A day in my life | Lex Fridman

Good morning. A bunch of folks asked me to make one of these A Day in the Life videos to talk about how I do time management in the day, how I structure the routine to maximize productivity. So here we go. The day starts now after about six to eight hours of sleep. Now there's periods of my life where I do sprints, where I'll pull all nighters, work crazy hours and so on. But regularly I try to get six to eight hours of sleep but plus the mythical epic 30 minute power nap. I think sleep, diet and exercise are essential for productivity. Just under, I would say passion and whatever the heck you need to do to be happy and keep every single day low stress. I might give a shout out to a few products that sponsor the podcast for no reason except that I love using them and that's why we agreed for them to sponsor the podcast. So click their links in the description to support the videos I make. I'm really fortunate to have way more sponsors than I need, so I get to choose only the ones I really love. I'm generally a minimalist guy. I don't like material possessions. But this AC bed has been nice. It lets you set the temperature throughout the night. So for me what I like is for it to cool the bed and then warms up as I wake up. Been helping me get some restful sleep. So I start each day when I get out of bed. The first thing the there's a mantra, a list that I have on a sheet of paper that I go through. So I start by reminding myself of the current set of rules and constraints on the various addictions, things that drain on my time. So that includes social media. The current rule is I only check social media when I post, which is one, two or three times a day for no more than 10 minutes. So that that's it. It's very strict. That's one of the main addictions I think that's important to control. Some people completely remove themselves from social media. I think that's one of the possible solutions. But to me that's a little bit of an easy way out. The hardest thing to do is to really moderate the use of social media because when you use it in moderation actually can bring you joy, it can really connect you with other people. It kind of makes me feel amazing when I only check it once or twice a day. But you have to be strict. And then the other rules are diet and exercise. So I make sure I exercise every single day, no matter what. Even if injured. I find a body part, any body Part that's not injured and exercise it. And then diet. I just have a strict diet that I follow within the constraints of which.

I can enjoy myself.

So for me that's been keto, which is very low carb diet. So the first part of the mantra is I remind myself of those rules. It kind of sets the constraints within which the game is to be played. The second part of the mantra is gratitude. I visualize and meditate on the idea that I might die today, at any moment today. So I kind of try to accept the notion that today is my last day on this earth. And it's mostly just a breathe in and out and a pause and a meditation on the fact that it's freaking amazing that I'm alive, that life is amazing. Third is I list out loud, by the way, unless I'm with somebody, then it's in my head. But I list a set of goals for the next five years, a set of goals that I have, and these are ambitious, big goals that I would like to achieve in the next five years. Fourth is I list more near term goals. For me, that's by the end of 2020, I want to do these kinds of things. They're just out of reach, but achievable. So if I really work my ass off and with a bit of luck I can get it done, I mean, that really starts to get me amped up. Like, let's. Let's get to work. Fifth part of the mantra, zooming in even further. I actually focus in on the day. I visualize going through the rest of the day, all the things I think I need to get done. This is really quick, but I literally visualize myself, like in a game of Sims, like on Fast Forward, running around, getting all this stuff done successfully. Like, I visualize both the struggle of it, visualize the hardest part of the day that I have on my to do list and getting them done, crushing it, but really sort of focusing on the timing of it, the beat of the day, and getting it all done. Just like a game of Sims, except for the part where when you're cooking, you set yourself on fire and you run around. I miss Sims. I miss video games in general. Finally, I go through a set of principles that I strive to live up to as a man. Now, there's a particular set of phrases that are a little bit cliche, but I think fundamental to who I am. But they center around compassion, empathy, love. And on the other side of it is character, integrity, strength, both physical and mental. So today's a little Bit different because I'm also making this video. I don't like it, it's uncomfortable, it's a distraction, it takes away from my focus. But I'm gonna get the job done. I said I'm gonna do it, I'll do it. So I'm gonna do the mantra now.

And next thing, hit hard.

The deepest work of the day for four hours.

A four hour session that I'll probably.

Film behind the desk. Alright, so I did the mantra. Then I drank about a liter of water, went to the bathroom, made a coffee, and now ready to hit the day hard with a four hour session of deep work focused on a single thing, no interruptions. If interesting ideas come into my head to try to trick me into pulling on the thread of that idea, I gently set it aside, write it down in Google Doc to address later. So I bring my mind gently back to the focus of the task because ideas keep coming but you really want to focus on the task. So the only interruptions that are allowed is water, coffee, bathroom.

