Unmasking Greatness
Join Fitness/LifeStyle Expert & Mentor Chris Kakouras talk about maximizing your health, business, mindset, and overall life! Let's get better together as I bring on amazing guest to interview and learn from!
Unmasking Greatness
Conquering Procrastination with Morning Mastery
Ever found yourself hitting snooze a few too many times, even though you know better? Join me, Chris Kakouras, as I confess my own struggles with mornings and time management, especially when life gets hectic around the holidays. Together, we'll navigate the chaos of festive gatherings and business commitments, and discover how to reclaim control of our schedules with intention and purpose. You'll even hear my thoughts on ramping up our podcast frequency to keep you motivated with more frequent tidbits of wisdom and tactical strategies to overcome procrastination. It's time to take charge of your day, even in the midst of life's busiest seasons.
In this episode, we dig into the art of crafting a powerful morning routine to set a productive tone from the get-go. Imagine waking up to a day where you've already decided to avoid doom scrolling and have everything ready to jumpstart your goals. We'll explore the magic of time blocking with tools like Google Calendar for efficiency and focus, and how to structure your day to squeeze the most out of every moment—right down to planning meals and workouts. From my own early riser schedule to tips on keeping relationships vibrant, this journey is all about balancing productivity with peace. Let’s unlock your potential and design a life that's truly worth living.
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Welcome to Unmasking Greatness. I'm your host, chris Kikoris, a lifestyle fitness coach and mentor. This podcast is about unmasking your greatest potential, finding your purpose and crafting a life worth living. Health and fitness has been the gateway drug to all of my success. My continuous drive to keep learning and surround myself with other high achievers forces me to level up, which has developed my mind to something I never thought was possible. This podcast is here to share what I've learned and continue to learn with all of you. This is your sign to take back control of your health, mindset and personal environment. Strap in as we are recharged and always find value in the show. Please subscribe and share, as we can all get better together. Let's go. What's up, guys? Welcome to another episode of Unmasking Greatness. I'm your host, chris Koukouris.
Speaker 1:I hope you guys had an amazing last week Thanksgiving, the festivities, the food I hope it was all wonderful. And now we're getting into December, which is a whole nother month of festivities. So probably you guys obviously are going to have Christmas dinners, gatherings, business meetings with clients and co-workers. I mean, there's just a lot going on, and this is where a lot of people are just like I don't have time If you didn't have time before. I can only imagine you're not going to have time now. But you know, today I want to kind of touch on a topic that was kind of crossing my mind and, honestly, like doing this podcast. I appreciate you guys listening in and I have considered and I am still considering doing more frequent episodes, almost doing them daily, like a Monday through Friday kind of cadence, and short, like nothing extremely long, but just straight to the point. And short, like nothing extremely long, but just straight to the point tactical, inspiring, motivating, depending on how I'm feeling and what I'm going through. Because I talk to clients every single day and we do have deep conversations. That gets me to resonate and I'm walking and talking them through the struggles they're having and I'm like I feel like some other of you guys could benefit or could even resonate with some of the same struggles and in the moment I'm like, dude, that was a really good conversation and I really should just be pressing record and sharing it with you guys. So that may be happening starting in the beginning of the year. I think I may do that and of course we'll still have the guest on and have more of those longer episodes. But just something on a more frequent cadence when you wake up. I hope to inspire you guys.
Speaker 1:Now, with that being said, I am human. I am a normal individual just like you guys, fighting my own battles and trying to make something of my life and make an impact in others, of course, and I have my own downfalls. And I want to start this podcast with a confession, a confession for you guys that I come on the podcast and I'm very like hey, you know, if you got to stay motivated, if you want to reach your goals, you got to do this. And, and, honestly, this past, you know month or so, I would say I have been failing myself. One of the, the number one things I'm preaching to you guys and my clients is do not hit the snooze button, you know, get up with intention, attack the day, and I was very committed to that. I mean, of course, like I practice what I preach, so like I felt like I had to do that as well, because if I, if I didn't, I felt like an imposter to my clients and to some of you guys that are listening to me. And so it worked until it didn't.
