Adam: Most people think the key to changing their life is waking up earlier. But what if the real secret is what you do the night before? Because the truth is, you guys, a lot of people lose their evenings without even realizing it. They sit down for a minute, scroll their phone, maybe turn on a show, and suddenly it's 11 47 p.m. and tomorrow's alarm is only six hours away. And those few hours between the end of the workday and bedtime quietly determine how tomorrow is going to feel. Your energy, your focus, your mood, maybe your productivity. Well, welcome back to the Pursuit of Progress podcast. As always, I'm Adam Lang here with my cohost, Ben Adams. This is season three, where we talk about money, mindset, and the habits that shape the life you build over time. And in today's episode, we're breaking down seven evening habits that can dramatically improve your next day, your sleep, your productivity, your mindset, and even your long-term progress. And the goal here isn't to copy our routines exactly. is to help you design evenings that actually support the life you're trying to build. Really excited to go through this with you guys today on a brand new episode. Ben, welcome back, bud.

Benjamin Adams: So excited to be here. Season three, episode nine. This is a big one. This is a huge one. I have been following a lot of just health and longevity experts on social media this past year. And one thing that all of them talk about constantly and have in common is just the importance of sleep. And so I don't think that I understood, you know, we talk about working out, we talk about eating right, making good choices, ⁓ running, doing cardio workouts. At least with me though, I have never prioritized sleep. And so that has been one thing that has been a big part of my routine and something that I'm really trying to change.

Adam: Definitely, And you actually, ⁓ before we dive into this, you've been rocking a ⁓ little sleep tracker on your Garmin watch I've been noticing in the gym, right?

Benjamin Adams: Yeah, so one thing that I did, and this is gonna be point number one with the sleep, is turning sleep into something measurable. And so what I did earlier this year is I got a new Garmin watch and it has advanced sleep metrics. So every morning when I get up, it gives me a sleep report. It rates what my score is. It monitors my heart rate, tells me what my resting heart rate was. It also monitors my HRV, which is heart rate variability. And some of this stuff, I didn't even understand exactly what it was and how it worked. What's great about the sleep score though, is it monitors how much of your sleep the night before was in deep sleep, how much was in light sleep, how much was in REM, and then how much you were awake. And I'm always shocked at how accurate it is. A lot of times I'll wake up and I'll kind of guess what my score is. And then I'll look down at my watch and a lot of times, like it's normally like right on, like if I slept well, I'm thinking I'm probably gonna be in the 80s and I can just feel that way when I'm getting up. And then we have those nights where maybe I didn't get the bed on time and I had caffeine too late and I was tossing and turning. Another thing right now for me is my dogs. Like I have nights where my dogs just get up like three times in the night, I let them out and it's just a huge disruption to sleep. So most people treat sleep like guess. They're just guessing with their sleep. But the moment something becomes measurable, it becomes improvable. And so this has been one thing that's really helped me just measuring my sleep metrics. And my daughter now is doing this, my girlfriend Grace is doing this, and we will look at our sleep data and just kind of compare. And sometimes we'll even have family contests. We'll do it a week at a time and whoever has the best sleep score gets a free coffee or gets a dessert somewhere. And so it's been something. that's been really rewarding and just having that awareness has been an opportunity for me to really change my behavior.

Adam: I have been thinking about this recently as well. Just a couple really, really crummy nights of sleep actually, just the last couple nights, losing my voice a little bit, I think even because of it. And one thing that I think is really interesting is how you can address sleep sometimes, specifically sleep, you can do some other things too, but you can address it in a way to really test your willpower and just realizing just how weak I am in certain aspects of my life when it comes to the phone and just... You know, like for example, your sleep, you're leading up to going to sleep, you know, putting the phone in a different room, not having any screen time for the last hour, all these things that are just such no brainers, so obvious, yet they are so incredibly challenging to actually abide by and do. I know, I just have felt just being open and honest, authentic with you guys today. I think that's something that I've struggled with a little bit recently, just why it's still so challenging at times for me to.

Benjamin Adams: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Adam: follow through with what I say I'm going to do when it comes to my night routine.

Benjamin Adams: It's the discipline, right? Well, you're talking, that's what I'm hearing. I'm hearing that you're talking about discipline. I struggle with the same thing because when I get up in the morning and go to the gym, I'm like, man, I am going to bed on time. Come up tonight. I'm going to bed on time tonight so I don't feel tired and exhausted when I get up tomorrow. But then guess what? I have my coffee and my caffeine and have breakfast, lunch, dinner. And then when it comes time to wind down like, well, I can stay up a little bit later. I'm to do a little reading, mess around on my phone. And then all of a sudden it's 11 p.m. And guess what? I'm in the exact same boat as the night before. And the problem just repeats itself.