And I try to minimize those.

Usually try to be just once in that four hour session. I stop the timer when I take that break, but I don't do anything during that break like social media or any of that stuff. It's really. My mind is still focused on the task at hand and hitting it hard when I return to the desk. The desk, by the way, is a standing desk. They don't sponsor anything, but I still love them. It's autonomous, you should check it out. Pretty inexpensive. Sometimes I sit, sometimes I stand. Not wearing a suit. I sometimes wear a suit. Especially I'm going to film, I wear a suit when I go outside. I just enjoy the way I feel when I wear a suit. But at home I'm wearing a T shirt and jeans. Right now I'm not wearing any pants.

Just kidding.

I'm wearing jeans. But you wouldn't know it if I didn't. Which is the magic of the Internet if you pointed shit. I can do a separate video video on my setup. I optimize the heck out of everything. But my first love, my home is the Kinesis keyboard is this weird ergonomic keyboard that's probably way too expensive, but I still love it. I'm surrounded by things I love and Emacs editor. Although I use a lot of modern IDs. Like today I'm working on TensorFlow Lite on a Samsung Galaxy S20, doing some deep learning on the smartphone. There's a bunch of tricky undocumented things that I'm trying to accomplish. Not looking forward to it because it's going to be just a lot of debugging and trying to figure out obscure things. But that's the hardest part of the day. That's the hardest thing on my to do list. That's what I'm going to focus on. No distractions. That's what this four hour session is about. Out. I'm usually drained, but happy at the end of the session. I mean, I'm happy throughout, but I kind of dread this four hour session every day, which is why I hit it hard early on. Without reflecting, without thinking. Almost like a machine.

I just get the job done.

That's the way I think about it. And I feel good afterwards, but I don't want to do it and I do it anyway.

So here we go. I'll see you on the other end of the four hours.

All right, the four hour session is done. I did not get as much done as I wanted, but it's nevertheless a big success because I just grinded it out. Zero thoughts about anything else. Only took a single bathroom and water break, so it took about four hours and ten minutes. Next up, I'm gonna do a little bit social media now, which I need to post a podcast conversation with David Eagleman, brilliant neuroscientist. So I'm just going to post that, check the comments from the previous day. Trying to keep the whole experience under five minutes and definitely under 10 minutes.

And after that, like I do every.

Single day, no exception is guitar or piano or music. Usually these days it's been guitar in. In the human world I'm currently single, but in the music world I'm in an open relationship with this beautiful guitar. Open relationship because I sometimes cheat on her with the acoustic but mostly electric Fender Strat. The warm boozy sound of a Fender, kind of like the Eric Clapton Jimi Hendrix is, brings joy to my heart. So I look forward to this moment. It's an escape.

It just makes me happy like a.

Lot of things do. But this is kind of a private moment of joy. And after that is about an hour and a half to two hours of a private set of moments of suffering, AKA exercise.

So here we go.

Social media guitar. Keep the social media under 10 minutes. No exceptions. And the guitar, sometimes I'll let it slip, but usually just 20 minutes. All right, got the social media and the guitar done. Actually there was a bunch of moments where just brought a smile to my face. Both the hilarity and the love. I always really appreciate it when I check social media moderation it really does bring me joy. So thank you for that. Now it's time to face the demons in my mind. Going on a long run. All the things I don't want to think about. I usually start out listening to brown noise. As I run, it really focuses my mind, lets me think deeply. And then about two, three miles into the run, when I start feeling a little better, I'll switch to listening to an audiobook I'm currently listening to. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Recommended.

Highly great book. Rough, but important for our times. If you don't study history, you're doomed to repeat it. My current exercise routine is run a minimum of six miles every day. And then when I'm about three or four miles in, I decide how far more I want to go. I usually don't feel like running, but once I actually get out there, once I put some of the miles in, you start feeling good sometimes, sometimes not. Sometimes it's the drag, but sometimes you feel really good. Then I'll do the 8, 10, maybe even 12 miles. My hope one day is I'll just keep running and and do an ultramarathon just on a whim. Now for the usual six to seven mile run, it should take about an hour and afterwards I do a short but intense session of body weight exercises. After the whole crazy push up, pull up squat challenge that I did, I now do the David Goggins inspired nickel and dime workout that he talks about. So every single minute you do five pull ups and 10 pushups, minute on a minute. And usually it kicks my ass to do about 15 to 20 minutes of that.

