Embracing Breaks: Manish Dudharejia on Balancing Hustle and Rest

Anyways, I have Monish with me, and he started this in 2012. He was determined to create a positive company culture. He founded E two M, leveraging his SEO expertise to grow the business, starting only with $1,200 in investment. Years later, E two M is now a 200. Two full-time employee digital agency specializing in providing white label outsourcing services to digital agency. But welcome to the show. Thank you Grant. Thank you for hanging me on the show. You're welcome.

The first question I ask all my guests is, are you a coffee or tea drinker?

Chai is actually, it's not just the tea it's blended with milk and, all the sort of like Indian herbs like Cardi and sometimes ginger as well. So that's we call it like, masala, chai. It's a mix of Indian herbs with a tea and milk. That does it taste really good.

And also, as we speak we just acquired another white level WordPress deal company this month itself. So with that equation, we are gonna add 80 plus new team members to our team. And we'll be adding 100 plus agency clients to our client's portfolio. Starting from July, we'll be a team of over 300 people serving 300 plus agency clients and all across the world. And that will make us one of the largest white level workplace developer in the world. So it's sounds exciting.

And yeah, there are a lot of exciting things going on.

It's always hard, I have some frameworks, which will be helpful for people who are starting up, or people who feel like burned out and they don't know, like how to take a break in between and, get recharged in order to make sure you don't lose your creativity and then you still keep the momentum going on.

And I wish I would've learned this way earlier when I started my business but I'm glad I learned that one and a half year back which is a really good framework I learned, and it works out really well. So I think we are, we live in a society where we believe that okay, the weekdays. Like Monday to Friday, we have to have, business hours nine to five and then week weekends are more to get energized and get relaxed. But unfortunately that's not, how it works.

And I would say it's more of a, fortunately because I don't think, the creativity, intelligence understands. The limitations of nine to five and Monday to Friday. So we, human beings are not designed to think during the specific time and during the specific days, right? So we often make that mistakes that we try to be creative during the weekdays or during the business hours, but that's not how it works. I understand.

There are so many things which are more time sensitive which you have to do it anyway, whether you You feel like doing it or not? Which I get it. But here is the thing that you just have to think like that In order to be creative you have to just break this barrier and you have to just break this a wall of understanding that, okay, these are the times only where you can be creative.

So I'll just put a really good example, ago I. Ran into a situation where there were days in the weekdays where I wasn't feeling like doing anything. I wasn't productive. And at the end of day I felt I felt like the regretting that I was seeing that, my team was really productive. I didn't accomplish anything. And I felt kind of regret. And that kind of made me more think about that. Whether should I feel it regretting or not or that's how I am.

And that led me, made me more curious and started, I started learning more and more about it. I started reading more and more about it. And that's how, I ended up into finding. Some of the like, validations and I would say more of a conclusion for myself, and which I found a common pattern in highly successful people as well that you should really follow a lion framework, right? And I learned about this lion framework one and a half year ago.

And there is a guy called Noel He is a very popular philosopher. Highly reput and highly popular guy in startup tech investments. And I always love the way he thinks and then I got to learn about this line framework while reading his wisdoms and stuffs. Essentially it's rest, repeat, and sprint, right?

So ideally you should There are always days there are times in a week where you are fully energized and when you are highly motivated and that's where you should be working on your all the priority things and all the things which you have on your to-do list. And that's your sprint time. So there are days where I take an example of myself, there are still days, where I work like 12 to 15, 16 hours a day.

But those are the days when I'm super, super energized and I'm super supercharged and I'm super, super motivated. That's my sprint time, right? And there are one or two days I work like that and there are one or two days where I don't feel like working where I'm just doing some other stuff and. That is my rest time, right? Which is more about like you are not being harsh on yourself and you don't feel regret if you don't do it because you are mentally prepared.

This is my more of a rest time and that ans that kind of brings to your thing as well. Taking a break. So let's take an example. You know that there are times when you are super charged and you run a sprint, then you, there is a time you take a break. And then you repeat, right? So ideally what you have to do is being, when you are starting a business or you are at a position in your business where you feel like, okay, your schedule is crazy.

It's very hard for you to take a long breaks, then this is the framework you feel you should really try to follow. And you can actually Google it in so called a lion framework. Rest, repeat. And sprint sprint, rest and repeat, I would call it. Put it like that. So that is something you should really focus on, which kind of helps you to take in between your weeks rather than taking long breaks.

Maybe doing some chores, but not really focusing on like heavy, like work.

I don't have any kind of notifications and I can actually do a focused work and I'm, I prefer to do, not doing any meetings before 11 and I prefer to do my important meetings. Which is in the before lunch, in the morning and post lunch, I don't feel super, super productive. So that's where I'll keep my other meetings where it's more about the discussions and we don't have to do a lot of brainstorming and in the evening time I don't feel so much productive. So take that time off.

