I put 27 habits to the ultimate test

I put over 27 habits to the ultimate test in different 30-day challenges over the past few years. From cold showers, to bullet journaling, to quitting sugar, and waking up at 5 a.m. every day. I want to break down all the lessons I learned through each of these challenges, share the practical lessons I discovered about behavior change, and which habits I'd recommend picking up if you're trying to get your life together. This video is sponsored by Squarespace. More on them later. All right, guys, grab a cup of coffee, pull out your notebook and get comfortable because this is going to be a very long deep dive into all the important takeaways from my many habit experiments over the years. I've organized the challenges into seven broad categories. Technology, nutrition, minimalism, mental health, physical health, productivity. and sleep. There's a little bit of overlap with some of these categories, but overall, I think it's going to help you find the most valuable takeaways. I've also added chapters for every category and experiment so you can jump around if you'd like. Let's get into it. Let's start with technology. Modern technology is a blessing and a curse. It allows us to be more productive than ever before and also more distracted. From outright quitting my phone to using a flip phone to experimenting with digital minimalism, here's what I learned about how you can be more mindful with technology. I used a flip phone for 30 days, and I absolutely hated it. And that's not just my addiction speaking. Sure, there was the obvious benefit that you'd expect to see. I spent almost no time on my phone. But that benefit came at a big cost. Texting was tedious and took a really long time. It became such a point of friction that I just started replying to everyone with one simple letter. K. Like when my wife Nat would text me, I love you. And I'd reply, K. That one got me into a little bit of trouble. And don't even get me started on the GPS. Ah! Completely useless. It was so bad that I had to resort to printing directions like it was 2005. But the biggest downside I didn't expect? I stopped capturing memories. My smartphone has become my camera, my journal, my map. The trade-off between convenience and happiness wasn't as simple as I thought. Probably the biggest benefit of using a flip phone? The satisfying sound when you close it. I said four million dollars, okay? A fun experiment, but no, I would not recommend using a flip phone. We tried becoming digital minimalists. In my video, Four Rules for Digital Minimalism, my wife and I dove into a seven-day experiment with setting strict digital boundaries, including no screens in bed, limiting social media, reducing time checking email, and cutting back on streaming. I wanted to see how these rules would impact my focus, my productivity, and overall relationship with technology. And as far as bringing that along, I don't know, I just thought it would be fun. So my two big takeaways. Small digital rules created structure without feeling like I was being deprived. Limiting email to once per day prevented me from reactively checking my inbox all day long. And cutting streaming to one day per week forced us to find alternative ways to spend our time. Like playing board games, reading, and cooking. The second takeaway, not everyone benefits from digital minimalism. Some people experience anxiety, comparison, and distraction from screens more than others. I found it improved my productivity and focus, while Nat didn't feel the need for these same kind of limits. Self-awareness is key. If screens don't have a huge negative impact on your life, then digital minimalism may not be hugely helpful. I mean, I don't mean to sound obnoxious, but I don't feel like I'm getting any value out of this experiment. I'm gonna be honest, I still don't believe her. Back in 2018, I quit social media for 30 days. This is a very nostalgic experiment for me because it happened in the very early days of starting this YouTube channel. In fact, I released my most popular video of all time, a day in the life of a minimalist, during this experiment, and my channel completely exploded. I gained 124,000 subscribers in a month, my biggest spike ever. Outside of learning about how addicted I was to my phone, keep in mind at the time this conversation was relatively new, now I think we all know most of us are addicted to our phones, I discovered that constantly checking my numbers wasn't helping me grow my audience. It was constantly making the best videos I could. And maybe also getting a little bit lucky. I think I found the most effective and creative solution for my phone addiction in my most recent digital minimalism experiment when I ditched my phone for 30 days and replaced it with my smartwatch. My goal has never been to deprive myself or the hell of it. Okay, maybe in the flip phone experiment, but this is one of those problems I've faced for most of my adult life. And this solution worked surprisingly well. The brilliance of switching your phone for a smartwatch is that you get almost all the benefits of being connected. Hey, Nat. How does the quality sound? It's not like crystal clear, but like a game. I could make calls, send texts, listen to music and audiobooks, and I could even use maps. I did a little challenge where I blindfolded myself and had my wife drop me off in the middle of nowhere. Using just my smartwatch, I was able to make it back home. and it completely eliminates