Below are the show notes/summary for this episode. Please listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify for the full show! Xo, Alex

 

Welcome to this week’s episode of the dream smarter podcast. I am the host of the show and the founder, creative director, visionary educator behind High Moon Studio, a brand and website design studio. We help modern CEOs be super innovative with their brands and build really solid foundations to connect to their target audience and make them feel the way they love to feel.

Today’s a really exciting day because I’m going to do a day in the life of Alex. Not every day is the same, but I’ll go through what my days typically look like when I’m doing trainings, and then I’ll go through what my days typically look like when I’m not doing trainings.

When I’m doing my designer training, it’s definitely more focused on that because I don’t take client work. I do client work here and there. I’ll take on bigger projects, but I don’t do my typical, you know, creative sprints with my clients. So, let’s get into it.

So, you guys know that I use the Things app, right? I feel like I talk about it all the time. The Things app is basically what I use to keep track of my entire life. It’s a checklist that you can separate into projects. So, we always book all of our clients ahead of time. And I always plan all of my trainings, like months ahead of time. And we book them all into this program, the Things app. So, I can go into my schedule and see everything that I need to do for the day.

And I also use it for my personal stuff. I live off of this thing, and it also connects so I can see my calendar. I check things off as the day goes. So the night before, I always check what I have going on the next day. So today, it is Thursday, December 3rd. I am just finishing up designer training.

So today, we had designer training, and I had training phone calls with my students. So, this is exactly what I did today. So today I woke up, I think it was like 6:30 or something. I go through phases for some weeks. I’m a morning person, so I typically wake up early some weeks. I wake up at 5:00 AM, and I have like three hours before I start calls, and I just take the morning slow and all of that. And some weeks, like this week, I’m just tired, and I need to sleep. I love my sleep. I could sleep for literally like 12 hours a night if I let myself. So, I think I woke up today at like seven or something like that.

I grab my phone, and I turn off my alarm, I check my email, I check my Instagram. Sometimes I’ll even like lay in bed and post on Instagram if I had planned the night before what I was going to post or if I just have some inspiration in the morning. Then I will even go through my DMs. It’s just a great time for me because typically I wake up so early, and I know other people aren’t up. I like to respond to all the DMs because I’m not going to get bombarded with responses to my responses. And that’s going to make me feel less overwhelmed because sometimes when you sit down in the middle of the day, and you start responding to all of your DMs, everybody’s awake, and they’re alert, and they’re all on their phones. And so they’re all sending me messages back immediately, and I just get so overwhelmed, and then I just stress out, and I just want to hide in a corner. So that’s a time where I answer my DMS.

Sometimes I’ll just sit and just scroll. I will sit on my phone sometimes in my bed for like an hour. It’s probably not a healthy thing to do, but sometimes I do. And in the morning, I will also read. I try and read for half an hour a day. It does not happen every single day. Sometimes in the morning, if I’m feeling inspired, I dabble in many books at a time. I’ll be like, okay, do I want to read my spiritual book today? Do I want to read my book on food and having a good relationship with food? Do I want to read my book on business? Do I want to read my book on investing in money?  I will pick and choose based on my mood. And so, I’ll sit in bed and read for like half an hour.

Then I get up. I am not a person who gets ready every day. I will tell you that much. But today, I actually woke up, and I did some Pilates. So, I typically work out four times a week. So, I have a trainer that I work out with once per week; shout out to Fit PT.

I saw her in person, and we just transitioned to virtual here, which is sad because I wish I could see her in person. But I typically work out with her on Wednesdays. So today, I woke up and did Pilates. I do Pilates online through Hot Pilates, which is a Pilates studio here in LA. They have some good trainers, and they all do different things. I’m honest with this, too; when I’m actually working out and watching a video, and I don’t have somebody there to keep me accountable, I can really only do it for like 20 to 30 minutes. I am not somebody who could sit and do an hour. I get bored.  I like to switch things up. So, I did like a 20-minute workout today in the morning.

Then I wash my face. Sometimes, washing my face is like grabbing a little pad, putting some water on it, and just wipe my face. And then I’ll do my mini skincare thing. I have rosacea, so I have a cream that’s prescribed to me that I have to put on every day. I brush my teeth, get semi-presentable, which is barely presentable usually. And then I feed Haynes, and then I have to take him out right away.

And then, once I do that, I usually make my coffee. I always drink as much water as I possibly can in the morning. I used to take all my vitamins in the morning, but my vitamin list has expanded.

I no longer do mornings because I started taking so many vitamins that, no joke, I threw up the other day. So, I decided that’s going to happen during lunch. So, I take my vitamins at lunch.

