole nother beast I won't even get into. But, um, but yeah, that was my one-two on routines. If you guys have any questions, um, leave them in the comments. Happy to dive into this more if anyone has any questions about it. Next week we have Oscar Velasquez. I don't know how to pronounce his last name, but he is coming on. He actually went on his radio show a couple months ago last year and he started a podcasting multimedia company in Nashville. They actually just won Best of Business, but he's going to come on next week for a 15 at 5 extended edition. So it's going to be 30 minutes long. So it'll be 5 to 5:30. He's going to come on and talk about the challenges of building up his business. It's a pretty crazy story, actually. So excited to share that, but more of just a general business-focused episode. But it's not real estate specific, but I think it will be beneficial for people to hear. So I'm excited to have Oscar on. It'll be good next Monday, 5 to 5:30, and we will go from there. I appreciate everyone. Have a good week.
