Jason Fried's Daily Routine

Jason Fried co-founded 37signals, the company behind Basecamp, and co-wrote the 2010 bestseller Rework with David Heinemeier Hansson. His daily routine starts from a cap instead of a to-do list: 8 hours for work, 8 for sleep and 8 for himself.

He sleeps from 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM without an alarm and keeps his week to 40 hours, dropping to 4 days in summer. His phone spends most of its time in airplane mode. He described the split to Inc. in 2017.

It's for people who keep promising themselves a life after work and never quite get there, usually because the job takes whatever hours you leave open. It works best if your hours are yours to set, or if you can start by changing just your own.

Set the cap first and the rest of life stops being leftovers: a full night, a real evening and a week with an end. To start today, pick a stop time and put your phone on airplane mode after it. Only his sleep times come from him; the workday, the meals and the work-free weekend are our estimates.