Adam: Yep. Well, let's just kind of take this a step further. And I really want to talk more about specifically the part of the night routine where you're docking your phone away from your bed. So, you know, instead of trying to be disciplined with your phone at night, it's really better just to design your entire environment. So the phone isn't even part of the equation. You when you have your phone next to bed, there's this constant stimulation. I dealt with this last night. That's why I was just thinking about this, where I woke up at, you know, like one or two in the morning, couldn't fall back asleep.

Benjamin Adams: Yeah.

Adam: rolled over, there's my phone. just, you know, turn it on for what I thought would only be a minute or two. And no joke is probably on there for 45 minutes. And then I'm like, Oh my God, it's like three in the morning, you know, this like stupid, you know, another really good way though is also to just make sure it's on silent, make sure your notifications are turned off. Even just that blue light that pops up on the screen. If it's in the same room and you just see the phone kind of light up. Now it's going to be a test of willpower and whether or not you get up and go over to see why I did that. just really keeping your brain intentionally distracted or at least away from this kind of stuff, just so it doesn't stay activated all night. You know, it's able to really get into a state where it can be, you know, restful.

Benjamin Adams: And the other thing is it's almost like if your phone's next to you, like the fact that it's next to you, it is still kind of stimulating because you're kind of like my phone's even when you're sleeping, you're like my phone's right there. Like you're thinking this to yourself. And it's such a temptation at any point just to reach over even while you're sleeping. And ⁓ Brian Johnson, the longevity expert ⁓ who has a goal of never dying. That's one thing that he talks about constantly is how just draining and toxic that is, especially social media. And he's gone on these social media fasts recently where he just completely unplugged and he can, it actually shows up in his blood work is what he's saying. ⁓ Now he understands that's probably not practical and he's not saying that he's going to give it up, but it's something that you do want to, again, just have that awareness of.

Adam: Definitely. Yep, small changes, but massive improvements.

Benjamin Adams: Yeah, point number three here is treating evenings like preparation time. And this is something that I am working on. I actually have a sleep routine that I've written out. ⁓ I have a routine that I want to follow as far as what time I'm getting into bed, what time I'm turning my phone off, where I'm docking my phone. Another thing for me that I really struggled with is I will drink a lot of water. What I've been doing is I've been going for a run a little bit later in the afternoon or the evening, so sometimes around like six or seven. And then I want to rehydrate myself. And so I'm drinking a lot of water, but then it's disrupting my sleep because I'm having to get up and go to the bathroom every half hour. And that's been a real problem for me. So kind of changing some of those habits, having a real routine and really preparing. Everyone talks about their morning routine, but really it should be your evening or your sleep routine. Most people treat evenings like leftover time, but the evenings are actually preparation time for tomorrow. So if you can really dial in your evening routine, get that dialed in, your tomorrow's, your tomorrow mornings are going to be so much better.

Adam: And if this is something that you guys also struggle with, not just with sleep, but also just with your day-to-day activities that you do for work. Maybe you're an entrepreneur, maybe you work from home, no matter where you work, if you every single day show up to work or start the day in a state of anxiety and a little bit of maybe just not depression, but just not excited to start the day and you're just feeling overwhelmed and maybe a little bit distracted and just unsure how to even start the day. man, one of the best tips I can give is just having that beginning of your day planned out the night before. That way when you wake up in the morning, you do whatever you're doing. Maybe it's working out, maybe it's just getting a good meal, whatever it is, doesn't matter. As soon as you get into the office, you already know what your tasks are that are the most important. know, Brian Tracy has a great book called Eat That Frog, and it talks a lot about this too, where you always wanna tackle the biggest projects, the biggest, most just demanding ⁓ type.

Benjamin Adams: Yeah.

Adam: You always want to try and do those first if you can and you're a lot more likely to do those if you have them planned out the night before so you know that that is exactly what needs to get done.

Benjamin Adams: Yeah, I think you're right. That's such a great point where you want to be able to go on autopilot. And if you walk into the office or you log on to your computer and there's already a list of things that you need to get done for the day in the morning and they're already outlined, you already plan those, you can get right into your day. And that helps with the anxiety. The worst feeling in the morning is starting your morning with that anxiety. What am I going to do? What's waiting for me? What's going to be in my email inbox? You know, the kids are late. I gotta call them, it's one thing after another and then all of a sudden it's 7.30 a.m. and you're already feeling like you're losing the day.

