For most of us, our daily routines are fairly standard. Wake up, make coffee, work, lunch with a friend, spend time with family or watch TV at night, and then hit the hay at night. But what happens when you’re Elon Musk? You’re the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, the chairman of SolarCity, and a co-founder of PayPal (among other things), which means your days are anything but routine…and there’s probably very little downtime to be had.
When does Elon Musk wake up?
It’s 3:30 am and Elon Musk has already been at work for three hours.
The billionaire entrepreneur has kept a consistent sleeping schedule for almost his entire life, going to bed around 1:30 AM and waking up at 7:00 AM. He uses these early morning hours to wake up in peace, read, and relax before diving into a day of meetings and business calls that often extend late into the night. I believe it’s important to be awake when your body is awake, he said. Otherwise, you get sort of out of sync. If you’re sleep-deprived you kind of don’t have a sense of priorities.
What does Elon Musk do in the morning?
In Elon Musk’s own words, I wake up every day and it’s like, ‘what amazing things can we do today?’ That’s how I start my day.
It sounds corny, but that is genuinely how I think about it. I want to use my time well. But then you need to work hard! Then there are some days where you just don’t have good ideas or whatever, so maybe you read a book or take a walk in nature—but that just seems way better than what most people do which is sit on their ass watching TV. It doesn’t seem that relaxing to me. So I try to structure my life so that’s not an option for me.
The CEO of SpaceX stays focused on coffee: One thing is for sure, Elon isn’t letting distractions get in his way. This billionaire entrepreneur said he has never felt more focused in his life since leaving college at age 22–just after he began studying physics at Penn State University. The really weird thing is when I’m writing software sometimes, said Musk, who estimated he spends 80 percent of his waking hours working (or thinking about) SpaceX or Tesla Motors Inc., his electric car company.
When does Elon Musk go to sleep?
One of his former Tesla employees has shared that Elon always goes to sleep at 1 am, wakes up at 7 am, and then starts working.
Apparently, he never sleeps in and he likes to nap during long flights. He’s also told friends that his secret to success is getting around 6 hours of sleep per night. That’s it. I know what you’re thinking: Elon isn’t human! Or maybe he was born with a rare condition called polyphasic sleeping which allows him to break down his sleep into several parts throughout each day instead of sticking to one long block (like we all do). It seems more likely that some part of him knows something we don’t; namely that when we give our brains a rest (by sleeping), they work best. Science backs him up on this as well – researchers have found that naps can improve memory and performance if they are kept under 30 minutes. So close your eyes for a quick catnap before heading into your next meeting; you might be surprised by how much better you feel afterward!
What does Elon Musk eat?
When asked how to live like a billionaire, Elon Musk once responded by saying I sleep on my factory floor.
I think it’s important to be close to your work. A day in his life is pretty intense, too—and Musk gets up at 7 am most days, working through lunch and taking a break only after dinner. In terms of diet, he says he’s not picky but definitely prefers simple dishes like eggs or pasta with tomato sauce: I really have no desire to try exotic foods. If it’s served fresh I will try it but I wouldn’t want to go out of my way to order something crazy at a restaurant. Musk also avoids alcohol, he says, because it harms productivity. Instead, during his annual summer camp (wherein employees devote time outside of normal hours), Musk likes to go on walks around Los Angeles and then hold dinners for staff members and their significant others that feature both him and his wife as chefs. He wakes up early every morning at home and goes to sleep late every night so there aren’t many hours in-between that aren’t accounted for by either eating or sleeping. To help keep himself productive during these long hours, Musk has a strict routine that even involves following one step before another. For example First coffee (every cup), then read the news (using Google) while listening to music.
How much time does Elon Musk spend on his phone?
Elon Musk spends less than you might think—but it’s still a significant chunk of his day.
From sleep to social media to work, here’s how Elon spends his days. 8:30 a.m.: As soon as he wakes up, Elon is already thinking about what needs to be done at work. He begins checking on his companies by sending emails and reading reports in bed before even getting up, according to Rolling Stone. If there were no e-mail, he says, I would not get anything done. I would be serenely happy.
How much does Elon sleep?: Elon sleeps around eight hours every night but admits that isn’t enough time. For me, [sleep] needs to be scheduled. I get grumpy if I don’t have enough time to sleep. You can send me on vacation right now, and instead of relaxing I’ll schedule 3 or 4 extra hours of sleep every night, said Elon Musk during an interview with Joe Rogan in August 2018.
