The power of ONE hour

Let’s face it.

Eight hour work days are a joke.

If any employer expects any (or all) of their employees to remain:

• productive
• entertained
• cognizant
• and/or creative

For 8 hours per day, 5 days a week – they’re delusional.

We are not monkeys in cages. We are not robots with no external needs. We were not created to fulfill repetitive robotic tasks.

And it’s a major shame that a majority of people are required to live this lifestyle in order to afford their livelihood.

But there’s a way out – and it’s possible to do starting with just one hour per day.

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One Hour of Focused Work: Your 9-5 Escape Plan

Impossible is always a checklist. Do every item on your checklist today, do every item on your checklist tomorrow, and repeat. –Steven Kotler (The Art of Impossible)

For 5 years I worked at a desk in an office.

8:30-5:30 was the norm. Come early. Stay late. You did what you had to do to get your work done.

During these hours I got a lot of work done. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t.

But every single day, without fail, I’d dream of quitting my job on my commute back home. Each day I’d drive up the same highway with no music on in the car, just trying to appreciate the first moment of silence after a hectic work day.

Brain fried from staring at a screen all day – burnt out creatively as I tried to come up with new ideas for videos for clients week in and week out.

I wanted so badly to be doing something different. I knew I needed a change. It was just terrifying to think of leaving my stable, salaried job for something less consistent.

If only I knew this ONE tip when I was still in this exact position as I was 3 years ago:

Work on what matters to you for 1 hour a day.

If you feel like you have no way out of your current situation – remember that it’s small, seemingly insignificant steps that allow you to make massive progress when compounded over time.

And to be blunt with you: I didn’t know this truth back when I was stuck in my 9-5. I eventually left my job without a backup plan, with little-to-no momentum helping me out.

So this is my attempt to lovingly encourage you, the reader, to take a much smarter path than I did.

Just start with one hour a day.

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The Miracle (Mundane) Morning: Doing Your Best Work First

I know what you’re thinking.

“I don’t have enough energy or motivation to work on anything after I get home from working all day.”

Trust me, I understand the feeling. It’s a valid argument. I know how freakin’ hard it can be, but you must find encouragement in the pain, knowing you’re meant for more (and that it’s entirely possible to get there).

I was in these exact same shoes 3 years ago.

If you’re serious about changing your life and creating a fulfilling career from scratch, you’re going to have to muster up some courage to get started.

Here’s how I’d recommend doing that:

• Start with 30 minutes of focused work in the morning, before you leave for your job
• Continue this habit for as long as necessary and eventually build up to 60+ minutes

If you can crank out your “best work” in the morning, you will feel far more accomplished. And better yet, this work will have been for your “future self” rather than your current job.

Consider each day that you work for yourself another dollar in your future fund.

You’re buying yourself the foundation of freedom that comes with entrepreneurship. Your spouse, family, and/or kids will thank you someday.

Whatever your motivation may be, find a reason bigger than yourself to wake up and seek your stoke.

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What To Do With Your Time

Now, “waking up and doing 30 minutes of work” is quite a broad statement.

What kind of things should I work on to get started?

The most important thing you can do is find what tasks allow you to move the lever of progress.

For me, my lever-moving tasks are:

1. Research
2. Writing
3. Filming videos (content creation)

But 3 years ago when I was stuck in my 9-5, I wasn’t doing any of these tasks.

Had I known about any or all of them, I would have been able to make much more progress in a shorter amount of time before quitting my job.

If your desire is to create a content-based online business, all three of these tasks are going to be crucial for your process.

Research and writing are a non-negotiable if you want to learn quickly and think clearly.

Content creation is a non-negotiable if you want to provide value, attract customers, and share your work.

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Here’s a breakdown of each tasks and how to get started with it.

Research

For research, start with:

• Reading books about skills or interests you have
• Listening to podcasts
• Chatting with friends or mentors
• Watching long-form videos, presentations, or interviews

Make sure each of these things are relevant to what you want to learn more about.

This is where a lot of your frameworks, systems, and content ideas will come from.

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Writing

For writing, begin collecting notes and ideas that stand out to you from the research you’re doing.

Keep a notebook or phone document handy, and write down:

• Quotes
• Ideas
• Facts
• Action-items

All of these things will spark new ideas that you can share about from your own perspective.

If three people read the same book, each person is going to record different notes from that book. This is your unique angle on these subjects.

Once you’ve documented specific notes from the things you’re learning, begin writing about them in longer writing sessions.

1. Take a specific topic or idea
2. Put it as the title of your document
3. Write for ~30 minutes about this topic from your own perspective

Here’s a video that explains my daily writing process in more detail.

Each of these writing sessions will allow you to think more clearly and gain a deeper understanding of the subjects you’re writing about.

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Content Creation

Depending on where you’re at in your journey, you may or may not be ready to actually share these ideas with the world.

But sharing your work online is necessary if you want to begin building an audience of fans and friends (who share the same interests that you do).

There are many ways of doing this:

• Words (Instagram, X, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.)
• Audio (Podcasts mostly)
• Video (YouTube, Instagram, etc)

I’d recommend starting with one. If you try to start all of them at once, you’re going to spread yourself too thin and never get started in the first place.

Create content on one platform. Do it consistently.

Only when that’s working in a flawless system should you think about moving onto the next platform.

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Takeaways For You

Start your morning with an hour of focused work for your future self.

Research, write, and create. Learn new skills that compliment your current ones.

All of these things work together cohesively when you practice what you’re learning. Research something new, write about what you learned, and then create something with that new idea.

You will come upon gaps in your learning – and this is exactly when you search “how to do [X] in [Y] program.” Tutorials are only helpful when paired with a project.

Start your project today.

Your future self will be glad you did.

–Eric Pfohl