your ability to scroll social media, stream shows, or play games. There were challenges like battery life and navigation while driving, but overall I felt way more present and free from mindless scrolling. This was by far the best solution I found to curb my screen addiction while also staying connected. And while I don't use this approach every single day today, it's something I implement when I want a more distraction-free kind of day. Next up, nutrition. Food fuels everything we do, but most of us don't pay close attention to what or how much we're eating. So over the past few years, I tested myself by counting every single calorie, quitting caffeine, and even trying intermittent fasting. twice. Some of these experiments gave me life-changing insights, while others just made me miserable. Here's what I learned. One of the first experiments I ever did on this channel was quitting sugar for 30 days. I got three big takeaways from the experience. First, your environment shapes your habits. One of the biggest lessons I learned while quitting sugar was that willpower alone isn't enough. You have to design your environment for success. The easiest way to avoid sugar? Make it invisible. As James Clear puts it in Atomic Habits, you can break a habit, but you're unlikely to forget it. And that means you'll always be at risk of relapse. A more reliable approach is to cut bad habits off at the source. Two, after quitting sugar, my energy levels became more stable. I didn't fully realize how much my energy levels fluctuated throughout the day. That mid-afternoon slump, the sudden craving for a snack after dinner, it all made sense once I completely cut sugar out of my diet. Once I removed the sugar, those highs and lows started to disappear. It wasn't magic, but my energy felt much more stable throughout the day. Three, understand the root cause of your bad habits. Quitting sugar made me realize that my cravings weren't just about taste. They were a response to stress, lack of sleep, and even boredom. It's easy to blame willpower when trying to break a bad habit, but the real key is understanding why you keep falling into these same patterns to begin with. Instead of just eliminating all sugar from my diet, I first had to address the root cause, whether that meant improving my sleep, managing my stress better, or finding healthier ways to cope. I've really found over the years that by tackling the deeper issues, it's become much easier to make lasting changes. Another experiment that helped me build self-awareness around food was tracking every single calorie I ate for 30 days. I've always considered myself pretty mindful when it comes to what I eat, but I never actually tracked my calories and macronutrients in detail like this before. Using MyFitnessPal, I logged every meal, every snack, every little bite I took for an entire month. And let's just say it was a wake-up call. That single spoon of peanut butter, 95 calories. Don't touch me. That oversized ice cream sandwich. 1200 calories, half my daily intake. Through this experiment, I started to see food differently, not just as meals, but as numbers, as energy, and as fuel. Importantly, through this process, I discovered my baseline caloric intake, that is how many calories I actually needed to maintain my weight with my current level of activity. And with the help of my friend and nutrition coach, Jordan Syatt, I realized that I was under eating protein and overdoing it on fats, RIP to my weekly peanut butter jars. This gave me a great target to shoot for going forward as I try to get more intentional with my macros. Was tracking every meal insanely time consuming? Yes, it was, but it was also worth it. If you've never done anything like this before, I highly recommend trying it, even if just for a month. It's gonna give you a nutritional awareness that's gonna stick with you long after you stop the experiment. I quit caffeine for 30 days. This was a tough one. I wanted to see if it could help me sleep better, reduce anxiety, and stabilize my energy. The first 48 hours, pure suffering. I had headaches, brain fog, and an overwhelming urge to nap on the floor at all times. My productivity, gone. I struggled to focus, and even basic tasks felt impossible. It's hard to even talk right now because it hurts so bad. After the first week, I physically adjusted, but something still felt off. I missed the ritual of coffee. The smell, the routine, the simple joy of sipping on a coffee in a cafe. Cutting out caffeine wasn't just about losing the stimulant, it was losing a small but meaningful part of my daily life. And here's the surprising thing, I didn't feel any better off caffeine. My sleep didn't improve, my anxiety didn't decrease, and my energy levels, pretty much the same. I mean, maybe if you hooked me up to a bunch of electrodes in a scientific lab, they might find some benefits, but to the naked eye, I wasn't seeing it. At the end of 30 days, I had my first cup of coffee again, and it was heaven. Oh my god, stop. Stop! Would I quit again? Absolutely not. Life's too short to give up coffee. I tried intermittent fasting for 30 days, twice. I've never been big on breakfast, so in a way I've been intermittently fasting for years without even thinking about it. But twice now I've followed a very strict fasting protocol both for 16 and 18 hours per day to see if I could find any of the supposed benefits. The one thing I learned through my research was that fasting works but probably not for