The 56 Hour Method-How to Master Your Week and Take Back Your Time with Chris Jennings

0:01John Lee Dumas:Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. And today we'll be breaking down the 56-hour method of how to master your week and take back your time. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Chris Jennings in the EO Fire Studios. Chris is the author of the 56-hour method and two-time Vistage top performer award recipient, a keynote speaker who's built multiple successful businesses and spent 25 years helping high performers lead better. Today, we talk about the 168-hour framework, why productivity systems fail, the hidden costs of sacrifice, and oh, so much more.

0:41John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sparsing today's episode goes to Chris and our sponsors. Fire Nation, meet Hutworks, the number one boutique fitness franchise with 850 plus locations. They pioneered virtual workouts inside infrared saunas With recurring membership revenue, a low labor, high tech model, and a proven franchise system, entrepreneurs gain a scalable business built for growth. Visit hotworks.net slash franchising to learn more. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support.

1:18John Lee Dumas:Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com. Chris, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Thanks, John. Most people are gonna disagree with, I don't believe that hard work and working 80 hours a week and being the first person in the office and the last person to leave is your pathway to success. I feel like that is your pathway to burnout. And I'm going to encourage you to follow the 56 hour method and divide your week into three buckets.

2:02Right. 56 hours for sleep, eight hours a night, 56 hours for growth. That includes your work, your finance, learning and 56 hour for connection, connection to yourself and connection to others. If you are overly focused and you're chipping away year after year trying to be that first person in, last person out, you're going to burn out. You're going to lose friends. You're going to lose family members. And you're going to lose your health. And I believe your greatest ability to be successful is in your focus while you are working, the quality of your work while you're working, not the quantity of your work.

2:41and I would say my greatest growth years from 2001 to 2021, I was working Monday noon to Friday noon and that was my schedule. I always had four to six weeks a year vacation and I loved to balance life the whole time. That's what I would hope for your people.

3:01John Lee Dumas:Chris, I love your message and I love your method and we're going to be diving deep into the 56 hour method, how to master your week, Fire Nation, and of course, take back your time because at the end of the day, all we have is time. And I want to start by talking about the 168 hour framework. You kind of broke it down a little bit already, but you talk about intentionally designing every one of those 168 hours that we have. So what's the real cost, Chris, of operating without a framework, especially for founders, you know, like many of my listeners who are building a business? The cost of not having the framework is really about lack of focus.

3:37So you're distracted. I mean, entrepreneurs in particular, we're idea junkies. So we follow a path or we might get overly focused and perhaps the wrong stuff. and really where we need to focus when you build out your ideal week, Monday from the time you wake up till Sunday night when you go to bed, I want you to think about what are those top five activities that have to end up in your work life? What are the things that you have to do? What are the top five activities that belong in your personal life? And if you are spending a significant amount of your time taking care of your top five work activities and your top five personal activities, you're going to have a great life.

4:20You're going to have a great career. You're going to have a great life, period. And the cost of no framework is distraction. It's overwhelm. It is focusing on the wrong things, scrolling through your phone, getting stuck into what is the doom scrolling. Yeah, that's not productive. It's not doing you any good. So that's my thoughts on that.

4:47John Lee Dumas:It's so true, Fire Nation. And this seems to happen and kind of happens for people that doom scrolling thing when they don't have a framework, when they don't have a method, when they don't have a plan. And, you know, that's why productivity systems just seem to fail over and over again, because there are countless productivity systems that are out there. But Chris, most entrepreneurs, they still feel overwhelmed despite access to these. So why do these systems fail? And why is, you know, quote unquote, motivation never the answer? Motivation is not enough. Don't wait till you feel motivated or you feel inspired to run or to call customers or to coach your team.

5:27If you're going to wait till you feel like doing something, it could be a long time till you experience that feeling. Put it in your schedule. Right. And if you if it's in your schedule, like I said, if those top five activities or whatever is most important in your work life, your personal life. if those are in your schedule you're going to get to them and here's when you talk about overwhelm I get where a lot of times like the biggest pushback I get is oh my my life is crazy there's too many unknowns my days are unpredictable look everybody's life is crazy every there's too many unknowns there's change all the time there's interruptions there's distractions that's just the course of life so but the main thing I want you to have is a schedule to come back to have that you stick with.