Adam: Yep. Ben there done that. We're both saying this to guys from a place of, ⁓ honesty, cause we both have dealt with this and we oftentimes still do. So definitely right in there with you guys on this one. So this next one is also, think super important. I really liked this one and it's talking about the idea that deciding tomorrow before tomorrow actually even arrives. And one of the highest return habits anybody can build is deciding tomorrow before tomorrow shows up.

Benjamin Adams: Yeah.

Adam: And this is still following in what we've just talked about. Some of that quick evening planning the night before. I've even heard some military background, know, high level producers talk about this as their after action report. Basically just spending the, you know, end of each day, maybe you spend about 15 minutes reflecting on what went well that day, that current day, maybe what you could have done better, maybe what you were really happy about. And then transitioning then from spending a few minutes on that day to then planning out the following day. That quick evening planning really does put yourself in the best place possible to win that next day and really doing so by identifying just the top two to three, you know, things that are really going to move the needle. There's different ways to look at this. One of my top favorite entrepreneurs is Andy Frisella. He talks a lot about this in his program that he has called 75 hard, which is also part of what he calls the power list. So same idea. Different people have different ways of kind of accomplishing the same goal here, but

Benjamin Adams: Mm-hmm. Go.

Adam: The biggest part of this is just consistency and just knowing that you have to get it done every single day. It's not about making these massive improvements. It's about the daily tasks that you're taking because those daily wins, those days that you win every single day all of a sudden compound into significant progress in a lot shorter amount of time than you probably realize.

Benjamin Adams: Yeah, Jeff Jeff Bezos talks about this that anxiety and stress a lot of times often come from ignoring the things that you need to do the conversations that you need to have the emails that you follow up on the action that you're not taking. And one thing that I've learned is that you feel so much more confident if you're if feeling behind or overwhelmed and you don't know where to start just start.

Adam: ⁓ Yep.

Benjamin Adams: A lot of times what I'll do, I love the eat the frog mentality, but usually how I start my days is I'll just do two or three things that are just real easy, real simple, take five or 10 minutes. I'll make that easy call, like really brief one first, kind of get in the flow, and then I'll go straight to the things that are the big things. And so I allow myself a little bit of a runway before I go into those big things, just to kind of get my brain going, get my words, my tongue working right. and then I'll go into the big things. So do what works for you, but you can't shy away from the things that need to get done. Sometimes I tell my kids, it's not always about what we want to do. It's about doing what's necessary.

Adam: Love that.

Benjamin Adams: Yeah, and kind just moving on to our next point here, point number five, creating a wind down trigger. So here's the thing with wind down triggers. Your brain responds incredibly well to clues. When the same wind down signals happen every night, your brain begins preparing for sleep automatically. And Adam, that's why some of these routines, some of these habits that we're talking about are so important because when you turn off the phone an hour before and you go dock the phone, One thing that I've started to enjoy is read before I go to bed. So I dock my phone, I read my book for maybe a half hour or an hour. And then what I do is I turned on my sound machine and it has a light and then it also has a sound. And that just kind of gets my brain ready and it gets my body ready. The lights are dimmed, but then this light is on and it's just kind of this pleasant rain, this rainforest rain. I'm just preparing my body for sleep. Now, one thing, that's right, that's right. One thing I've noticed, kind of going back, now that I monitor my data, I fall asleep so much faster than I used to. And I think it's because I've incorporated some of these wind down triggers. Now, one of the challenges is that it's so interesting looking at my data, is like, I will usually go right into a deep sleep when I fall asleep.

Adam: ⁓ excuse me.

Benjamin Adams: And, and when you sleep, you have different cycles that you go through. So it's normal to go from a light sleep into a deep sleep and then back into a light sleep and then go into REM light deep. So your body goes through these cycles. But one thing that I've struggled with at times is actually staying asleep where I'll just kind of wake up like at one or 2 AM. And it's like, what do I do then when I, when I wake up and kind of like what you said, like I, in the past, I would have popped on my phone and then that re stimulates my brain. And then it just causes problems. So trying to have that discipline even when I do accidentally awake later in the night that I'm not getting up and like activating my body.

Adam: Yeah, I think the moral of the story on that one is really just understanding that the more cues that you can really establish for that nighttime routine and the more consistently you are following those, your brain will really start to pick up on those and it's gonna get much, much easier as you guys do this for a longer period of time. And by you guys, I really mean me. I need to do that one myself. ⁓

Benjamin Adams: Now let me ask you this, do you let your dog sleep on your bed and does that impact your sleep? If he's on the bed, do feel like he sleeps better? Do feel like he sleeps better if he's off the bed?