the reason you think it does. It seems like most experts agree that fasting helps with weight loss because it naturally reduces how much you eat, not because it supercharges your metabolism. And I found that myself. By limiting my eating window to six or eight hours a day, I ate fewer meals and cut down on mindless snacking. That alone led to better portion control, and on my second time around with this experiment, I ended up losing five pounds in a month. I just like how I feel fasting in the morning. Skipping breakfast actually gave me more energy and focus. Without a big meal slowing me down, I felt sharper and more productive in the morning. That said, fasting isn't for everyone. If it makes you feel lightheaded or weak, it's probably not worth forcing it. So I love doing these habit experiments and sharing all the things that I learned with you guys, but that's just one half of what I do. The other half is teaching people how to make awesome videos for YouTube, and I wouldn't be able to do that without the help of my sponsor for this video, Squarespace. I've been using Squarespace for seven years, and it's by far one of the easiest website builders that I've ever used. It's effortless to get started, whether you're using their AI website builder or picking from one of their many beautiful templates. It's super quick to make changes, drag, drop, and dial in your settings like the perfectionist that you are. This right here is the very long sales page for my YouTube course. What I love about Squarespace is just how fast it loads. I mean, look at that. That's amazing. It's got testimonials. It's got videos. It's got photos. It's got graphics. I mean, what else do you need? Squarespace also gives you access to some really powerful built-in tools for e-commerce, blogging, analytics, and domain hosting. Now you may already know this, but when you use the link in the description below this video, that makes me look really good. And it means that Squarespace is gonna wanna keep partnering with me in the future. So if you wanna build a website, whether it's right this very moment or two months from now, make sure you go to squarespace.com slash Matt Diavall to get started. You'll also save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Pretty awesome, I know. Alrighty, back to life lessons from all the habits. Oh my god, no, you saw the light! Oh, the fourth wall is broken, no! Minimalism. I've been a minimalist for over 13 years, and this practice still helps me to learn about myself to this day. Over the years, I've conducted a few experiments that helped me get more intentional when it comes to how I implement minimalism. I counted everything I own, challenged Nat to try minimalism herself, and even explored what happens when you try to practice minimalism as a parent. That did not go as expected. These experiments helped me to redefine what enough means to me and why I prefer living with much less than most. Do you remember that time I convinced Natalie to try minimalism for a week? I expected her to fully convert, find all the same benefits I had, and get down on her hands and knees praising the minimalist gods. That didn't happen. During this experiment, we hit four big categories in her life. Her closet, her digital world, her beauty products, and her cooking condiments. First up, the closet. Nat packed away 99% of her wardrobe, leaving only 33 items. Unlike me, she didn't end up seeing the value in wearing the same thing every day. Go figure. Next, digital clutter. Her desktop was a disaster. This desktop is horrifying. How long has it been like this? Forever. Oh, forever? It's really not that bad. I think you're being dramatic. Her inbox had over 10,000 unread emails. And yes, she still uses Yahoo Mail. We backed up her files, organized everything, and miraculously found an actual wallpaper behind all the icons. I don't think she wanted to admit it, but she totally liked the change. Then, beauty products. We unearthed her secret hoard of skincare and makeup products and condensed it all into one bag. Somehow she still found room for her glitter eyeshadow. I mean, that obviously isn't essential. The final boss was the cooking condiments. I tried to get her to get rid of some, but she refused. And I surrendered. At the end of the week, did she convert to minimalism? I think we know the answer there. Not a chance. But I appreciate the fact that she entertained my lifestyle for a short period. The reality is that if you're a minimalist, you don't need to fall in love with a minimalist. You need to fall in love with someone that respects you and will do your ridiculous experiments for your YouTube channel. Or something like that. We tried minimalism with kids. Even though Natalie isn't a minimalist, I've been surprised at how much she has embraced this process of practicing minimalism with kids. While it hasn't exactly gone to plan, we have seen some huge benefits from this practice. The first challenge we faced, even before Frankie was born, was calling down the recommended baby items to the essentials. And we still ended up buying 100 new things by the time our son was born. These are baby nail clippers. While we had to buy a lot of new things, there were a few practices that really helped us get more intentional with the things that we purchased. First, we gave Frankie a capsule wardrobe. Do you know what? I was actually surprised in myself because like... When you have a baby, you want to get all the cute things, right? Like