Here's How I Do It All.

I recently shared with my network that I'd be spending a few hours per month advising a close friend, Bomani and his startup, Crave It with their Social Media Marketing strategy.

After the announcement, I was inundated with the most common questions that I've gotten in the past couple of years, "How do you do it all?", "Do you even sleep?", "Why do you like doing different things? "

So here's a blog to share a little bit about how I operate.

I go into this in more detail in my book, but here's an overview.

The Tweetable, short answer is:

"Relentless planning, rigorous scheduling and continuously evaluating my priorities."

The more detailed answer is:

• I don't watch Netflix shows, Sports, TV or News
• I don't listen to Radio and refuse to listen to commercials
• I don't to play video games because I know that I'll want to get good and it will be extremely time consuming
• I'm conscious of my social media usage and have developed a habit of stopping myself when I enter the "mindless newsfeed scroll"
• I'm extremely aware of my personality traits and my strengths/weaknesses
• I prioritize things that energize me. Things that I enjoy most and would do for free if all of my bills were paid and money wasn't a factor in the equation of life
• I have a VERY strict schedule and set of routines that I live by
• I prioritize learning every single day. Podcasts, books, documentaries, etc.
• I have worked extremely hard to build my habits and rid of those that are detrimental to my happiness and productivity
• I invest in my personal fitness and mental health daily
• I de-prioritize or outsource things that are energy draining
• I carve out time every single day to make progress on at least one thing that I'm extremely passionate about
• I carve out time every single day to be alone, recharge and reflect
• I have a team that I've hired to support me with things like scheduling content, personal admin tasks and email requests
• I use see technology as a tool for efficiency, connection and learning. And everything that I do with technology / apps tends to follow this rule
• I set daily, weekly, monthly, annual, 3-year and 5 year goals. Everything that I do is aligned with one of those goals and not all of them have to do with work-related projects, some of them include my family, friends and how I will choose to give back to communities that I resonate with most (hence the book)

I'm constantly refining my schedule depending on the priorities in my life and the weight of each of them, but here's what my current schedule looks like:

My Friday schedule tends to be very similar, unless I have plans that evening.

Saturday's I sleep in till about 7:30 AM work out, clean or finish up chores, work on projects for about 5 hours, spend time with family, work on side hustles for 3-6 more hours and relax a bit.

If I worked on Saturday, then most of Sunday is usually reserved for relaxing and recharging but I will usually spend about 2-3 hours on my side hustles and planning for the following workweek.

If I reserve 50 hours per week for my day job, 7.5 hours per night of sleep and some time per day for family and recharging, I still squeeze out about 15-20 hours per week on my side hustles and passion projects.

For those of you who have known me or worked with me in the past, you know that I've always operated like this.

In High School, I took 2 AP classes, was a part of the school's activities board, played Varsity Soccer and made the Swim during my senior year. Graduated with a 3.5.

In college, I was UC Merced's Student Activities Lead, juggled a full load of courses, DJ'd 2-3 times per week, had an internship with the Office of Student Life and took a leadership role in a Professional Business Fraternity - all in during my senior year. Graduated with a 3.0

During my time at LinkedIn, I also went started an entertainment company with one of my best friends where we'd rent out venue, hire performers and pack the place out with 300-500 people per show. I also went on a US tour for DJ'ing and worked on developing my personal brand.

In the past year, my focus has shifted from DJ'ing to creating content that uplifts, empowers and educates others. This has come in the form of blogs, podcasts, social posts and soon to come, my book.

Juggling multiple things isn't new to me, but it does come with a few sacrifices.

I choose to give up a lot of things in order to do what I love most.

I don't mind hard work and am addicted to progress, which is why I'll continue to invest in myself, my loved ones and what I love to do.

I share my story on a daily basis via Instagram. You can follow along by adding me @ishverduzco

Thank you for taking the time to read this post and I hope that it was of value to you.