6:13I had hernia surgery recently, about six weeks ago. And I have a frame, you know, I worked out today, I couldn't work out the way exactly that I want to, but I'm building back because I have a framework and I have it in my schedule. And I will get to it. I'm not waiting three months doing nothing. I'm getting easing back into my schedule. So when you get pulled off course, just ease back into your schedule, because that's the normal course of life is to get pulled off course.

6:39John Lee Dumas:Chris, it seems like sacrifice is something that entrepreneurs feel like they need to do. It's just like, I will work harder than people now so I can live like people can never live later. And, you know, there's a hidden cost to that. I mean, many founders, what are they doing? They're sacrificing sleep or relationships and they're doing it in the, you know, quote unquote name of growth. So why does that almost, of course, not always nothing's 100%. But why does that almost always lead to worse decisions to lower performance and of course, that dreaded word, eventual burnout, this life we're in right now, it's not a dress rehearsal, we get one pass through this thing.

7:19Let's make the most of it. The I understand temporary sacrifice. I did that as well. My first year of business, I did say for one year, I will go into the office on Saturdays from eight to noon. And I had to catch up on whatever I had to catch up on. So I was prepared for the week. But that was a one year short term period. Don't let your short term fall into the long term and feel like that's the only way there. I think that the key really here is to avoid the burnout, to avoid the impact of stress is to in those hours that you are working. And like I said, even my best growth years, Monday noon to Friday noon, it was a very reasonable week.

8:04It was certainly less than 40 hours. And it's gotta be in your schedule. What I want from people is consistency and discipline. In the hours that you're working, be consistent with your activities, be disciplined about doing what you said you would do. And if you're doing what you said you would do and you're consistent about that, you're going to have better results. That's a foregone conclusion. We already know that.

8:27John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, systems, frameworks, methods. If you're not having these in your life, then you're just being so inefficient with the most precious thing we'll ever have, time. Now, I want to talk about measuring what matters. I want to talk about saying no without regret. I want to talk about the first thing that founders just seem to sacrifice. And we're going to do all that and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, you know I'm passionate about freedom. And as entrepreneurs, we spend a lot of time creating freedom in our businesses. But what about creating more freedom in our lives?

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10:45John Lee Dumas:With Huttworks, you can have both. Visit huttworks.net slash franchising to learn more today. That's H-O-T-W-O-R-X dot net slash franchising. Fire Nation, if you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. That is why High Level is Entrepreneur on Fire's featured partner. High Level gives you a website builder and hosting, funnels and landing pages, email marketing, appointment scheduling, payment processing, course and membership hosting, and so much more. everything you need to succeed all under one roof no duct tape no juggling five platforms just one clean system for your business and their award-winning 24-7 support has your back when you need it most when you sign up at high level fire.com you also get my exclusive bonus stack a 30-day free trial a private 15-minute call with me jld access to my weekly live office hours a digital copy of my book the common path to uncommon success my 50 days to something execution roadmap and more.

11:44John Lee Dumas:Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Chris, we're back. And I'm a big believer in measuring, measuring what matters. You know, what gets measured at least has the chance and opportunity to get improved. So how can entrepreneurs tell if their weekly design is actually working? So what metrics or signals should we be tracking? Break that down for us. If you look at your schedule, you got your top five activities for your work and you got your top five activities for your personal life. And then you're trying to measure results. If you are executing on your ideal week, the way you sketched it out and your results are still down, meaning your sales numbers are not growing, your profit is declining or holding steady or you're giving away margin or whatever the case may be, right?

12:34Then there's probably a problem in your execution and there is a lack of learning and there is something that you need to do better, right? And there is a skill, maybe whatever it is you're doing, you need to improve that skill. If your results are down and you are not executing on your ideal week, and we gotta be honest with yourself. I say frequently in the book, tell on yourself, don't beat yourself up. Look, none of us are perfect. None of us are doing all the stuff we should be doing all the time. And if you're not doing it, tell on yourself. Don't beat yourself up, just pick it back up, get back to your schedule.