To do something different, right? So I think, you identified called like hyper productive type. So when you are super hyper productive those are the times, you try to finish as much as you have on your plate and the times when you are not productive those are the times, like you said, you take a walk or if you love to play any sort of musical instruments, you play that. Or you maybe hit the gym or whatever it works for you. Start feeling like lethargic you start moving your body.

So that's the sign where you don't force yourself to work on something. That's the time you have to move your body and just do it what you really like instead of like just, where you sit and keep working where you know that you will not be getting the desired output.

You are driving for two to three hours. The chances are most likely high, where you start feeling like busy, where you might fi start like feeling like sleepy. Now we have all these autonomous cars, so thanks to that, but think like that. The same goes with work as well. When you are working and there is a There is one technique called, I think it's a Pomodoro. Yeah it's called a Pomodoro. It's a Pomodoro timer, right? Pomodoro technique.

A Pomodoro technique is you set, like if there is a one hour of task. You could like 15 minutes of task and then 10 minutes break, another 15 minutes of task and 10 minutes break, right? It's called the promoter timer, and there is an app for that. You can activate, install it on your computer or mobile phone as well. So essentially it's all about the breaking the pattern when you are working for a longer period of time, taking a break, it just breaks the pattern.

It resets your mind by switching your mind to doing something different, completely different than what you are doing, right? And essentially, if you see the sleep is sleep does the same thing to your mind, it is breaking the pattern, right? And sometimes you like, taking a shower, just breaking your pattern. The biggest benefit of taking a break is it helps you. Break the pattern in order for your mind to be open for any creative new ideas.

Because that's what the need of a business, although it's boring, you still have to do it. But I would say, yeah, I think that's a, that's the way I also do it where sometimes you just block entire day. And if that's not the, privilege you have probably like blocking some hours of the day. When you are more proactive, those are the times you block on your calendar. And then those are the times. Ideally you don't decide anything.

This is the thing I'm gonna work on because, sometimes our minds are not ready for that. You are blocked. Particular, my, my classic example is like that, think like that you have blocked the calendar and you have sent, send an invite to your, one of your team member that okay. Of, in afternoon three to five, we are gonna discuss marketing ideas, right? And believe me, that's not how you will get ideas. Not at all, right? Probably you just have to.

Hang out with your marketing team more casually, maybe take out them on a lunch or dinner and then, start having that casual discussion. Those are the times when you'll come up with a really good ideas other than scheduling that brainstorming ideas meeting on your calendar. Yeah, I think there is no rule of thumb. That you block entire day or you just block couple of hours. It really depends on what your business schedule looks like.

Not everyone have that luxury or privilege to block entire day. In that case, you just block certain number of hours.

Although, I don't like to do that as well, but it's more about when your job does not have a schedule that you have to accomplish this every single day, then you should definitely plan it in a way where you are accomplishing what is needed. But at the same time you are, you don't have an obligation for days and hours where you have to manually work on the things because that's where you will feel, you'll feel more exhausted. So it's like that.

If there is a day where you are working like 16, 18 hours a day, because. That's where you are more inspired naturally. Then obviously the second day you go slowly, right? Because you will not be able to be creative and you really need a rest to get charged off for the day after. So you just have to identify your pattern based on your business needs. But yeah, it personally definitely helped me a lot to accomplish actually more and helped me be more organized and.

It helped me a lot to be clear in my head what's actually looks like to be really productive.

Let's take an example of customer service people where they have to be available during the specific days and specific hours, because that's a nature of their job is but there are lot of jobs, creatives where, you know, you, at the end of day you have to produce an output, right? And it doesn't matter that whether you are working nine to five or whether you start working early and you. Finish off your day early or you start working late and finish your day late as well.

So I think, like I said, it's not luxury or plus for everyone. It really depends on your job profile. But I think everyone have that I would say majority have that flexibility. So what we do at our company, people have their flexibility. In certain jobs. Yeah, I understand. They have to accomplish at the same time, like I was saying, even as a founder, although, we have the privilege, we have the luxury to decide where we want to when we want to work.

There are days where we cannot have that luxury. We have to do it because that's the business need. So now that's, that goes same with people who also have flexibility in their jobs, where although they have flexibility, but there are days. When they have to be available, although they don't like it. And that kind of relates to one of the favorite things which I read and which is very common.

It's if you see the pattern of more successful people, success is all about doing boring things consistently over the longer period of time. If you see the successful people, the one of the most qualities you will see in them is persistence. Like they have a pattern of doing the most boring things on a consistent basis. So that's a reality as well. But that's not true all the times. And there are and if you are creative and if you need to function.

Without working in specific time, you'll always figure out these.

Doing business is all about hustling. But at the same time, find some time for yourself, reflect on your experiencing thoughts. And take it easy. You, it's a sprint. You are gonna, you are playing a long-term game. So yes, there are days where you will find, you'll feel burned out, but always think remember, remind yourself like, why did you start it here? Regionally, right? And that will always. Keeps you going on.