05 | How I'm doing my Monk Mode: SUMMER edition
No accepting social invitations, nothing. Directing myself towards focus.
I’m starting off with 21 days of Monk Mode.
I’m locking myself at home and not letting myself go out for social invitations, dancing, meetups, parties, nothing. For this summer, it’s gonna be about focus and just self-growth - minimal socializing save for networking. I’ve had my fill of socializing with friends, I had an awesome gap year. Also, because of bachata dancing, for the past 6 months, I’ve been going out maybe 3x a week with classes that ended at 10:30pm and socials that ended far beyond midnight. It was fun, I loved it. Enough. Now it’s time to focus and create.
What is Monk Mode?
This is my favorite definition of Monk Mode:
“Total immersion, full-on beast-mode, shutting out distractions and focusing on achieving specific goals for a designated period of time.”
I got the concept of monk mode from this video by Iman Gadzhi. I am going full on grandpa hermit and use this time to truly reflect and work to focus on growth.
Caution:
If you are new to Monk Mode, don’t attempt to do it for three months straight or anything extreme. Start with three days, build up to seven days and then push yourself to try 30 days. If you try to go extreme too quickly, you might just burn out and quit.
You can adjust your Monk Mode depending on your situation and what you want to get out of it, but the essentials are the same. You eliminate the distractions that prevent you from achieving your goals. You dedicate your focus on your achieving your non-negotiables and go to sleep happy knowing that you’re on the right path and are following the contract you’ve set out for yourself.
Why am I going on Monk Mode?
My focus for this monk mode era will be building my online presence. I have figured out that I would definitely wish not to work a corporate job. I also want to retire early. Therefore, since I’m young and have time, the best way I can see to achieve what I truly want would be to start building my skill stack and online presence as working on those two things will increase my leverage and move me closer to my desired goal of being able to make money online and acquiring financial freedom.
My Monk Mode Protocol:
List of non-negotiable daily actions
✔Meditate 15 minutes
✔25mins to 1 hour of of physical activity
✔Eat Whole Foods only, drink 3L water
✔8 hours of “good” sleep per night — no exceptions! Rest is key
✔Read at least an hour a day (this is easy for me though, I read 2h+ a day on average anyway)
Daily Focus tasks
✔5h deep work dedicated to creating content/day (writing, filming, editing, etc.)
✔1h of only marketing my work
List of things to cut out
❌No instagram or social media (except twitter!)
❌Frivolous socialization/going out
❌Sugary foods/junk food/alcohol/Vape
Monk mode accelerates progress. But it’s not magic, it’s work. It’s full-on dedication, it’s supposed to be challenging.
Big Goals for this period of monk mode:
- Grow my personal newsletter to 500 subscribers
-Grow my YouTube to 1k subscribers
-Build personal website (CV website)
Setting goals you hope to achieve is important. However, remember that you’re focusing on systems and achieving the day to day. If you finish you focus tasks and non-negotiable daily actions per day, you can go to sleep happy knowing that the results will come. These goals are just what you want to keep in mind as the end result to remember what you want to achieve. I know where I want to be in the future, and this is a good place to start.
Low-key though, the non-negotiables should still be something I do everyday even after these cycles. Being on “Monk Mode” will be something I’m going to adopt again and again throughout my life. I’ll give an update once I’m finished with this cycle of Monk Mode and we’ll see how we go on from there.
See you!