13:07and get some outside accountability, right? Give your ideal week and your top five activities in both personal and your business life to five other people and explain how you want to spend your life, the people you live with, the people you work with. Show them your calendar, right? If you go to 56hourmethod.com slash fire, we have a fillable PDF for your ideal week. Fill that thing out. Go there now. Fill that thing out for your week and then share that with five people. Point out to them where are you doing those top five activities? How are you measuring those in your CRM? Not just the final results on your P &L, but those activities.

13:53That's really where the rubber meets the road. Are you doing what you said you would do? Is the time to do that built into your ideal week? And if it is, great. And if you're not getting the results, increase your learning. Do those more skillfully. If you're not, go to your accountability partners and get honest with them.

14:10John Lee Dumas:Tell on yourself, but don't beat yourself up. I mean, Fire Nation, very critical, very important to understand that, listen, we're here to compare ourselves with one person, you yesterday. If you're winning that comparison more times than not, you're going to win at life. And I mean, I ask so many people when I get on the phone with them, I'm like, just what's your perfect day? And it's like they're deer in headlights. They don't even have an idea what your perfect day is. And if you don't know what your perfect day is, how do you know what your perfect week is? Your perfect month, your perfect life.

14:41John Lee Dumas:Well, the answer is you don't. So let's talk about saying no without regret, Chris, because opportunities, they are everywhere. I mean, man, I get opportunities in my inbox literally probably since we've been talking. I have 10 opportunities, new opportunities that have come into my inbox, literally. They're everywhere. So how do you say no to things that don't fit our personal framework without feeling like we're leaving money on the table? because I mean, man, you know, money on the table is money on the table. Especially as an entrepreneur, like we're idea junkies, we're growth junkies, we want more.

15:12I totally get it, you know, and I've been a driven individual my whole career since I was 12, knocking on doors, trying to get people to let me cut their lawns or shovel their driveway with snow. And, and so to me, I don't want you to be in the debate in your head all the time. I want you to look at your week and say, does this fit in my week or not? When you write out your week, if you want to add something new, you want to add an additional podcast, you want to add an additional, a secondary business, something comes out. So you got to ask yourself, do I want to take out something in order to replace it?

15:54And I'm giving you guidelines. 56 hours of sleep. Too many of us are sacrificing that, right? I'm giving 56 hours for growth and 56 hours for connection. You can't keep stealing from those buckets and have a great life. And so I remember when my kids were younger, probably 8-ish, 10-ish, 12-ish. In the summer, I took off Mondays. Every Monday, could I have worked all Monday and made some more money? Yeah, I could have. But look, I would never trade. every time I went to the wild rivers and got on the water slide with my kids, taking them to the beach, the wild animal park, and the time we saw them feeding the lions and hearing them roar that we still talk about.

16:38And my kids are now in their thirties. I was, I knew my kids were only going to be that age for a certain period of time. And they're important to me and I'm building in time into my ideal week for them. So summers, I don't work Mondays, right? And I, and I invested that of my kids. And, and we all have choices to make, put your, put it down on paper, get it, get that, fill out that, fill out that ideal week, that fillable PDF at 56 hour method.com slash fire. It's going to change how your life grows and the satisfaction that you get from living an intentional life.

17:18John Lee Dumas:I love that phrase that you use, Chris. I invested in my kids. I mean, Fire Nation, as entrepreneurs, as business owners, we're always like, I'm investing in myself. I'm investing in my business. I'm investing in X, Y, or Z. How about investing in your kids? How about invest, you know, in your time, your freedom? Like that's an investment as well. That can definitely pay off. Cause like Chris mentioned at the beginning of this chat, like this isn't a test run. We are going through the actual live version of life right now. So figure that out. And I want to talk about the first thing that founders seem to sacrifice with your experience, Chris.

17:51John Lee Dumas:I mean, there's three buckets. There's sleep, there's growth, and there's connection. Which one do you see entrepreneurs most often neglect first? And what does that actually cost them in the long run? So number one is sleep. I think Americans in general, we've been stealing from our sleep for a long time. When I hear people tell me, I only need four hours. I'm like, that's not true. You don't know what you need, Dad. And I opened the book with a sleep checklist so that people can get their sleep in order. So I think that's where we take it first. Second place we go is our connection bucket. Well, it'll be a sacrifice.

