Q: What does a typical work day in the life of Elon look like?
I wake up and see if there are any emergencies on text or email. Often there are. A ton of what I deal with is not fun or interesting, it's just chores. I've tried not doing my chores, but if I don't do my chores, things go to hell.
I enjoy in-person meetings more than email. I'm getting this negative limbic reaction to email. It's killing me. Texts are way better to deal with. In-person meetings are much better, even zoom meetings are better than email. Anything's better than email.
I'll write texts and emails, especially when it’s to a group saying, ‘Hey, we need to change direction: do the following things, and let me know if you think otherwise, but we've got to do these things and get our act together.’[35]
Then, I have a bunch of meetings. Most of my meetings are engineering and design-focused, but of course I have to deal with finance, sales, and other things necessary for a company to function. I do a lot of context switching. Context switching is a real bear, so I'm trying to do less switching and more focusing on one thing for an hour and then another thing for another hour.[35]
I don't have a lot of open space, it's generally back-to-back meetings. My days are insane torrents of information. I don't recommend it. I wonder how long I can keep this up, because I don't want my brain to explode.[35]