there's like, oh, the cutest little socks and the cutest little frilly things. And like, oh my gosh, I can put him in these like knitted suspenders that are like impossible to wash. Dry clean only somehow. And I was looking at all that stuff first and I was like, well, what should I like dress him in? And like, what should we get? And then I was like, you know what? Fuck it. This kid's getting a capsule wardrobe and he's going to love it. So we got him like a capsule wardrobe from birth till three months. And literally what that meant was, I think it was like four long sleeve zippies and then like six singlet onesies. That was it. So it was the same color, same style, same design, same brand, all machine washable, dryer friendly, 100% cotton. We implemented a one bin rule for toys. So if a new toy came in, an old one went out. This was great when he was a baby. Now that he's a toddler, we had to get a much bigger bin. Okay, we have seven bins. Setting boundaries for gifts. We went ahead and let family and friends know that we didn't want physical gifts for our son. If anything, we wanted them to buy us consumables or books since we already had everything else that we needed. That helped with some of the things, but people still inevitably bought us stuff. What are you gonna do? And finally... we got really smart with our storage and organization. Some people call storage and organization the dirty little cousins to minimalism, but I'm personally a fan. We used storage bins under the bed for baby gear and organized essentials like bottles, pump parts, and solid food supplies in our kitchen cabinet. This really helped us from drowning in the clutter. Does it slow us down a bit? Sure. But when we ask ourselves, Do we really need this? Will it make our life simpler or more complicated? Has really helped to keep our home simple and clutter-free. So, can you be a minimalist with kids? Yes, you can. But that doesn't mean that your kids will be. Mental health. Mental health isn't just about reducing stress or feeling good. It's about building habits that help you navigate life's inevitable challenges. Over the years, I've experimented with everything from meditation to mood tracking and breath work to see what actually makes a difference. Some practices really surprised me with how transformative they were. Let's start with meditation. My meditation experiment was pretty extreme. I committed to meditating for one hour every single day for 30 days. That's one hour spread throughout the entire day. Five hours of meditating so far. Just wasting my days away. I was gonna say, imagine all the videos you could have done five hours. Here are my three main takeaways from my meditation experiment. One. It's much harder than it looks. Sitting still and staying present for an hour was mentally exhausting, especially in the beginning. The biggest challenge wasn't distractions from the outside world, but getting lost in my own thoughts. Two, a small meditation habit is better, especially when you're getting started out. Going too hard too fast, like I did for one hour a day, was like running a marathon without training. If you want to stay consistent with a habit, it's more important to shrink the change as small as possible, so it's a no-brainer to do every single day. I think doing it for 10 minutes, which is what my wife did over this 30-day experiment, was a much better approach. Three, try to start out with guided meditations. Having a structured meditation to follow, whether through an app or a teacher, made it way easier to stay focused and avoid zoning out. Instead of sitting there wondering about whether or not I left the oven on, guided meditations kept me engaged, grounded, and in the present moment. Really, I guess the whole idea of meditation is just to be aware of those things and to observe... I didn't get it. Stop judging me! By the end of 30 days, I was loving it, but it wasn't enough to keep the habit alive over the past few years since. Life. got in the way, as it always does. So sitting down to meditate for even 10 minutes has been a real challenge. That said, today I try to find time to be still and in the present moment in other ways, whether that's going for a walk, lifting weights at the gym, or finding a few moments to be still after we put our son down for his nighttime routine. It's not perfect, but every little bit helps. I'm really hungry. Oh, me too. Wait, did you hear what I'm saying? Wait, do you hear what I'm saying? What the fuck? Wait, what? Oh my God. I tracked my mood every single day for a year because I needed a spreadsheet to tell me if I was happy or not. Each night I rated my day on a scale from minus two to plus two, hoping to find patterns in my happiness. I got this method from Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, who meticulously tracks every day of his life. There were a few key takeaways after doing it for one year. Through doing this experiment, I found that self-perception is often inaccurate. Our emotions fluctuate daily, and when we're in a funk, it's easy to believe that we've always been unhappy. It paints our entire life in a bad light, when in fact, we're just having a bad day, a bad week, or maybe a bad month. Often, when you step back, you can find a brighter, more complete picture. What I found most eye-opening was that my work was the cause of both my best days as well as my worst days. Deep, meaningful work led to more states of flow and lots of positive feelings. But overworking