That's enough.

My hope one day is to get up to like one hour, which is really tough. Your muscles just drained, exhausted. But I find it's a really great intense way to get the exercise in without taking too much away from your day. Hard on the mind, hard on the body, but good for the soul. By the way, all of this is fasted, so it's been about 14, 16 hours since I've eaten last. I feel great. No food, water, and I've just taken a salt pill. In case I do run for a long time. It's important to have electrolytes in the body. I love exercising fasted. An empty stomach focuses the mind. I can actually perform extremely well. That's one of the things I've learned about myself. Everybody's different but I've actually learned for like martial arts, for combat sports, for intense workouts even. I just personally enjoy working out fasted. So guess Based on my diet, but also my psychology, I perform best when I'm fat adapted, which means I'm a low carb diet. It's probably deep somewhere in my Eastern.

European genetics that my ancestors will go without food for long periods of time and then have to wrestle a bear.

To the death intensely.

So it seems like this is the.

Kind of thing I enjoy doing. Not eating and then doing intense, focused.

Hard workouts makes me feel great.

I enjoy it both physically and mentally. All right, let's get to work.

Alright, the exercise grind for the day is done. I did seven miles in just over an hour. I think it's slow pace, really losing myself in the audiobook, to be honest. And then after that I did 20 nickel and dimes. That's 20 minutes. Every minute you do 10 push ups.

And five pull ups.

It's a great quick way to exhaust the muscle. Also really good test of mental toughness because at least for me, at least at home, I really want to start quitting at about the 10 to 15 minute mark. Just the muscles are exhausted, you have to pause. It's just unpleasant. Takes me back to the. To the month and a half previously that was doing the insane challenge. So I love it. It's really quick. 20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes depending on the day. And the one hour of the running feel pretty good. Not so good. About 1936, 1937, Nazi Germany, as the audiobook is covering.

But.

Yeah, really makes me think about the nature of evil. It puts everything into. Puts everything else into context somehow. You know, studying history sometimes is a really good way to force me to stop and to acknowledge how weak my mind is and how much stronger it needs to be if I want to have a role in this world of making positive change. I think about Nazi Germany and what it means to be a hero in those times. What it means to be a person that can reverse the decline into evil. I think it's much more difficult than people realize. I think it means standing against the masses. It requires the kind of mental toughness, mental fortitude that I don't think I'm ready for and I need to be most likely. Hopefully I will never have to play.

A role of any importance.

But if I do have that opportunity, I need to be able to step up. That's what studying the 30s, the Great Depression on the United States side and a decline into a state of terror on the European side really makes me think. I know this is a day in the Life video, but that's also my days. I as often as possible Try to think deeply about history, about the state of the world today, about my own mind, about the science that I'm fascinated with, which is the science of intelligence and the science of engineering intelligence. After the exercise, when I jump into the shower, which contains the moment of the day that I dread the most, which is the first minute that I take a cold shower, I have a bunch of songs that I know. The one minute mark of that I usually put on it could be as cliche and cheesy as the Rocky soundtrack We're Gonna Fly Now. I think it's the. The first solo is the 1 minute mark or Fortunate Son by CCR or.

If I really need a boost, I'm.

An old school Metallica fan as well. So Master Puppets, I think when he starts singing is the one minute mark. So here we go. And after that, right back into the grind of deep work, another four hour session of where I continue on a particular task focused for four hours straight. Today I didn't get as much done on the tensorflow light side, so I'm gonna probably dive right back in. But usually during the shower and a little bit afterwards I'm thinking about like what's the right thing to be focusing on given what I was able to get done in the first four hour session. Alright, next fun time is over. We're back to the grind of deep work, the second four hour session of the day where I remove the rest of the world and focus on a single task. Today I'm going to continue with the TensorFlow Lite work on the Galaxy S20 for the probably entirety of the four hour session. Now depending on the day I might eat here. If I'm eating twice a day today I don't really feel like it. I'm really focused, really feeling good again. That's kind of the benefits of the whole intermittent fasting keto that sometimes you just don't feel like eating, you feel great. So I'm going to eat just one meal today which will be after this four hour session. And I see this as a kind of sprint to the finish because the eight hours in total of the work is really what I aim to do every single day. The rest of the stuff there'll be another four hour session, but it's often more relaxed, more all over the place, has a few more distractions, a little bit more fun and chaos and just.

