How to Take Control of Your Life
A practical system for getting your energy, habits, and direction under control.
Modern life runs on managed chaos. Notifications, messages, and endless decisions pull us in every direction. Even people who appear successful are mostly reacting instead of directing. The tools that promised simplicity have trapped us in constant distraction. Real control comes from building systems that protect your focus and energy. Let’s learn how to take control of your life step by step.
Start With Energy
“Fatigue makes a coward of us all.” - General George S. Patton
Energy is the foundation of control. Have you ever noticed that doing something on 4 hours of sleep seems like an impossible slog but get 7+ and suddenly it’s a piece of cake?
Now multiply that times dozens or hundreds of days each year and suddenly the best you can do is get through the day and plop on the couch. You’re gassing out and unable to think strategically. When your body is depleted, your mind defaults to comfort and avoidance. When you’re rested, clarity and action come naturally.
So the first step is obvious, you need to protect and prioritize your sleep. The rules are simple but I would estimate 80% do not follow them and if you did for a week you would notice a dramatic improvement in sleep and energy:
Pick a hard bedtime and wake time. Your body will adjust to this but you need to enforce it and it may take a week or two. Get in your bed at least 8.5 hours before your wake time. This gives you time to wind-down and go to sleep and gives you plenty of runway to get what you need. 98% of humans need at least 7 hours of sleep to be fully functional.
Stop eating and drinking 3-4 hours before bedtime. The body spends a lot of energy digesting and things like heartburn, etc. creep up if you eat too close to bedtime. Stopping liquids prevents you from getting up to use the bathroom.
Stop caffeine at least 8 hours before bedtime and ideally 12 hours. Some of us are “slow caffeine metabolizers” so it’s even more important to have a caffeine cut-off.
Light and Devices. Turn off your devices 30 minutes before bedtime. If you have problems falling asleep extend that to 60-90 minutes. All lights in the house should be dimmed or off. Think about it from a caveman perspective: if you are staring at a device or there is a light above you, it assumes you are staring at the sun or it’s noon. So it’s not going to kick in your circadian rhythm, produce natural melatonin, etc. At the least wear blue-blocking glasses (search them on Amazon) at night.
No mental stimulation before bedtime: social media, news, politics, etc. - you need your nervous system to calm down.
Wind-down. Some of us need even more relaxation to shut down the brain. Deep breathing or meditation is helpful here or simply listing everything you need to do tomorrow to get it “off your brain” so you can relax.
Environment: At bedtime your bedroom should be completely dark (try a sleep mask if not possible) and silent if possible (try earplugs if not possible). Many prefer a colder temperature so experiment on fans or dialing down the thermostat.
The next step is obvious: you need to make sure your diet and exercise are dialed in. Fix sleep first, but then make sure you get at least some walking in daily (7k steps seems to be the sweet spot for health, despite what you heard about “10,000 steps”) and try to cut out processed food as much as possible. A lot of people don’t sleep well because they don’t actually move enough for their body to want to shutdown!
Finally, you need to start noticing things that give you energy and things that take it away. Then start adding things that give you energy and eliminating, managing or reducing things that take your energy away. You want to start paying attention to these things.
Close Open Loops
Control begins when you face what you’ve been avoiding. “Open loops” are those things that gnaw on your conscience, bleed attention and energy. These are things like unanswered emails/texts, tasks you have to do but aren’t written down (they live in your mind), that stack of things on your desk or inbox, decisions you need to make, phone calls or conversations that need to happen, birthdays, anniversaries, appointments you need to remember.
That voice reminding you to ‘email that person’ or ‘fix that drawer’ is an open loop trying to close itself. These things build up and suddenly you’re overwhelmed and scrolling social media to take your mind off them. Closing your open loops is a totally underrated way to lower stress levels.
The solution is first of all to start writing things down to get them off your mind. Calendar all your recurring events: birthdays, anniversaries, important dates. Set recurring tasks for things that need to be done regularly like shopping, bills, maintenance tasks. Write down everything that needs to get done. Keep things in one place: one notebook or one app you can access from your phone.
Then take action and do them one by one starting with the things bugging you the most - just pick up the phone and have the conversion. Just send the text or email. Just clear out the mess in your garage. Don’t think, just start. Again, these are basic concepts that “everyone knows” but when I see people in action it is rarely done.