Adam: ⁓ My little guy is pretty small so he doesn't really ⁓ wake me up or my girlfriend but he's kind of up and down. He's all over the place.

Benjamin Adams: Cause that's the thing about my dogs, man. They love sleeping like right next to me. And then one is always down like in between my legs. So when I'm sleeping, it's like I'm a scarecrow. have like one leg going this way, another leg going that way. I have one like, I have three dogs and like one is nestled up under my arm. One is down by my toes and ⁓ my gosh. so now, sometimes they'll wake up in the middle of the night, they'll start barking at each other. I'm like, what's going on here?

Adam: Yeah, no, thank you. Well, I love this next one. This is something that I think is super powerful, and that is understanding how you can make decisions that your future self is going to benefit from. So every single evening decision is basically a trade between present you and tomorrow you. And this is something that so I'm, you know, 42. But you're I think one year older than me, 43. So we're at this age right now that man, little things like staying up late.

Benjamin Adams: So I'm having to reevaluate that.

Adam: maybe eating late, drinking alcohol, ⁓ eating a gummy, whatever it may be, those things really do have a bigger toll on our bodies as you get a little bit older, at least they do for me. So just really understanding that your future self pays the price for those bad decisions and the future self can also benefit from any good decisions. So it's a really simple mindset shift. And the best way I can say is just, you know, ask yourself tonight when you go to bed, you what will tomorrow me thank me for?

Benjamin Adams: When you can constantly live from that delayed gratification mindset and perspective where you're constantly sacrificing being disciplined today for the benefit of your future self, that is how you start winning with money, winning with relationships, winning with your sleep. It's the reason that so many of us struggle and I'm right there with you. I'm the same way. I've never considered myself a morning person. I've always been a night owl. Getting to bed on time has been very difficult. I haven't always set the best example for my family when it comes to getting to bed on time. And so these are things that I am actively working on, but it's important because it does impact your health. It impacts every area of your life. If you're trying to improve yourself, my suggestion is to always start with things that are going to improve every area of your life. And so there's always two things that stand out when people talk about self growth. The first is communication. If you become a better communicator, your personal relationships are gonna benefit, you're gonna be better at work, your career is gonna benefit. It's something that transcends your entire life, but sleep is the same way. If you learn how to get to bed on time and get better quality sleep, You will become better, more patient, more productive in every area of your life. I promise you, Adam. I promise you.

Adam: Yeah, it's great. Well, let's close this one out, Ben. What about this final one about setting that standard?

Benjamin Adams: Final one right here, folks. This is the last one. Point number seven, setting the standard in your household. One of the most overlooked impacts of evening routines is how they influence the people around you. And I just touched on this a minute ago. I haven't always set the best standard. Staying up late, not getting to bed on time, messing around on my phone, watching TV or Paramount Plus, NBC, Peacock, watching sports is another thing that I love to do. Even on the weekends, I've realized that sometimes I've always allowed myself to stay up a little bit later on Friday and Saturday. And it just, if I do that for an hour or two, like twice a week, it then throws me out of my routine. And so what I'm starting to do now is just get up earlier and instead of staying up later, just kind of get up a little bit earlier and then enjoy that time in the morning instead of the evening. So. I want to be the standard for myself and for my family. And remember, if you have kids or if there's other family members or people in your community that are looking up to you, be the standard, be the change. Your kids are going to copy your behaviors more than your words. That's why I also make my kids dock their phones. I dock my phone and they dock their phones, but they don't dock their phones until I dock my phone. And so it's up to me to go dock my phone and then they. We'll go dock their phones.

Adam: Well, you guys, most people, as you can see from today's episode, they think success is decided in the morning, but a lot of this real battle happens that night before. So really thinking through this one last time in the evenings, that's when a lot of times your energy is low, your discipline is low, and distractions are oftentimes at the highest, which is why they matter so much. So if you guys can take one thing from this episode, your life doesn't change when your mornings change. What really happens is when your life changes, when your evenings become intentional, because the way you end your day determines how you begin the next one. Hope you guys have a great rest of your week. Ben, close us out, bud.

Benjamin Adams: We love you guys. Have a great week. will see you next week. This is Benjamin Adams for Adam Lang on the Pursuit of Progress podcast. Until next time.

Adam: See you guys.