How many times a day does Elon Musk check his emails?
The answer may surprise you. In an interview, Elon reveals that he gets ready in a shockingly short amount of time.
When asked what his morning routine looks like, he responded with I take a shower and get dressed–but that’s not all. He then revealed his daily beauty routine: shower and wash his hair. Yes, that’s it–he doesn’t use conditioner or any other products. What do you think about Elon Musk? I love him! He seems so smart and driven. However, I’m surprised he only showers every day because usually, people want to avoid too much exposure to water on their skin as much as possible. But who am I to judge if Elon says it works for him? Plus, don’t we care more about how successful someone is than whether they have perfect skincare habits? It just goes to show that anyone can achieve success no matter their background or upbringing. It’s fascinating to read stories about someone’s history and accomplishments and remember that even disadvantaged children can grow up to be respected world leaders one day.
How long does it take Elon Musk to get ready in the morning?
Elon Musk claims that he gets up early every day to spend time on his own personal projects, to have an offline period,
and because it sets a good example for his kids. It is important to create a sense of urgency for yourself when you wake up in the morning, so you’re forced to get out of bed and start working immediately, he said in an interview with Entrepreneur. He even suggests setting your alarm clock 15 minutes ahead of when you actually need to wake up. Although he doesn’t go into detail about how long it takes him to get ready each morning, we do know that he showers at night and skips shaving most days. I don’t use an alarm clock. I like to set my schedule for sleeping as close to dawn as possible, but other than that I generally sleep whenever I want within reason. I might take a half-hour nap after lunch if I’m feeling tired, he told New York Magazine in 2007. I think professional advice should be dispensed periodically rather than continuously…You want people coming back every now and then because they appreciate it.
What has influenced Elon musk more than anything else in life?
I think more people should really consider having a founder-oriented mentality in life.
Being your own boss, really being a pioneer, and exploring uncharted territory, there are very few situations that you’re going to be better off than if you do that. I mean what would you rather do? Take a safe job with some big company or be your own boss and maybe go broke for a couple of years while you try to figure out how to make something work? If you have an idea that is somehow tied up in your DNA—this could sound like a crazy thing to say but it sounds normal when I say it—then no matter what situation you’re in there will always be ways to make that idea survive, maybe only at first as a weekend project but then as something bigger and, finally, someday making it into reality. If you have that kind of attitude toward life then starting companies isn’t all bad; it’s actually quite enjoyable! (laughs) You need to decide: Are you going to try to get promoted or are we gonna start our own thing? For most people promotion means doing whatever they can not to get fired from their current job and making sure their next one is even better by avoiding another layoff.
What are Elon musk’s biggest productivity hacks and tricks?
Elon Musk is easily one of today’s most successful tech entrepreneurs. As CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, he’s also one of today’s leading innovators and entrepreneurs.
One major key to his success: establishing routines that enable him to work without distraction. Routines are extremely important, especially for people like Elon who live very busy lives, says Dr. Alex Lickerman, a psychiatrist based in Chicago whose book The Undefeated Mind chronicles what separates those who thrive in difficult circumstances from those who crack under pressure. People often think of their brain as being a monolithic thing, but really it’s not a unitary object. It has different capacities at different times…and these cycles correspond with daily rhythms. According to Lickerman, everyone has an optimal time during each day when they should be doing certain things—particularly focusing on cognitively demanding tasks like getting stuff done—and it helps enormously if you can figure out what time that is and schedule accordingly.
Conclusion
The following is an excerpt from Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and The Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance.
While he’s able to handle high-pressure situations with relative ease and grace, there’s one particular quality that makes him so successful: He doesn’t procrastinate. I find that people think I do my best work under pressure, he says. And so I don’t actually have a lot of downtimes—like most people, I suspect. But it turns out not to be true for me. For me, deadlines are not what makes me productive. Deadlines are to motivate other people. I produce effectively on long-time scales. I can do things on a five-year time scale very easily, but on shorter time scales it gets trickier. To take some information in for example—it’s very hard to take in new information when you have distractions around you or if you’re busy doing something else.
That’s why I like schedules that are very inflexible—otherwise, they get overridden too easily and then they become distractions themselves.
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