past 10 hours led to burnout. This really reinforced the idea in my mind of balance. Work can be energizing, but too much takes a toll. At the end of the year, I had 69 amazing days, 169 good days, 98 fine days, 25 bad days, and four awful days. And I would say overall, a pretty good year. The big insight looking back at the year, the things that made me happiest weren't big achievements. They were simple. Quality time with people I love, doing things just for fun, and working just enough, but not too much. I tried breathwork for 30 days and it was way more intense than I expected. At first I thought it was just another woo-woo spiritual trend like crystals or astrology, but people claimed it could help reduce stress, unlock repressed emotions, and even create psychedelic-like experiences. So naturally, I had to try it. I went all in and attended a legit breathwork retreat in the first week of this experiment. I'm nervous. I'm a little bit excited. I have no idea what to expect. Within minutes, I felt lightheaded, my hands curled into claws, and then boom, a wave of emotion hit me out of nowhere. I did not expect to get as emotional as I did. It was definitely unlike anything I have ever done before. I left that session feeling completely at peace with the world and a brand new perspective of what was possible with breathwork. If you try this for yourself, which I highly recommend you do, even if you just do it once, you can expect resistance, but also real benefits. While it was challenging to stay consistent, especially outside of the retreat setting, the moments of stillness and clarity made it a practice worth doing. You don't have to believe in spirits to try it. I certainly don't. Just be ready for whatever comes up. I journaled every day for 30 days. My goal? Just dump my thoughts onto the page for 10 minutes every day. I learned my lesson from the meditation experiment. At first, this practice felt boring, unhelpful, and more like a chore. But halfway through the experiment, I went through one of the worst periods of anxiety I've ever had in my life. And suddenly, journaling became a way for me to process my thoughts. Writing things down helped me to sort through my emotions and make sense of what I was feeling in a way that thinking alone couldn't do. So this is May 20th, 2019. Nat and I just moved into our new apartment. And I write, So many of the people that I've interviewed for my new podcast, Three Rules, credit journaling as a practice that has made a meaningful impact on their happiness. When I see a certain habit like this come up again and again from highly thoughtful and successful people, it just reinforces how important and how universal they are. In the moment, it might not feel that transformative, but I found that over time it can help to reveal patterns, struggles, and progress that would otherwise go unnoticed. Even if you don't journal daily, having a place to turn to when you need clarity is invaluable, and it's a habit that I always come back to when I need to get clear on my thoughts. I took cold showers for 30 days. There's been a lot of talk over the past few years about the benefits of cold exposure. Lots of the science behind it is being explored and some of it even debunked. Even the well-known therapeutic remedy called RICE, which is rest, ice, compression, and elevation, is falling out of practice and not being recommended as a recovery tool. Good thing I didn't do cold showers for any of the supposed health benefits. I did it for one reason and one reason only, to embrace the flinch. Julian Smith's book, The Flinch, describes that split-second hesitation before doing something uncomfortable. Hitting publish on your first YouTube video, walking out onto the stage to give a talk, asking someone out at a bar, also stepping into a cold shower. Julian argues that embracing the flinch over and over again, we can get better at it. Something like doing cold showers every day can become a daily practice in pushing through hesitation. No overthinking, no backing out, just stepping forward into discomfort. Over time, this practice rewires the instinct to avoid hard things, making it easier to take action when it truly matters. I need to see how cold this shit really is. I'm not joking. This shit's gotta be like 40 degrees. It's only 61 degrees. I think it's broken. There's probably something wrong with this. Is jumping into a cold shower a dumb and pointless exercise? Maybe. Or maybe that's just the flinch talking. If you want to find out for yourself, here's a challenge for you. Right now, yes, in the middle of this video, put your phone down, turn the dial all the way to cold on your shower, and step in. You can choose comfort, staying exactly where you are, or you can push yourself, embrace discomfort, and prove to yourself that fear doesn't get to make the decisions. You can do that now. Seriously. Physical health. Movement is one of the best things we can do for our bodies, but not all fitness practices are created equal. Some of the experiments I did were wildly simple, others a little bit more complicated. From walking more to doing powerlifting for 100 days, here's what I learned about the habits that helped to improve our physical health. I tried powerlifting for 100 days. Not only that, but I also signed up for a legit powerlifting competition at the end of the 100 days. Nothing like a big goal to kick your ass into action. This was by far the biggest experiment that I've ever done for this