On Daily Routines, we profile successful leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, executives and athletes to explore their routines, schedules, habits and day in the life.
American billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, gets about 700 emails a day. It’s a lot – around the same amount as Apple CEO Tim Cook gets each day. But the emails don’t bother Cuban at all. If it was up to him, he would rather get those 700, or even 1,000 emails if it meant he didn’t have to sit in “long and tedious and boring meetings.”
As a businessman leading various ventures — he’s the owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team, he’s the co-owner of integrated media and entertainment company 2929 Entertainment, and he’s one of the main investors on reality television series Shark Tank — having to sit in on meetings is a horrible waste of time in his point of view.
“Meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal,” Cuban said in an interview with Inc. “There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go.”
So instead of meetings, the Shark Tank star manages most of his work via email. On a typical day, Cuban wakes up at 6.30am and the first thing he does is grab his phone and start going through emails. For the billionaire entrepreneur, addressing the most difficult things in his workday first thing in the morning is crucial for his routine.
“The key to reaching high levels of performance and productivity is to develop the lifelong habit of tackling your major task first thing each morning,” he told CNBC. “You must develop the routine of ‘eating your frog’ before you do anything else.”
Business is my morning meditation. Business is what I like. I get up and I work immediately. I love doing this. Success is defined by waking up with a smile on your face, knowing it’s going to be a great day.
What Does Mark Cuban Do First Thing in the Morning? | Entrepreneur
After his morning routine of going through his emails and addressing the most urgent tasks on his to-do list, Cuban will spend the rest of the day reading the news, dropping his daughter off to school, playing a little basketball, and dealing with more, you guessed it, emails. On any given day, he spends his estimated three to four hours reading and responding to his emails.
In between managing all his different businesses, Cuban will also make sure he gets regular exercise throughout the day.
“I try to do cardio for at least an hour, six or seven days a week, knowing I’ll miss a day or two now and then because of travel,” he told Dallas News. “I do elliptical and the stair gauntlet; play basketball; and take kickboxing and Latin fusion aerobic classes at Lifetime Fitness.”
After wrapping up his day, Cuban will check his emails one last time at 11pm before going to sleep between 11.30pm and midnight. It’s typically a long work schedule, every day for the billionaire, so he listens to his body and occasionally has a rest during the day. “If I’m dragging, then I’ll take a nap,” he told Business Insider. “Look, I get to define my own schedule. Other than having to travel sometimes, I’m usually working on my own schedule. If I’m tired, I’ll sleep.”
I’m fortunate. I put business first before I got married. I managed to be successful beyond my wildest dreams, which let me put family first once I got married and had kids. So now I schedule around my kids as much as possible. I can’t make all their games, but I make most.
Mark Cuban – My Life of Dad | Life of Dad
Image credit: JD Lasica from Pleasanton, CA, US
Before you go…
Check out more daily routines from Barack Obama, Arianna Huffington, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Michelle Obama, Sheryl Sandberg, Richard Branson, Warren Buffet and plenty others.
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