Speaker 1:I mean, how many of you guys have done things that has been working and then, all of a sudden, it just stops working. Well, that's life Things change and we got to learn how to pivot and we need to know how to take things into perspective and make shifts. I'm a big component of you have seasons in your life. Right now is a busy season. We got December going into New Year's. You got to know how to navigate that to be able to still be successful, and so, with me lacking my ability to not hit the snooze button, it got to a point where I was like, okay, enough's enough, Like you can't keep doing this.
Speaker 1:I'm feeling like I'm not getting my tasks done in the day, I'm losing time in the day, I don't have time, and now my mind is going where many of yours is as well, and so I want to talk to you guys about some tactical things that I've done. That one has fixed and resolved that issue immediately, overnight, and this is the same strategies that we use with our clients to help them again, tactically, strategically, overcome this simple, simple obstacle, because, again, it sounds very basic, wake up in the morning. But if you are somebody, if you are especially business owners, corporate professionals, busy parents that have tons of things to do or a combination of both. You don't have time to waste and many times we're telling ourselves that we just don't have enough time in the day. The reality is, I cannot create more time. We all have 24 hours in the day, that is it. But we can optimize it and that is what I want to talk about today.
Speaker 1:So part of this concept of not hitting the snooze button and procrastination in general because that's when it comes down to the nitty gritty, that's what it is we're procrastinating and there's a, there's actually a study out that said 20% of the American population procrastinate pretty severely. Now I feel like that number is kind of low, but again, I'm not the one doing the studies, but this habit because it is it is a habit that has been built up over time. Even back, and I started thinking back in school I would have a paper to write, maybe a 20-page paper, and I would procrastinate to the night before to write a whole 20-page paper and I would get it done and it'd be fine. You know I'd pass and all that good stuff. And when you reflect on it, you know how much stress, how much anxiety started to build going into the last couple days. Did I have to do that to myself? No, I was just putting it off because it's not something I really wanted to do. And so when I start to reflect on that, I'm like okay, I just knocked out a 20 page paper in one night. Imagine me writing 20 page papers on a daily. In 30 days, I'd have a. I'd have a book written, you know.
Speaker 1:So the capability is in us, but we have trained ourselves to procrastinate, which also means that we can break that habit and start to create new ones that make things more automatic, okay. So the number one thing that you need to start to put in perspective is what it is that you are procrastinating on, and for this podcast specifically, let's talk about the snooze button deal, waking up in the morning. What is it that you're procrastinating on? Why are you procrastinating? What is holding you back from actually doing that thing? You back from actually doing that thing? Okay, and part of it, I feel like, is creating a path of least resistance. Okay, you have to create a path of least resistance, lower the barrier. The more obstacles you have to overcome, the more chances that you're not going to succeed because you haven't built up those, those habits, the systems, the structures, your confidence in yourself, that has not been built yet. So we need to lower the bar to be able to tell ourselves and show ourselves that we can. We can actually do this. So, specifically for you guys that are talking about, you don't have time, and I can only imagine that would be all of you guys that are listening to this.
Speaker 1:Even myself, building a solid morning routine is a game changer, and some of you guys are like well, I already wake up at six in the morning. I already wake up five in the morning. Great, okay, that's a good start, but let's, let's kind of look at the whole day. Okay, so I'm going to give you guys an example of myself. Okay, that's a good start, but let's, let's kind of look at the whole day. Okay, so I'm going to give you guys an example of myself. Okay, I was hitting the snooze button. Why was I hitting the snooze button? I started to audit that and I said, okay, it's because I have my alarm clock in my phone, in arm's reach, next to my bed, like right next to me. That's, that's the first barrier that I needed to break, because it's so easy to hear the alarm and just hit a button and it's off and you roll back over and in your mind you're like, ah, get up in here in five minutes and then it's going off again. You do it again. You know, potentially you might do a three, four, five, six times. I mean, I've talked to people that have snooze for an hour Now that sleep quality has gone completely to trash. But again in your mind you're just telling yourself you're tired. Another five minutes is going to make that much of a difference. It is not, and this is the number one thing that has changed from me hitting the snooze button to completely not overnight. I know this is going to sound basic, I know, so bear with me.