channel, and I learned so much. First, I learned about what helps to build strength, progress, and momentum in the gym. The biggest improvements I found came from dialing in my technique, following a structured program with progressive overload, and working with one of the best strength coaches in the world certainly didn't hurt. The right support system honestly made a huge difference. Training with a world-class coach took my progress to another level. Being in a serious training environment week after week pushed me beyond my limits, making me realize that I was capable of far more than I initially believed. I also learned that powerlifting, at least for me, at least for right now, isn't a practice that I want to implement into my life going forward. While it was so much fun to do this experiment for a few months, and I met so many amazing people in the powerlifting community, it... really taxed me both physically and mentally. But I left with skills that have improved the core lifts I continue to perform at the gym. I may not be trying to max out my lifts with every session, but I still have a far greater technique and knowledge when it comes to my squats, bench, and deadlift. And that was a huge takeaway from this whole experiment. I tried yoga for 30 days. Long story short, I like yoga much more than I expected. Long story medium, despite years of weightlifting, yoga revealed weaknesses in my mobility and balance. Over the month, I saw noticeable gains in flexibility and core strength that made everyday movements easier and reduced some of my minor back pain. Hey, honey. How are you? Yoga wasn't just about physical movement. It became a mindfulness practice. Turning inwards into my body's sensations led to greater self-awareness of my posture, my movement, and my overall well-being throughout the day, which honestly I think is one of the best parts of this practice. The fact that it helps you both when it comes to your physical health as well as your mental health. I don't know, that might also just be the toxic productivity side of me talking. Still, I 100% recommend yoga if your joints are feeling a little rickety or you want to find a mindfulness practice to implement into your weekly routine. I rarely hit 5,000 steps a day, let alone 10,000, so I finally committed to getting my steps in. I walked 10,000 steps for 30 days. They're calling it walking. Apparently you just get your ass off the couch and move your legs in a forward like motion, propelling yourself into the space in front of your lifeless body. And here are my three big takeaways from the experiment. Walking more is surprisingly hard to fit in when you're busy. Hitting 10,000 steps daily required intentional effort, especially on busy days. Incidental exercise, like taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or walking to get errands instead of driving your car, really helped. to increase the amount of steps I took every day. Other small changes made a big difference. Taking work calls while walking, scheduling morning walks into my day, and finding enjoyable ways to move like hikes around Sydney made it feel more sustainable instead of just a box to check. And I was surprised to find that the benefits were more mental than physical. While my weight and health metrics stayed mostly the same, walking more led to improve my mood and feel a greater appreciation for slowing down. I think we're starting to see a theme here with a lot of these challenges. I need to find ways to slow down and calm my racing mind. I tried mobility training for 30 days. Initially, I thought it was just about stretching, but I learned it's really more about strengthening your joints and connective tissue, helping to improve your range of motion, reduce pain, and prevent injuries. While I completely respect this mobility practice, I quickly realized that it wasn't that practical for me long term. There's no doubt that it helped. My range of motion improved, my joints felt stronger, and just like yoga, I became more aware of how my body moves. But it just doesn't fit into my current lifestyle. Between work, family, hobbies, and everything else I already prioritize, dedicating time every day to slow, controlled mobility drills felt like too much. I'm glad I did it, but as a dedicated practice, it's not something I have space for right now. Productivity. Being productive isn't just about doing more, it's about doing the right things. I ran several experiments to test different strategies, from waking up at 5 a.m. every day, to timing every single minute of my day, to experimenting with bullet journaling. I even attempted to build three habits at once to see if habit stacking actually works. These experiments forced me to rethink how I approach my time, and which strategies are actually worth using. I woke up at 5 a.m. every day for 30 days. and it kind of ruined my life. I thought I'd become a productivity guru or get the mindset strength of a Navy SEAL. Turns out the real challenge wasn't waking up early, it was getting enough sleep. Research shows that getting less than seven hours of sleep wrecks your health, and I learned that firsthand. The first week was brutal. It felt like I had jet lag every day. Then I got actual jet lag on a trip home, barely slept, and turned into the worst version of myself. So it's just past 11 now. Finally get into bed. I'm getting no sleep tonight. By the time I adjusted to this new routine, I realized something that is kind of obvious in hindsight. Waking up early doesn't magically make you more productive. Why? Because sleep deprived me isn't exactly a creative genius. The only real win? I discovered something that definitely doesn't work for me. I timed every single task I did for 30 days. Brushing my teeth, eating, working out, even the bathroom. Why? After months of very low productivity, I wanted to find ways to get more efficient with my time. I tried using a dozen different apps and settled on one called Toggle to time track everything that I do in a given day. The results were pretty eye-opening. I found out that I was only working... 