How does Sahil Bloom maximize his productivity and maintain work-life balance at the same time? By cultivating habits that may seem unusual to others, but are carefully tailored to support his lifestyle: He’s up every day at 4:15; avoids carbs, but only after lunch; and eats the same “breakfast dessert” for workout fuel every day: two dates covered in grass-fed butter.
Which is not to say that the 33-year-old former Stanford baseball player, who just released the new book, The 5 Types of Wealth, A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life, doesn’t follow some now-customary practices—he takes a quick cold plunge every morning and sits in the sauna for 20 minutes every night. He does, however, define morning and night a bit differently than most: He’s in bed at 8:15 p.m. and up at 4:15 a.m. to catch his productivity window at 4:45 a.m. During the day, he carves out specific time slots for family with his wife and 2-year-old son.
“If you want to go to bed earlier, you’ve got to think of it like progressive overload—like slowly loading a muscle more and more, increasing the amount of weight that you move a little each week, to build strength,” he says. “You can do the same thing for your sleep schedule. Make a 5- or 10-minute adjustment every week. Small things become big things. Going to bed 10 or 15 minutes earlier and waking up 10 or 15 minutes earlier won't feel dramatic on a short-term basis. But with time, it can make a major difference.”
We caught up with Sahil to talk about how he dialed in on routines that work for him, his affinity for a carnivore diet, and the evening hack that helps him be more productive first thing in the morning.
When do you wake up in the morning?
I'm up by 4:15 a.m. religiously every single day. I get to bed at 8:15 in the evening, so I get eight hours of sleep.The first thing I do is get in my cold plunge, which I have on the deck right off of our master bedroom. I'm in there for three to five minutes. Then, I go downstairs and make myself a cold brew coffee.
Year-round cold brew guy?
Definitely. I bought this thing called the Cumulus, which is a new coffee machine. I was getting Instagram ads for it all the time, so I got one, and it's amazing. While the coffee’s brewing I do this thing that I call my “5, 5, 5, 30” which is five pushups, five squats, five lunges, and then a 30-second plank. The quick activity really jolts a bunch of energy into me—moving around, getting some blood flow. I also feel like getting my core activated to start the day raises my body temperature after the cold plunge, too.
Then breakfast?
Not yet. I have a big glass of water with some sort of greens powder and salt to get some hydration. Then I'll go sit down at my desk by around 4:45. I’m really focused and creative first thing in the morning, which is a trade-off because I'm basically utterly useless after about 5 or 6 p.m. I typically reserve the first three hours before my son wakes up for focused work on my most important creative projects. The last three years, that’s been the book.
Read the rest, including the “life-changing 15-minute intervention” that Bloom recommends.