All over the place.

These two four hour sessions of deep work is really what my day is centered around. So everything is about them. This is where that war of art, the Battle for focus, for gaining focus and holding on to focus. That's what it's all about. Some days are really rough. The first session today was easy. I found the focus pretty quickly and just stay with it. Part of it is because it's kind of a new activity, it's a new phone I'm playing with and also doing a different kind of experiment with TensorFlow Lite. So it's new, it really pulls at you. And even though it was difficult, there was no serious stumbling blocks, like I didn't have to spend a lot of time debugging code and so on. So it was easy. Let's see what the second four hour session is. Sometimes it's a grind. But no matter what, the focus is always just to be present, to be there. If nothing is working, it's not happening. I still stay in that place and wait for the breakthrough. And the breakthrough always comes. Everybody's different. I think of how they discover focus, inspiration, motivation. But I'm a big believer in the discipline of ritual, so. So being there. And even if you don't feel like it, still being there. Even if progress is not being made, still being there for the grind. Because sometimes just minutes later there'll be a breakthrough. That's how I feel about deep work. That's how I feel about running too. Just taking it one step at a time. Because some minutes are rough and others are full of bliss. And that's just the way the journey of hard work, the journey of doing anything difficult. I'll see you on the other end of the four hours. Now the two big battles of the day are done. The two four hour sessions of deep work. Time to break the fast. I break the fast with athletic greens. A sponsor of the podcast, but actually an amazing thing that I love. Whether they're sponsor or not, it covers all the bases that I need with the kind of restricted keto diet that I have. It has all the things that a multivitamin has, but a ton of other nutrients as well. I don't know what it looks like to you, but it's actually pretty delicious. I look forward to it and it just makes me feel good. In case it's interesting. What I usually eat is some kind of meat and some kind of vegetable. So if I eat once a day, that's going to be about 2 pounds of meat. A total of 1800 calories, 2000 calories for the total meal. If I'm not being very fancy, it's going to be ground beef. Like this is grass fed, organic, 85% so 15 fat ground beef in terms of keto, it results in a good macro breakdown in terms of taste. I just like it in terms of cooking. It's also easier because it's just the right amount of fat when it's mixed with the vegetables. It's like it creates a non sticky pan situation where I don't have to add any oil. It just mixes nicely and results in flavorful veggies. Veggies. My favorite go to is probably cauliflower. Not always. When I really want to get crazy and party, I go with carrots. That's my. That's my party vegetable. My ground floor. The place I return to often, my home is cauliflower. Hate broccoli though. Love cauliflower and hate broccoli. You know, in this politically divisive world we have to pick our sides. My side is with cauliflower against broccoli. What else? So if I'm fasting or not on the keto diet, it's important to get electrolytes. This is weird. This is for long distance running. This is just sodium pills. I think 1 gram, 1,000 milligrams of sodium in pill form. Then there's magnesium glycinate. When I first started keto, I think I was getting headaches for the first few days. It's the keto flu that people talk about. The salt isn't what cured it for me, as was the magnesium. There's a bunch of ways to get potassium. I take it in pill form. It's really just to be careful to make sure you get enough electrolytes in your diet. Especially while I'm fasting, especially when I'm doing a lot of exercise to balance with the