18:29And I get it. There are some short-term sacrifices. If you're playing the private equity game, you got a two to five year run to build this thing up and turn it and then you're going to retire and you get consensus from your family or whoever you live with, whoever else is important to you, that this is a worthwhile sacrifice, then perhaps you do it. But I think we're, we're stealing from that connection bucket. And then the third one I see is learning in the growth bucket. Uh, we, we don't feel like we need to grow. We need to do more. And, you know, we're sawing trees with, with dull saws and, and we really got to take the time.

19:05And I would say, invest in yourself. Learning is your superpower. Get better at the things that you're doing. Yeah. Whatever those top five activities that you're doing today at year two, you're going to be doing them with such a higher level of expertise at year five and year 10 that you're going to gain time back and you'll be able to go from having to work 56 hours a week to 28 hours a week or 18 hours a week, which is where I'm at now. I work a nine to three schedule three days a week because I love the work that I do. I'm having a blast talking to you, John. And it matters to me, but I have great relationships.

19:46I've got good health. I remember I did probably 60 triathlons from the time I was 38 to the time I was 53. So that whole time I was training, but it fit my schedule. And if I worked eight to five, I worked out from five to seven. I had a two-hour block. And then at seven, I had time for family. And I just built it all in. And it was kind of an amazing gift. And I'm really, I got to tell you, I feel blessed and honored to get to share this gift with others. Because it's been a transformational part of my life and me being able to be as productive as I've been while being as engaged with my family, my friends, my communities, and my health, which I can't sacrifice.

20:36None of us can.

20:37John Lee Dumas:And Chris, you're making an impact. I mean, you are making a meaningful impact by sharing these methods, these frameworks, the systems, what's working for you. So I definitely commend you for that. The ripple effect is real. It's huge. And I also just kind of shake my head when I run to people that are like, yeah, no, I figured it out. Like I can sleep three hours a night, five hours a night. And I take that time back and I do X, Y, and Z. I'm like, no, no, that's just no, that's not how the body works. And then I also, you may disagree with this next part, Chris, but I'm very convinced on this myself.

21:08John Lee Dumas:People come to me sometimes just like, you know what, John, I'm just a night owl. Like I just do better work at night. I can't fall asleep early anyway. So I just go to bed, you know, like at midnight, 1 or 2 a.m. Then I just like sleep in in the morning and I catch up on my sleep then. And I'm like, no, you're not a night owl. Like you've just broken your circadian rhythm because you're a human being. You're meant to go to bed shortly after the sun sets and to wake up shortly after the sun rises or even when the sun is rising. And my circadian rhythm is 9.15 to 5.30 a.m. Like that's my time that I'm in bed wanting to be asleep, period, end of story.

21:44John Lee Dumas:Because circadian rhythm is real. And if you figure it out, you're like, wow, I'm actually operating on all energy cylinders now. Now, let's talk, Chris, about if Fire Nation could just make one change this week, one change to improve both business and quality of life. What would you recommend? The change is glaringly obvious. Go to 56hourmethod.com slash fire. Download the fillable PDF for the ideal week. It's free. It's on the website. There's other stuff for you guys. Start by sketching out to the best of your ability and do a first draft. Okay, you're going to come back and have a second draft and a third draft.

22:23Over the course of my life, I probably have 20, 30 of these things as my life has evolved as my life has changed. but get draft number one and show it to somebody that cares about you that you care about. Your work partner, your life partner, your coach, your mentor, show it to somebody. And if you get that first draft done and you get it done now, get it done today. You just listen to this thing. Don't wait. Just get it done. Give it 15, 20, 30 minutes max and you'll be there. and share it with somebody and you're on your way, right? And the rest of the stuff is going to fall into place. So all the answers, I try to put all the answers into the book so that when I'm not around someday down the road, I wanted those answers and that formula to outlive me.

23:21And that's part of my legacy. I'm honored to be able to share some of these messages with your listeners. and I'm rooting for you all to have killer businesses and killer lives. Don't sacrifice a great life for success in your career. Do both.

23:40John Lee Dumas:And Fire Nation, it is a domino effect. So knock over that first domino. And remember, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with CJ and JLD today. So keep up the heat. For links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Just type Chris, C-H-R-I-S in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. And Chris, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge, and value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you, and we will catch you on the flip side. Thank you, Joe. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Chris for sponsoring today's episode.