Speaker 1:I took the alarm clock in my phone and I put it across the room. It sounds ridiculous, I get it, but let me explain myself. Many of you are getting in bed and doom scrolling. You're scrolling on Instagram, tiktok, facebook, just scrolling, just trying to relax. Ok, I'm not going to get into the science and why that's so terrible for you, but the point is you can do that for an hour or two, easy. And then what do you do? You just roll over. You put the phone on the charger, on the you know, on your side table and you go to sleep. And same thing in the morning. Many of you hit the snooze button. Or you wake up and you go to sleep. And same thing in the morning. Many of you hit the snooze button. Or you wake up and you scroll for another hour or two. You're killing time. You're killing time, all right. So me putting it across the room? Now I have broken that barrier.
Speaker 1:When that alarm goes off, I am up. I am rushing over to that phone and turning it off because I don't want to wake my wife up. Okay, so now it's not just me I'm thinking off because I don't want to wake my wife up. Okay, so now it's not just me I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about am I trying to mess with other people's sleep because of my own personal goals? So I get up, I turn it off and by the time I get over there, am I tired? Yes, is it hard? Yes, do I want to go lay back down? Absolutely, I definitely do. But here's the thing. This is where it becomes a choice. It is a decision, a conscious decision you are going to make to either crawl back in bed and crush your goals and dreams, because sleep is more important to you or you're going to say screw it, I'm up, I'm on my feet, let's get moving. All right, and that one decision is going to catapult and domino effect through the rest of your day.
Speaker 1:Okay Now, everybody's morning routine is a little bit different. I'm going to give you guys a little perspective of mine and how I set this up. Okay Now, first off, if you guys are not time blocking, this is a massive, massive game changer that you guys need to incorporate. If you do not know where to start, how to do this, send me a DM. I'm currently actually creating a training specifically for clients right now how to use Google calendar to do this. Okay, and Google. Most people have Google calendar. This is many times integrated. If you're a business owner, integrated with your CRM system. If you are working in a corporate field, hr, something like that, again you have a business calendar. It can incorporate as well and integrate with each other.
Speaker 1:The best part about Google Calendar when you integrate with different calendars outside of just your personal, you can set it up in there to color, block it off for a specific, you know, task that you're supposed to be doing, and you can create it to be a free time block or a busy time block, and that means let's say you're someone that takes calls or you have things to do. If you want to leave that time open for that, you put it as free. If you don't want any no disruptions, nobody to bother you put it as busy and that will block off that time in all the calendars if they are integrated. And I really like that a lot because I'm going to tell you, my calendar is like you know, it looks like a color blocks of all kinds of things. But it's worked amazing for me since I started doing that, because I used to use a calendar I mean a hand scheduler, and I still do a physical scheduler. But this has been very helpful because not only can you time block, you can always set it to give you reminders. So if you guys are on a health and fitness journey, if you need reminders of what time you're supposed to be eating, a reminder of what time you should, or maybe just reminders throughout the day drink water, you know what time you're supposed to go to the gym. I'm supposed to stop working in the next 30 minutes, you could set a little timer and it will ding you on your phone and say hey, you got something coming up, time to wind it down, or whatever it may be, so I have put that together. So, if you haven't used the Google calendar to time block and you're not time blocking Again, I can't emphasize enough how much of a game changer this is. Again, if you, if you want the training, I'm more than happy just to give it to you. Again, I'm going to be finishing it up this week. Just DM me on Instagram and tell me hey, listen, I heard your podcast about the time blocking and the Google calendar. You said you had a free training. Can you send that? Yes, I'll send it. I'll send it right over and again, it'll be a screen recording walking you through that whole process.