water and everything like that. Finally, I always take fish oil. Did not plan on mentioning another sponsor, but I will. Public goods, they sell a bunch of different kinds of stuff including fish oil. It's all good. I love the minimalist design of public good stuff anyway. So much of nutrition science is barely a science really. I like to just listen to my own body and do one person, one subject scientific experiments of what makes me feel good. That's how I discovered the keto diet. You know, I just look at the signs to make sure it's not unhealthy and it's not. And for the rest of it I just see what my energy levels are like, how I feel throughout the day in terms of mental performance, in terms of physical performance, all that kind of stuff. Same with the nutrients. It's pretty minimalist. So I do take Stuff if I miss days where I don't take electrolytes or fish oil, it doesn't really matter. But I feel good. But I find it's nice to make sure you're getting all the nutrients, at least regularly. And like I said, athletic greens help make sure I cover all bases about all the weird stuff that I should be getting and I'm not even aware of. So. This might be the first and only video I'll ever make in the kitchen. I kind of feel like this is one of those chef shows where I should be yelling at somebody about their mediocre performance in the kitchen. So I throw the veggies into boiling water, then drain the water, then throw in the meat, and then I guess broil it or whatever the heck the term is. The entire thing takes about 20 minutes, but I only really participate in the last five minutes when I like when it's broiling and I mix it and sorry if broiling is not the right term. I don't know what I'm doing. Okay. Anyway, it's super easy. I enjoy it. It's delicious. I throw some salt based spices in there and the final result kind of tastes amazing. Makes me happy. After I make the meal, I'll probably overlay the video of what the final result looks like. I'll often eat it behind the desk, sort of thinking deeply about something, oftentimes about the thing I'm going to do in the next four hour session. Just kind of relaxing, enjoying the food, but also just thinking, of course, if there was somebody else here with me, I'll be enjoying the meal with them. There's nothing more beautiful than connecting with other human beings over some delicious food. Okay, here we go. All right, I'm done eating. Feeling pretty good. Don't feel like being on video, but by the way, wearing a 2001 Space Odyssey shirt, this is where I might be wearing a suit if I'm doing filming, if I just feel like it. So the next four hour session is more relaxed kind of work. It's still really focused, but there's a bunch of tasks. This is where I might do the email check. Now, my rule with email, I check email most three times a day. And the first two times is just to check for emergencies or respond to an email that takes like less than 30 seconds to respond to. And it's kind of important. The third session, which is during this four hour period, is when I actually spend, try to spend no more than an hour. But I go through the emails. I read them these days I'm so freaking lucky to be getting just a lot of kind, thoughtful messages. So I just take them in. Brings me joy, brings a smile to my face. One of the favorite things of the day for me. And I also, if there's like some of the stuff I have to deal with, I respond to those emails. That's actually at the end of the four hour session. Now I would also be doing video editing, any kind of filming, I'm doing any kind of website design stuff and also the continuation of the deep work. So today I didn't finish the TensorFlow Lite thing, but I'm close. So I'm Gonna probably spend one hour on doing some more TensorFlow. Then I'm gonna do two hours for video editing, a podcast I need to be working on. I usually try to put in an hour or two a day of podcast related stuff. I need to outsource it, I really.