20 hours per week. This is just like way worse than I possibly thought it could be. If I had a boss, I'd probably be fired by now. I've been struggling to get motivated. I've been struggling with my role as a parent and a business owner and trying to balance everything. This experiment really helped me to reshift my work-life balance going forward to one that puts a little bit more emphasis on work. Doing this also helped me appreciate the time that I do have with my family. I love the idea of bullet journaling. The aesthetic, the symmetry, the embrace perfectionism. But when I tried bullet journaling for 30 days, I didn't really like it. So these two pages encompass my yearly view. It's my 2022 bird's eye view. On this next page, this is the monthly view. This is where we can dive a little bit deeper and add things like the title of my YouTube video I'm releasing or just some personal things I have going on. Here we've got my monthly habit tracker, my monthly mood check, which I'll be able to fill out down here, how I'm feeling, my anxiety levels. And up here in the corner, I've got my idea section. So that's any video ideas, course ideas. I can just dump them right in this corner here. Sure. Bullet journaling forces intentionality. Unlike digital to-do lists, writing tasks by hand makes you more mindful about what's actually important in your life. But for me, the time-consuming setup and the rigid structure felt a little bit more like a chore than a tool. That said, some elements were worth keeping. Even if a bullet journal as a whole didn't stick, there were certain aspects that I found valuable, like habit tracking, mood checks, and idea dumps. These elements were a useful self-reflection tool that didn't slow down my productivity. If your current digital productivity system is working fine and you're getting things done, I don't think it's worth ditching it for a physical bullet journal. If you're the kind of person that loves putting pen to paper, then you've probably already got a bullet journal. One month I tried putting habit stacking to the test and I built three habits at the same time. This isn't something most behavior experts recommend, but in the name of science and probably overconfidence, I gave it a shot anyway. The goal? Build a daily routine of cardio, drinking more water, and listening to audiobooks all at the same time. Habit stacking works because it leverages contextual cues. Linking a new habit to an existing one increases the likelihood of follow-through by reducing friction and relying on established neural pathways. I already had a solid gym routine going, so instead of trying to force three completely new habits into my life, I just built them into this thing that I was already doing. I also made a key decision to do cardio first before lifting weights. If I left it for the end, I knew I'd just make up excuses and walk right past the treadmill and out of the gym. To stay on track, I followed the two-day rule. Never skip two days in a row. Missing one day is fine, it happens, but two days, that's when momentum breaks, and I've seen firsthand how easy it is to let habits slip entirely from that point. One of the important takeaways from this experiment was seeing the results of small, consistent effort over time. 10 minutes of cardio per session turned into 358 total minutes by the end of the month. 30 minute increments of listening to audiobooks led to 27 hours of listening. Drinking 60 ounces of water daily added up to nearly 2,000 ounces, which is probably why I spent half the month in the bathroom. Sleep, as I've learned in my life, is the foundation for everything. From focus to energy and overall health. I've experimented with it in different ways, from fun challenges like learning how to lucid dream to swapping lives with a night owl. These were eye-opening and often sleep-depriving experiences that completely changed how I think about rest and recovery. I swapped lives with a night owl. I'm an early riser and my friend Sarah is not. For one week we swapped routines to see if we could learn something from each other's schedules. There were major downsides for both of us right away. Our energy levels and sleep took a huge hit. I used to think that being an early bird was just about discipline, but science says otherwise. Matthew Walker, one of the leading sleep researchers that I'm sure you've already heard of, explains that our circadian rhythms are largely determined by genetics, not willpower. So instead of forcing yourself into a rigid 5 a.m. wake-up time just because productivity culture glorifies it, it's better to align your routine with your natural rhythm. Fighting against your biology is both exhausting and counterproductive. By the end of this experiment, Neither Sarah nor I were converted. Another late night for me. Almost 1am. I am so done with this. I can't wait to get back to my structure