THE ROUTINE OF A CEO

Let’s dive into what it is like as a day in the life of being Tony Nicholls, the CEO of Good Talent Media.

‘Well, I like to keep Mondays free because I do think, as a small business owner, there’s just endless things to do. You know, your mind is racing a million miles an hour and all the notes, you can’t do it all, hence why I choose Monday as a day off. It’s not a long weekend, but it’s me working on the business, then, you know, that 20 year plan, five year plan, three year plan. It’s important to start the week creating the ideal life for ourselves. Life goes by so quickly so you need to spend time on the important things.

I try to wake up with my natural body clock in the mornings, although on my days I have my personal trainer, I set my alarm. So that’s 5:30AM on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, because working out for me means getting out of my head and into my body. I try to fight aging in the gym.

After my regular exercise, or on my day off, I try not to look at my phone first thing in the morning, I think the phones are cursed. So I’ve got none, no alerts or alarms going off on it. I want to deal with that phone when it suits me. I don’t want to be dragged from thing to thing. I’ve even started wearing a watch, because I don’t want to pick up the phone for the time because it could take me into 50 different things. So that phone is down.

However when it is time to connect, I like to flick through our social media to get a rundown of comments, shares, whatever. And then it’s usually someone but people who know me, who gets me on the phone, they’re not going to get me an email. So it’d be a text message I might have a look at.

When it is time to get my head into the game I like to strategise my time. And I always do this by writing my tasks down. Okay, so visualise this everyone. So every day it’s down on the notepad and top left is things I have to do. There’s no negotiation. And so as I’m getting a little bit smarter and older and wiser, there is less and less in that top left, as I want to do less. However, the most important things are still in the top left, the top right is for my appointments and bottom left is my phone calls, I have to do those, there’s no negotiation. Bottom right is basically my mind just churning stuff.

When figuring out your own routine for you, I think it is important to listen to other successful people and what they are doing. I myself listen to a variety of podcasts. and it’s great to hear how people do things because it makes me think, well, what am I doing? You know, do I need to tweak it? And I’ve picked up some good tips from listening to conversations like this.

Many people find it hard to transition from work to leisure time, but you need to find a balance with it, otherwise you are bound to burn out. I’m a total morning guy. I feel really good from waking up at the gym in the morning, work up until about three, but I get tired at the end of the day. So yeah, I’ve probably not cracked the routine on how to make it better, do feel a bit flatter. And I’d go into the home zone, which is a little bit less predictable.

And in fact, I find that whenever I have an afternoon or evening night swim before dinner, it gives me another 90 minutes of good energy, because I’m particularly tired when I get home. So I try to hit the pool a bit. I’m playing ping pong with the kids, which I quite like as it is quality time with my boys. So yeah, that’s me transitioning into home time.

And then you know the classic thing: everyone struggles to get seven to eight hours sleep, you know, how did you sleep? Well. You might be still looking at some things when you get home and still buzzed from a chaotic work day, but just stop. It’s done. So don’t go near the phone. I like reading to switch off a little bit and take my mind off of work and external things. And yes, that makes me sleep well. While I’m out and I’m totally honest, I feel like I sleep well but my wife tells me I scream in the middle of the night. I’ve been screaming in the middle of night all my life, but it doesn’t affect me. I feel refreshed, it might scare my wife but she doesn’t mind. And I’ve gone on the monitor. And my sleep is fine.

But these are just some points of my daily routine of running a small business, that I find work well for me. If you are trying to get into a more habitual, healthy routine, find what works for you most importantly and roll with that.