Here is what I take daily:

Essential for Women 18+

DS-01 Daily Synbiotic

B. Well Vegan Omegas + Biotin Supplements for Hair Thinning

Magnesium CitraMate

Vitamin D-1,000

In the morning, I drink a bunch of water. I will make my coffee. Sometimes I will make espresso with oat milk. Other days I just make coffee in my coffee pot because maybe I’m fasting that day. If I’m fasting, I don’t want the oat milk. So, I just make black coffee in my coffee pot.

Then I take a look at my schedule on the Things app again. And the great thing about the Things app is you can rearrange things in your schedule. So, I’ll typically go through and say, okay, what do I need to accomplish first? Is there anything that I need to accomplish before I hop on calls?

For instance, I’m doing my designer training, and I had calls today from 8:30 AM to 11:00 AM. Some people canceled today. So typically, I’m on phone calls from eight to noon, like every half an hour. I know it’s crazy. But it’s still really fun today.

So, before that, I was like, what can I do? Can I touch base with my team? Do I need to email anybody back? I typically get my emails to zero before I start the day. So, I’ll email anybody back that I need to. I will look at my schedule and see if there’s anything that I can accomplish before I hop on calls.

So, I take all of my calls with my students. They’re all like one-on-one calls where we talk about their business, how I can help them grow their business, help them deal with whatever problems they’re having, and scaling all of that fun stuff, just like really fun business coaching, which I love.

Then I have my break, which is in the middle of the day. I have a break until 3 because at 3:00 PM we have designer training. So that’s when we do our class for the day. In between, I will hop in again, since I’ve been MIA for the past four hours and just make sure my team doesn’t need anything, make sure I can answer all my emails if there’s any immediate DMS that I need to get to et cetera.

I already know when I wake up if I’m going to have to do a little bit of work, and sometimes for designer training, I also need to put together a presentation. And so typically, I’ll do that around 2:00 PM. I’ll give myself like the hour before training to just like, get everything set up and ready for that. And I can always do it within the hour.

So, from noon until 2 that’s when I have like my time. When I’m done touching base with my team, my emails, and all of that stuff, I will usually smoke weed and make myself a lunch or order lunch. I order a lot of Postmates, especially when I’m busy. And then after I do that, like today, I took Haynes for a walk. I was off a little early today, and I didn’t have any work. So, I took Haynes on an hour-long walk, which was nice.

I listened to podcasts when I do my walks.  And then I always take a nap every single day. I need my 20-minute nap. I am such a sleeper. If you guys don’t know your sleep profile, there’s like a test that you can take, and I am a bear. So, I like to hibernate. I like to sleep. I just need that little like 20-minute pick me up in the middle of the day to help me get going.

So, if I didn’t work out in the morning, then I’ll typically work out in the middle of the day, or I’ll work out at night, depending on what’s happening. Anyway, so it’s like 2:00 PM. I do my presentation, and then we have training at three. So, we hop on training, and then my trainings are usually an hour and a half, two hours max.

So, at five o’clock I have extra calls. Typically, I’ll be on calls until 8:00 PM. It’s a Thursday today, so this is just my Thursday. After that, I’ll do whatever I need to do like, podcast episodes and finish up any emails or client stuff. And then I will either order dinner on those long nights.

I will have a glass of wine, maybe smoke a little more weed. Then I’ll watch a show and wind down or work out if I didn’t work out during the day. So that’s pretty much what my schedule looks like during designer training. When I have clients, obviously a little bit different. I’m not on the phone all day when working with my clients and making creative sprints.

I just kind of follow what my mind and my body wants. If I wake up and I’m like, you know what, I want to start my day with a walk, or I want to start my day very slow and read and just hang out with the dog then get working later in the day. Some days I don’t even start working until the afternoon after I’ve eaten lunch. And I just kind of enjoy the morning to myself.

Other days I wake up, and I’m fired up, and I’m just ready to get to work. Or I know that I have a lot of work, and it gives me anxiety. And so, I want to start right away. My brain is the most active and creative in the mornings. Typically, unless I’m having a bad day or something like that, I will try and do stuff in the morning just because I know that my brain is in go mode.

I love this episode personally. I notice when people aren’t truthful in their day in the life, and it bothers me. It’s like, can you just be real? You’re not perfect. None of us can be perfect all the time. So, I wanted to just give this to you exactly how it is, exactly how I do my day, and just kind of show you that I am not perfect.

I’m just a regular old person. There’s nothing perfect about me. And I do my best to make every day count and every day exciting and worth my while because we only live one life.

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