“Let me ‘just check’ my email before I get back to drafting this report,” you tell yourself, jumping from your Google Doc to your inbox. Task switching might seem harmless, it might even feel productive. But beware. It can feel like you’re moving faster, but every switch has a hidden cognitive cost. This switching is quietly killing your productivity and undermining the quality of your output. The better, alternative approach? Deep focus blocks.

Do you struggle with low energy in the morning and throughout the day, or perhaps find that you lie awake at night feeling “tired but wired”? This is a strong signal that your cortisol rhythm could be dysregulated. Here are five ways you can boost your energy by working with your cortisol.

It is Mo Gawdat who said: “It is not the events in our lives which stress us, but how we deal with them which does.” By reducing our exposure to unproductive stressors, shifting from a Threatened to a Challenge mindset, and intentionally raising our stress threshold - we expand our capacity for growth. Life will always challenge us. We cannot control that. But these four things we can.

Discipline, does not shackle, it frees. Frees us from our ingrained drive for status, approval, comfort and excess. The biological mechanisms which helped our ancestors survive in the harsh Savannahs, but which have become maladaptive in the overabundant society in which we live today.

I am writing to you this week from a cafe in Amsterdam, having just completed the Half-Ironman at the weekend. As I sit to reflect on the race, I wanted to share those reflections with you. Find out what I learned and how you can start applying those learnings in your life today, to start living not good but great days.

I then went away and created this simple, five-step process for you. It’s science-backed, tried and tested and rooted in circadian biology. The goal: to enable you to wake up earlier consistently - not just for a week, but for good. No more snoozing the alarm, rushing through the morning and sprinting into the office. Instead, you could be arriving each day into the office well-rested, energised and with that deep sense of satisfaction having already won your morning.