Speaker 1:Now, part of using one of these is the first question you need to ask yourself what time does your day start, what time does your day end? So you need to be thinking about how much sleep that you're trying to be getting. Personally, I need seven hours. That's all I need. I'm good. Nothing less, nothing more. Seven's my sweet spot. Now there's studies out there that tell you you need eight, nine, ten hours. That's based on the individual, I think, and your lifestyle, but seven is a good, anything less. I've noticed it starts to hinder your recovery time. It hinders the body, the hormones. So, again, seven is kind of like that sweet spot. You got to have a start and end time, okay, and then that's when you start to plug in. When you're working, when you're going to the gym, maybe you have to pick up your kids. So I'm going to read really quickly off of like what my day looks like to give you guys an example.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I wake up at five in the morning. Boom, alarm goes off. I'm up, okay, I come straight into my office because my first task from five to about 6.45 is to come here. I do some education work either I'm watching or reading and I also get about 20 minutes on my walking pad in the office. That is what that time is for.
Speaker 1:Now, path of least resistance Okay, what if that is my first thing to do? I have my socks laid out, I have my shoes laid out, I have my shirts laid out, I have my desk set up, my walking pad set up. I already have the video and education content on my screen ready. When it turns on, I'm rolling. All I got to do is just move. I may not. I'm walking in here like a zombie, but guess what? I'm walking in here and I'm doing it, and about five, 10 minutes into that walking, I'm awake and I'm alive again. But again, path of least resistance. Imagine being exhausted, searching for your socks, searching for your shoes, searching for, like, oh, what am I going to watch today? You messed up. You lost 30 minutes right there. Okay, set yourself up for success.
Speaker 1:Okay, after that, I'm eating breakfast. I'm waking my son up at seven and we got to get him to school by 745. So, again, block that time off specifically for that. I'm at the gym by eight, because the gym's right near his school. I'm in the gym at eight. I'm moving. I blocked off an hour and a half. I'm not there the whole hour and a half, but that's my time. I blocked off. Okay, now, by the time I get back home, I'm eating again.
Speaker 1:My official work time, work day, starts at 10. Okay, and so I block off all that time and this is free time opening for me to be able to take calls, have coaching calls with clients, do other tasks for that day specifically. So I'm not getting into the details. This is purely blocking off time. Think of this as chapters of your story. Okay, we're just giving segments to our day, to things we need to work on, okay. And then by 545, I have a notification that I need to start shutting down. At six o'clock I'm doing an end of day review for my work and my personal, and then by 630, I'm basically doing family time until about nine, nine 30. I'm putting my son down to go to bed and then I'm in bed by nine 30, prayed by the gods Okay, if you have a kid. So that's the plan. And then I have my time, sleep for the rest of the day and I rinse and repeat. That is what my day looks like, from 5 am to about 9.30, 10 o'clock at night. I'm rolling, I'm rolling, but I feel like I have time to do the things that I need to do.
Speaker 1:Now. This will change and evolve over time because, again, we have this is life. Things change, we have seasons, but when you have a standard, when you have a foundation that you're working off of, it's easy to move things around. It's easy to move things around. You know what I mean, because you understand how this process works. You understand how you want your life to run. Now, this time I said I was working out at eight At one point. I was working out at lunchtime. I don't work out at nighttime. I just can't do it. Okay, I'm exhausted by then, but again I can shift things around. Now I encourage all my clients and I do this too. I plan everything. Again, you just heard it. I plan everything and then using a scheduler like a physical planner, that's where I write out the details, or you could use a CRM system as well. We do that when we have calls or getting booked. I know exactly what I'm doing during that work time. So I plan everything down.