and my routine. Ultimately, the best schedule is the one that works for you. So maybe it's time to stop judging night owls. I learned how to lucid dream. Some people say that lucid dreaming can make you more productive and help you develop skills in your sleep. Those people are probably wrong, but that doesn't mean lucid dreaming isn't possible. I can't say that I had any life-changing benefits doing it, but it was a lot of fun and I was able to lucid dream a couple times during my 30-day experiment. I'm not really sure if there's any correlation between how hard I try and how often I have a lucid dream. I feel like so much of it is just a luck of the draw. What are you doing that you're popping your head? If you want to try it for yourself I walk through exactly how to do it and speak with a certified lucid dreaming expert in my full video on the topic And finally, I tracked my sleep after having a baby. As you've seen, I've done a lot of experiments on this channel over the years, pushing my limits, testing my habits, and learning more about myself. But nothing, absolutely nothing, tested me like parenting. My wife and I had an especially rough time with our son's sleep. From the moment he was born until he was eight months old, he woke up overnight roughly every hour on the hour. I tracked my sleep to see just how bad it gets, and yeah, it gets bad. At least for us. I know some people have perfect sleepers. I'm definitely not jealous or resentful or plotting their downfall. How's my sleep been? Not great. Maybe I'll hold him while we film. Hey. Working dad. I got Frankie here. But here's the silver lining from one of the darkest periods of our lives. One that plunged me into depression and left Nat with PTSD. The worst moments do pass. Slowly, painfully, but they do. Now that Frankie sleeps through the night, we don't take a full night's rest for granted. It's like stumbling across a lake in the middle of a desert. Everything is sweeter when you've pushed through the hardest parts. There's a reason that each of these habits have helped thousands of people, but expecting to maintain all of them forever, that's unrealistic. The key isn't doing everything, but finding what works for you and making small meaningful changes over time. Looking back on all these experiments, here's my biggest advice. Find a sleep schedule that fits your life. And more importantly, make sure that you're getting enough of it. Unless of course you have a newborn running a sleep deprivation experiment on you. Move your body every week. It doesn't have to be extreme. Just do something that keeps you active and increases your heart rate. Find a productivity system that works and actually stick with it. Take cold showers. Or don't. Just make sure you practice embracing the flinch as often as you can. It will change your life. If you've never done it, delete social media from your phone and laptop for 30 days. Watch closely how your behavior changes. Learn what your baseline caloric intake is and what your macronutrient breakdown should be based on your goals. You might be surprised with what you find. Try replacing your phone with a smartwatch for a week. If you're anything like me, you'll love the change. Be more intentional with how you spend your time. Be more intentional about the things you bring into your life. And be more intentional with who you surround yourself with. Stop choosing the default path. Build a life that's uniquely yours, one that you can look back on and say, I may not be perfect, but I tried my best. None of this happens overnight. Not all of it is going to work for you. But when you treat life as one big experiment, you'll learn more about who you are and even more about the person you want to become.

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Video Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:13  I used a flip phone for 30 days
02:15 I tried becoming a digital minimalist
03:36 I quit social media for 30 days
04:17 I swapped my phone with a smartwatch
05:46 I quit sugar for 30 days
07:18 I counted every calorie for 30 days
08:36 I quit caffeine for 30 days
09:46 I tried intermittent fasting for 30 days
10:51 I used Squarespace for 8 years
12:47 She tried minimalism for a week
14:25 We tried minimalism with kids
17:20 I meditated every day for 30 days
19:26 I tracked my mood for one year
22:08 I journaled every day for 30 days
20:53 I tried breathwork for 30 days
23:47 I took cold showers for 30 days
26:07 I tried powerlifting for 100 days
27:25 I tried yoga for 30 days
28:22 I walked 10k steps for 30 days
29:39 I tried mobility training for 30 days
30:51 I woke up at 5am for 30 days
31:46 I timed everything for 30 days
32:36 I tried bullet journaling for 30 days
34:04 I tried habit stacking for 30 days
35:48 I swapped lives with a night owl
36:49 I learned how to lucid dream
37:30 I tracked my sleep after having a baby
38:44 My biggest takeaways

Hi there– my name is Matt 👋. I made a documentary called Minimalism that trended on Netflix a few years back and now I make YouTube videos. Please subscribe so my mother-in-law thinks this is a better career than being a doctor.

Links to my stuff:
My weekly 1 min pep talk newsletter:  http://mattdavella.com/newsletter
My self-development podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@threerulespodcast
My YouTube course:  https://mattdavella.com/youtube
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Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mdavella