Do, but for now I'm doing it.

And then the last hour would be the checking the email and so on. And after those four hours I do two plus hours of reading, one hour paper, one hour plus of literature. But we'll get to that first this four hours, I'm back to it. TensorFlow for an hour, two hours of podcast editing and then one hour of email again. Very few distractions, very few breaks. On days like today, when I'm feeling really good, really energetic, this third four hour session I try to make as good as the first two in terms of the deep focus that I achieve. Also, this time is for when I don't feel great. I can just lay down and watch some Netflix, watch some documentaries on YouTube, hang out with friends. If I had a girlfriend, this would be girlfriend time. Netflix and chill. For now I'm doing just the Netflix part of that. Anyway, today's deep work. But starting now, on any particular day, this is where the possibilities of chaos are wide open. So I can just do whatever the hell I want. I got some Jack Daniels, I got some Stoli, Smirnoff vodka, I got some peanut butter flavored whiskey. So I don't drink very often, pretty rarely actually. But the possibility is always there. The night is always full of possibilities. I'm a big fan of a random adventure and just being lost in it. This is the time for that to happen. But today, as far as I know, is TensorFlow, Adobe Premiere, some email, then some papers and some Dostoyevsky. Let's go. Alright, I got the four hour session done, took just a few minutes longer. I got all the email done, I got podcast editing and actually just got that done in just over an hour. So some time to do podcast prep where I'm doing some research for a couple of upcoming conversations. And of course the TensorFlow thing still didn't wrap it up, but put it in the hour that's on the plate for tomorrow to start again. Programming is a grind. What are you gonna do? But I feel really good. I really feel good about the day. I don't know if this is good a Day in the Life video, but it's a good day in my life. Maybe not exactly in the sense that it all went perfectly, but in the sense that I put in a very large number of hours of deep focus. I resisted the urge to become distracted. I resisted all of the usual urges. I mean, that's a daily fight and I won it today. But it's not over. So next I'm gonna do one hour of paper reading. I have a whole system of papers I read. There is every single day I read at least one paper. Today I'm skimming two machine learning type neuroscience papers that somebody suggested to me based on the Matt Bothwell conversation. And then I'm also doing a deeper read still. This is the second session of it for the GPT3 paper. I'm thinking of making a couple of videos on GPT3 and just making sure I get all the details right. There's. There's a bunch of open questions that are not yet understood about GPT3, I think. And one of the things I do when I read papers is think, think outside of what the word is just saying. There's obviously all kinds of different papers. The ones I'm reading today, both the neuroscience side and GPT3 are very easy to understand. And it's more like a canvas on which you can project your ideas. So you're taking in the approach, the different architecture, the results, you know, understanding the different plots, the intuitions, like the different perspectives and the results. But all that is like very literary. Like a single pass of that paper is almost enough, at least so far. But what the whole purpose of the process is for me reading a paper like that is to think deeply beyond the paper, to think what are the deep questions to ask. And that's what I do with paper reading. Again, I have a whole system that's maybe for another video if anyone gives a damn. That hour is usually pretty painful. So I usually keep it to an hour. Like I literally sometimes am counting down to when I reach an hour because it's kind of hard work. It really requires focus after that is a little bit more fun reading. It's nonfiction or fiction, depending. Right now I'm working through the major novels of Dostoyevsky because I'm going to be talking to Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov translators. I don't know when exactly, but in a few months, maybe in a month, I'll be going to Paris to talk to them. So I'm rereading Dostoevsky. I finished the Idiot. I'm now working through Crime and Punishment, reading it in English. But I'm also going to try to get to listening to it in Russian. Like taking it in both languages and trying to understand the music of the different languages and how they interact, how they connect, what is the gap, what are the things that are lost in translation, that kind of thing. Sometimes I do it at the desk, sometimes I do it on the bed, going back and forth. When I have a lot of energy like I do now, got a little bit of coffee in me, I'll just chill on the bed and read the papers and the books. When I'm starting to get a little bit tired, I'll jump over to the desk and back and forth. So that's it. I think I'll wrap up the day in the life video here. I'll do the one hour paper reading and then the one hour Dostoevsky and after that jump into bed and drift into sleep while continuing to read the Dostoyevsky. But actually, after the hour of literature reading, I always take a pause and do the part of the mantra that I do in the morning that's gratitude again, it's being thankful that I'm alive, that I survived another day, looking forward to the next day. Just be grateful for all of the moments that are full of joy in the day. I mean, just even filming this silly thing, it's like fun. There's a piece of technology that somehow is capturing this, that other people might watch. And then there's like a microphone. I mean, just the entirety of the technology. Everything is magical. Everything is magical. Reminding myself of that doesn't take much effort. But just taking a break, taking a.

Pause, just.

Breathing and just saying, damn, it's good to be alive. Because I won't always be alive. The ride ends too quickly. So it's a opportunity, a moment to appreciate the entirety of it. I hope this video is interesting or useful to somebody. I value a few things in this world. One of them is hard work and I try to live by that every day. And the other, as I often, always, maybe too much talk about is love and compassion towards other people. So with those two things, it's one hell of a good life. So I hope that comes through, through the way I live my day. This silly video. And if you enjoy it, subscribe. Support the kind folks that for some crazy reason want to sponsor the podcast that I make. The podcast just brings me a lot of joy, especially the people I get to meet, the people I get to talk to on the podcast, but also the community of people who listen to podcasts. I'm a huge fan of podcasts myself, so this is just a big gift to be a part of that. And the sponsors support that whole effort and they create awesome stuff, so I get to enjoy and share my love for the awesome stuff they create. And as a byproduct of that, they enable me to have enough food and shelter to continue doing these podcasts, which is fundamentally a side gig for me to the main dream, the main effort that I'm still quietly putting in the hours on. Again, thanks for watching. And in your own life, make sure you work hard and put a little bit of love out there in the world.