Speaker 1:One thing don't plan. If you are married, if you're a couple, don't plan your sex. Don't do that. I think that's a little weird, but again, I feel like I needed to say that because I had a client that was doing that. I was like I feel like that's very robotic and kind of awkward. Be spontaneous, all right. Pick a random spot, catch her in the bathroom. You know getting ready. You know something you know make it interesting, make your sex life fun. That is part of you know keeping your relationship spicy. You know, do make, make it interesting, make your sex life fun. Uh, that is part of you know, keeping your relationship spicy, all right, but uh, there's certain things I I recommend that you don't don't plan. But other than that, in general, yes, plan everything.
Speaker 1:Okay, you have to do this, you have to do this if you want to find that time, if you want to get time back. There's. There's no other way to do it. If you're just sitting and you're complaining, what is that going to do for you? You have to take action, you must take action. That is what is going to beat procrastination, it's going to relieve anxiety and you're going to have a more peaceful lifestyle. You have to do this.
Speaker 1:This is one of the first things that we do with our clients. To be honest with you, we want to see what your day looks like, because when we understand that, now we understand okay, what can we do? As far as workouts go, can you go every day? Can you go five days a week? Four, three, two, can you even go at all? Maybe we need to do some microdosing exercise, which is about 15 minutes in the morning at your house. There's many ways that we can craft this Same thing with food you eating three times a day, five times a day. Can you follow a structure. If not, we have other intuitive eating methods, these if we don't know what your day looks like, I can throw anything at you and you're just going to look at it and be like, man, this is, this is unrealistic, I can't follow this. And then now we're self-defeating because you're like I'll never reach my goals because this, this is not going to work for me and that's why we have to come in there and do some deeper digging. If you have a coach that's like you signed up with and they're like, oh, here's your diet, here's your, here's your workout, and they didn't ask you any questions about your life, well, that's a random shot in the dark. You know what I mean. We need to know the details. You know we got to know the details. So, again, this is going to help you have more peace in your life, to be successful.
Speaker 1:Now this episode. I wanted to try to keep it short as possible. Where are we at? We're close to like 20 minutes in.
Speaker 1:Again, if you are one of the listeners that listen to my podcast on a regular, I want you to do me a favor outside of giving me a good rating on my podcast and leaving a review. If you don't mind, just take one minute and I want you to shoot me a message and say hey, chris, I love your podcast. I like once a week, they're fine or do you think that it would be great for me to do something that's like again, I'm thinking 10, 15 minutes Monday through Friday, outside of any sort of interviews that I do, because I do have some that are planned. We're just gearing down a location to start doing those interviews, because I'd like to sit down with these people if possible outside of doing like a virtual. I like being in person. So, but if you think that would be helpful for you, if you like that kind of idea of doing something daily, let me know, because I'm actually, the more I talk about it, the more I want to do it. So not to say that you alone is going to make that decision, but I want to give you guys what you want and I've even considered, just while I'm doing these podcasts, I'll have a certain time, certain days, and I'll go live on Instagram while I'm actually recording it. So kind of a double hit in that sense. So, if you like actually seeing a visual, and then you could even I could even interact with you guys on there, which I think would be pretty, pretty neat as well. So I got some cool things, some ideas that I just want to try out and see what works.
Speaker 1:But again, the podcast isn't going anywhere. We're going to inevitably keep doing this. I enjoy it and hopefully you guys get some good value out of this. Sometimes we're digging deep and sometimes we're getting tactical. Today I feel like it was a little more tactical. And again, last thing, before I let you guys go, if you are interested in the whole time blocking idea you don't know how to set that up. You need visuals. Let me know. Shoot me a DM. I will send you a screen recording and walk you through exactly how to set that up and the process to be successful in your days and get your time back. All right, I hope you guys have a good rest of the day. I'll talk to you later. Peace.