Finally, you want to manage all your “inputs” better when you get more time and energy: emails, texts, voicemails, physical mail, etc. - try to clear them out regularly. Don’t be the flaky person that doesn’t know how to manage their communication. Every loop you close frees up mental bandwidth for what actually matters.
Simplify Your Systems and Create a Daily Rhythm
Okay so we’re getting more energy and we’re closing our open loops, which should give us even more energy and less to keep “top of mind” all day. We’re starting to get control of our day. Now let’s simplify and optimize our day and our environment.
First, create a simply Daily and Weekly Routine. This doesn’t have to be the silly 3 hour thing you see on social media. Just apply some simple structure to your day and week so you don’t have to think about things on the fly all day. This is incredibly relaxing when you know exactly what your day will look like. I see people and families that just sort of “wing it” all day: “do we need to go to the store,” “should I clean the bathroom,” “oh I forgot to pick up the dry cleaning,” “does Joey have soccer practice” etc. This is crazy because the solution is so simple.
Automate the Basics:
Daily tasks can be turned into automatic habits: exercise, grooming, working (tasks, projects etc.), wind-down routine. These can be made to be automatic so you get things done automatically.
Set regular days for things: shopping, cleaning, errands, calls/meetings (I set one day a week for all meetings and calls), bills, etc.
Calendar everything: as mentioned before, get all the stuff on the calendar so it’s off your mind. Don’t be the person that doesn’t remember birthdays and anniversaries.
Put things on autopilot if you can: automatic bill-pay (go paperless to get it out of your mailbox), regular grocery delivery, landscaping, maintenance, etc.
Keep lists: shopping lists, household lists (how to winterize the house, where the will or valuables are, etc.). Again, getting important things written down frees up mental space.
Eliminate the Noise:
You want to eliminate the unnecessary. Are you getting too many emails, texts, notifications. Delete the apps or turn off notifications (there are various ways to filter important things from your family, etc.). Unsubscribe from texts and emails you don’t want or read. Cut off the inputs as mentioned earlier. A clean desk and quiet phone will give you more control than any productivity hack.
Clarify Your Direction in Life
Ultimately, what truly gets your life under control is having a plan. A vision, goals - a direction in life you are moving towards. Once you have that, then you know where you’re going and know what gets in the way of that or is a distraction. Get clear on that, then you know when you’re going in the right direction or not.
Ask yourself:
What would my ideal day look like if I had full control?
What am I doing right now that doesn’t align with that vision?”
It’s so powerful to have a direction in life because you start to notice that all these things, the notifications, the endless scrolling, are simply distractions from where you want to go in life. You’ll start to see things like that as silly and in the way and will naturally want to reduce or eliminate them. You become mission-driven and the noise from other things starts to dial down.
The final level of direction is getting clarity on your values and purpose. Once you get clarity on that, you’ll have yet another way to prioritize your day, filter out the stuff that gets in the way and do things that align with your values and purpose. This is life on the next level and is ultimately how the most effective, relaxed and accomplished people I know live. When you know your direction, you no longer need motivation. Your purpose does the work for you.
Build a Weekly Review Habit
The best way to manage chaos is to do a quick weekly review of how things are going. This can be as little as 10 minutes and is a game changer. Note that doing a weekly review keeps you on track forever because you’re reviewing how things went and making adjustments.
Here’s a simple weekly review format:
Clear all your inboxes and collection points (mailboxes, piles on your desk, etc.).
Review your goals.
Review your calendar and set tasks/reminders (2 weeks forward and back).
Clear your task and email inboxes.
Clarity and feedback questions.
What gave me energy this week? What drained my energy this week?
What can I simplify, eliminate, automate or outsource to buy me more free time?
What went well this last week? Did I move toward my goals - why or why not?
What did not go well this last week and what do I need to change or stop doing?
Is there something I’m doing out of habit that doesn’t make sense anymore?
Who or what do I need to start paying more attention to?
This ten-minute ritual keeps you from drifting. It turns control into a repeatable habit.
Summary
Taking control of your day isn’t about motivation or willpower. It’s about building systems that support your energy and direction in life. People and families that have done the above things are happier. They’re more accomplished yet somehow more relaxed. The steps are simple:
Prioritize energy
Close your open loops
Simplify and create a daily/weekly routine
Clarify your direction in life
Review things weekly.
The people who do this are calmer and more effective. If you’d like a deeper framework, I share one at Zorga.io.