Secrets of the hyper productive
You can’t control how much time you have on this earth, but you can choose how you use the 24 hours we all are dealt every day
Julian Hearn is the founder of Huel, the meal replacement drink that the company bills as the ‘future of food’. Initially treated with suspicion,
Huel has since made more than 40 million sales across 80 countries, turning over £40m, in 2018 alone. Here’s how he structures his routine to get things done...
08:00 Log your sleep
‘When we were a startup, the late nights and early mornings could get a bit much. I wore an Oura ring to monitor my sleep and my variable heart rate. I’m now trying to get a good-quality six to eight hours a night.’
09:30 Plug in
‘When I get to work, putting headphones on helps me focus. I’ve used a station called Somafm for years – the channel I listen to is called Groove Salad. It’s all ambient, chillout music. I reckon it makes me 20% more productive.’
10:30 Put down the pen
‘Try to think through all the permutations of a project before writing anything down. You can think really fast, whereas writing, drawing and making is much slower. It’s like being a chess player – try to think through the next six or seven moves before making one.’
12:00 Have a liquid lunch
‘I probably haven’t had a lunch break in four years. Breakfast and lunch in the working week are not typically social occasions – I want to crack on, so I’ll have Huel for breakfast and lunch. I use the powder version and it takes me 15 seconds to make.’
14:00 Meet on your feet
‘We’ve got stand-up tables around the office for meetings. When you’re standing, you don’t want to stay there for an hour. You get to the point, get it done and move on. No waffling.’
15:00 Work up a sweat
‘There’s a gym at work and a PT who comes in twice a week. He does sessions in mini groups but there’s about 70 people at Huel now, so he can’t fit us all into lunchtime’
17:00 Jump on a call
‘We’ve got teams in
LA, New York, Berlin, Birmingham and London, but I try to avoid travelling. All of our meeting rooms have Zoom. You can’t beat meeting somebody and shaking their hand, but the time it takes to get to those places is dead time.’
17:30 Don’t stick around
‘Typically, I leave work around 5.30pm or 6pm. I don’t encourage anybody to do crazy hours. We’re not in sprint mode anymore, we’re in marathon mode.’
18:30 Clear your head
‘People talk about meditation but, for me, walking the dog is my quiet time when I don’t get any distractions. I’ll try to do an hour after dinner, so it’s a good amount of exercise. If I don’t do that, I don’t feel quite right.’
20:00 Engage your ears
‘I find books very monotone, so podcasts have been a godsend. If I think a book is interesting, I’ll Google the author’s name and see if they’ve ever done a podcast. Typically, an author can summarise a 300-page book in 15 or 20 minutes.’
22:30 Switch off, sleep better
‘I won’t use my phone 30 minutes before I go to bed. That means I’ll set my alarm half an hour before, so I don’t have to turn my phone on and get zapped with a light. I set my alarm based on what time I go to bed so I get enough sleep. And if I go to bed later, I’ll get up later.’