Discover How CEO Handy Metellus Starts His Day
The first of my interview series on how high achievers begin their day.
Imagine being the CEO of a rapidly-growing startup and also having two rapidly-growing children!
That’s the challenge that Handy Metellus, CEO of Bramework, has to face every morning.
I was curious to see how he deals with this challenge, so I reached out to him and asked about his morning routine and how he plans his day.
Please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to be a CEO?
My name is Handy Metellus. I'm the cofounder and CEO of Bramework.
About three years ago, my wife ran into a problem with our blog. We wanted to increase traffic to our websites by publishing high-quality blog posts. However, at the time, we didn't have the funds to pay top freelance bloggers to write these posts.
We also didn’t have the time to write high-quality posts ourselves because we had a little one.
So we decided to combine my 15 years experience in software development and my wife’s 10+ years of blogging to create a piece of software that would help us write high-quality blog posts five times faster than normal.
That’s how Bramework was born.
How old are your two children?
My children are 2 and 5.
What time do you typically go to sleep?
I go to sleep around 10pm.
What time do you wake up in the morning?
I like to wake up before 6am.
Do you have a morning routine that you follow?
Yes, once I wake up I like to meditate for about 30 minutes.
And then I like to listen to an audiobook while I’m taking a nice 30-minute walk.
After my walk, I usually go through my planner and journal to plan out my day. I also review the previous day — plus my weekly and monthly goals. Then I go through my priority tasks and emails.
After that, the kids are usually up. Which means it’s daddy time, and time to start making breakfast before work.
Is there anything specific that helps you get motivated in the morning?
For a long time, I preferred to stay up very late to work which would cause me to wake up real late as well. However, when the kids came along, it was hard to get things done at night because I was so tired from the day.
Fortunately, a few years back, my wife told me about a book called The 5AM Club. Reading this book changed my life. It inspired me to adjust my sleeping habits and to create a morning routine.
With these changes, I now have about two hours to myself before the family wakes up. This is time to get my mind ready for the day ahead. Every morning I look forward to the quietness, the time to reflect, and the time to plan.
During the first few hours of the day, how do you prioritize your time between your children and your business?
By waking up a few hours before everyone, I get the time to focus on some priority tasks. This means that by the time the kids wake up, I can focus on them and not the work — at least until I head to the office.
How do you plan your day ahead?
I have a planner and journal that I use to plan my month, weeks and days.
A few years ago I read a great book called The 12 Week Year. I use the tactics found in the book to set SMART goals — specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based.
Finally, can you briefly describe what your company Bramework does?
Bramework is an AI writing assistant that helps freelance bloggers and agencies to write blog posts five times faster.
The software uses our blogging best practices and frameworks to drive tons of traffic to our websites.
I want to say a BIG thank you to Handy for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer my questions. It’s much appreciated.
And I think you’ll agree with me, he’s doing a fantastic job of balancing his personal and business commitments.