Front-Loaded Energy Distribution

The Micro: Front-Loading Energy in Your Day or Week

The early bird catches the worm. We’ve all heard it, and we all know what it means. Most of us even agree it’s 100% true. If you can get the important stuff done early in the day, you free up the rest of your time for hobbies, creative projects, your social life, heroin, or whatever you choose to focus on.

From The 5 AM Club to Deep Work, and from Make Your Bed to Essentialism, there is no shortage of books preaching the same principle: use your best energy to tackle high-impact tasks when you’re at your freshest.

It’s not just about being productive. It’s about building momentum. When you start strong, you can ride that wave throughout the day or even the week. You’ve probably experienced this: knocking out a big, challenging task first thing and suddenly everything else feels easier.

At Eli5, we bake this idea into our workflow. One of our rules is simple: no meetings before 11. This ensures people can start their day with purpose, tackle the hard problems, do creative work, or make real progress on key priorities. It is all about taking the bull by the horns early, so you can set the tone for everything else.

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The Macro: Front-Loading Energy in Projects

Let’s zoom out. Front-loading energy isn’t just about your daily routine. It’s how you win at projects.

If you start a project without killing assumptions or getting everyone aligned, you are asking for trouble. At Eli5, we know this. Without proper prep, projects hit dead ends, delays pile up, and frustration sets in. It’s the difference between a smooth ride and a disaster.

I get it. Figuring things out along the way sounds flexible, even fun. But let’s be honest. It’s how most personal projects end up unfinished and business projects go massively over budget. There is a difference between just some tinkering and an actual project.

You don’t need to overplan. That just slows you down. What you need is lean, “good enough” prep. Just enough to create clarity, build confidence, and set the tone. The alternative is laying tracks while the train is already moving.

Good preparation does more than set the foundation. It brings energy. A bit of research can unlock unexpected opportunities. A simple plan proves the idea is viable. A clear direction keeps the team focused and free from second-guessing.

The benefits stack. Prep early and you learn what works while the stakes are low. Each step builds momentum. You avoid unnecessary stress, eliminate double work, and stop scrambling at the last minute. Instead, you move forward with confidence, clarity, and focus.

The 10x Scale: Front-Loading Energy to Build Companies

For those playing the long game, front-loading energy works just as well for building companies. Done right, you can build multiple businesses in just a few years.

Think of it like a plane’s take-off strip. The plane is prepped, takes off, reaches cruising altitude, and sets its direction. After that, it’s smooth sailing. Building companies works the same way. You craft value propositions, validate them in the market, test demand, build systems for throughput, get customers, and establish go-to-market motions that fuel growth. Prepping, taking off, setting direction, and flying in the right direction.

There are three key phases to this process:

1. Ideation and validation: Figure out what sticks, what gains traction, and what’s profitable.

2. Building the machine: Create systems, workflows, and a team to turn input into high-quality output in a customer-friendly way.

3. Delegation: Most people fail here. Instead of working on their systems, they get stuck working in them. Your goal is to find the right people or automations to make the system run itself. This frees you up to rest, reassess, and prepare for the next big thing.

I’ve done this right, and I’ve done it wrong.

One success was a productized service business. I built it to traction and eventually found a banger of a CEO who could lead it to greater heights. My systems weren’t perfect, but they worked well enough to make the transition successful. Next time, I’ll spend more time refining the systems to get them right.

On the other hand, I’ve had failures too. A direct-to-consumer business I built went completely off track. I validated the idea but handed someone else a bag of money to build the rest. It was a disaster. The CEO burned out, leaving me with a business that was broken and unprofitable. I had to dig it out of the mess during one of the busiest times of my life. It turned into months of work-sleep-repeat cycles just to stabilize it. The takeaway is simple. Front-load energy into these three phases. Prepare early, build strong systems, and delegate effectively. Whether you’re scaling one company or ten, the effort you invest upfront determines how smooth or chaotic the journey will be.

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Moving From Active to Passive

Here’s where most people get stuck. Delegation isn’t just handing things off—it’s building systems and finding people who can do the work better than you. The goal isn’t just to free up your time; it’s to create something that runs without you.

When you’ve front-loaded your energy into ideation, validation, and building systems, the next step is to shift into a higher-level role. This is where the magic happens. You move from active involvement to passive oversight. Instead of being the engine of the business, you become the pilot, checking the instruments and steering when necessary.

The key is trust. Trust in your systems and trust in the people running them. If you’ve done the prep work right, the business should have momentum. And if it doesn’t, this is the time to find the gaps and fix them.

Automation and delegation are tools, not shortcuts. When you build the right systems, you free yourself to focus on what matters most—whether that’s growing the business, starting the next one, or taking time to recharge.

This isn’t easy. Most founders struggle to let go. But the reality is, if you want to scale, you can’t do everything yourself. Your role shifts from being in the business to working on the business, or better yet, the portfolio of businesses you’re building.

The sooner you embrace this mindset, the faster you scale.

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From Hustle to Mastery

The world doesn’t reward busyness; it rewards leverage. If you’re grinding every hour, trying to be everywhere and do everything, you’re playing a losing game.

Mastery comes from understanding that the first burst of energy defines everything. The energy you front-load into your day, your projects, and your businesses sets the trajectory. Not just for where you go but also for how far you can take it. Whether you're building a SaaS empire, crafting a system for your service business that turns inputs into exponential outputs, or just trying to make your week feel less like a dumpster fire, the principle is the same: build the machine before you run it.

It’s about intention. It’s about making your effort count, with compounding benefits over time. The people who “get it” will know: this is how you create asymmetric returns in work and in life. The others? They’ll keep pushing paper, putting out fires, and wondering why nothing ever gets easier.

The choice is yours. Hustle forever, or master the art of building momentum early on. Keep reacting, or start creating leverage. Your move.