It’s a bit on the nose isn’t it — “self-help?” If you could truly help yourself, did you really ever need help at all? Critics of the book genre voice concerns that the advice and anecdotes contained within these writings amount to nothing more than common sense. But let’s suppose for a minute that there is actually something of value in these books — what might we achieve if we were to all-in on self-help? Can we truly determine what a ‘perfect life’ might look like?

Best-Rated Self Help Books that Helped Change Perspectives (and lives):

From the top 10 hits for ‘Top X Self Books’ articles, “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” “Imperfect: The Gift of Imperfection” and “Atomic Habits” pop up most frequently, though the full list of recommendations is much longer.

Yet whether or not you lean towards the skeptical side, the evidence is clear that people love self-help books. According to a Murray State University study, “Americans spent 2.7 billion dollars on general self-help approaches, including self-help books,” as of 2016. Coupled with evidence from the Guardian that “self-help book sales in the UK grew every year between 2015 and 2023,” a trend supposedly shared around the world, it’s clear that this genre is at least worth exploring. So let’s get specific — what are these rumored “underground” or “backdoor” hacks to achieving your true potential?

Lightning Look at Self Help Advice

Many self-help books repeat similar advice, which can be used as a foundation to craft our hypothetical “perfect life.” Perfect means different things to different people; we will assume here that it means feeling alert/present throughout the day, not fighting our natural sleep/eating cycles, saving time by grouping similar activities together and generally experiencing elevated levels of happiness and wellbeing. Some of the most effective science-backed claims include:

  1. Wake up before dawn
    1. Getting up one hour earlier in the morning compared with later risers had a 23% lower risk of depression.
  2. Meditate/journal in the morning (mindfulness)
    1. Daily meditation decreased negative mood state and enhanced attention, working memory and recognition memory as well as decreased state anxiety scores.
  3. Get exercise early — most certainly get exercise
    1. Physical activity was significantly related to life satisfaction and happiness in young, middle-aged and older adults.
  4. Get sunlight early 
    1. Morning bright light improves nocturnal sleep and next morning alertness among college students.
  5. Eat a protein-rich breakfast
    1. Research shows eating at least 20 grams of protein at breakfast can really help maintain a healthy weight.
  6. Work early, set time for emails later
    1. A systematic review of 62 academic papers on work-email found that quickly responding to emails may boost performance but hurt well-being.
  7. Make time for rest during lunch
    1. Experiments showed that [taking breaks are] crucial for consolidating memories, reflecting on past experiences, and planning for the future.
  8. Space meals out evenly
    1. It is imperative that eating and sleeping behaviors align with circadian rhythms. When these rhythms are consistently disrupted, it can lead to an increased risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
  9. Make time to be creative
    1. A 2022 systematic review in “PLoS ONE: discovered that mini-breaks [~10 minutes] reduced mental fatigue and increased motivation to push through challenges.
  10. ‘Welcome Distractions’ — make time for friends/family often
    1. “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” drew associations between loneliness and “a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death,” with an impact on mortality “similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.”
  11. Have a wind-down routine before bed
    1. Rituals help signal the body and mind that it’s coming to be time for sleep. Drink a glass of warm milk. Take a bath. Or listen to calming music to unwind before bed.

Case Study: The Early Riser

This routine is most reflective of the optimized ‘morning person’ (in our context, likely someone on co-op) — someone who prefers an early start to their mornings, even if it sometimes means missing out on activities at night. Effective for dodging traffic and getting your brain awake early to problem solve. Aligns nicely with sunlight, meaning you can wake up without an alarm. Often clashes with weekend plans and events that may run late, which will require that you set boundaries for yourself or plan accordingly to keep a healthy sleep schedule without disrupting your circadian rhythm (your natural sleep cycle).

  1. 5:00 AM (wake up before dawn)
  2. 5:30 AM (gym/exercise for one hour)
  3. 6:45 AM (shower, get ready)
  4. 7:15 AM (grab high protein breakfast, within anabolic window)
  5. 7:45 AM (head out to commute)
  6. 8:30 AM (start your workday)
  7. 12:30 PM (grab lunch, socialize)
  8. 1:30 PM (check emails before returning to flow state)
  9. 4:30 PM (head out to commute)
  10. 5:15 PM (grab dinner, call home/loved ones)
  11. 5:45 PM (time for friends, clubs, or passion projects)
  12. 7:45 PM (wind down — journaling, reading and getting ready for bed)
  13. 8:30 PM (out cold)

Case Study: The Late Riser

This routine is most reflective of the optimized “night person” (in our context, likely a student) — someone who enjoys spending the bulk of their free time at the end of the day, even if it sometimes means playing catch-up in the mornings. Similar to how you can dodge the morning rush by waking up early, you can also dodge it by waking up late enough. Also doubles nicely with the weekends so your circadian rhythm isn’t disrupted (you can wake up late all the time, not just on weekends, which is healthier). Often clashes with early classes or co-op, which will require that you plan ahead to select late classes or communicate with your manager early about your late routine.

  1. 9:00 AM (wake up)
  2. 9:15 AM (shower, get ready)
  3. 9:45 AM (grab breakfast, high protein)
  4. 10:15 AM (head out to commute)
  5. 11:00 AM (start work, classes, or studying)
  6. 3:00 PM (grab lunch, socialize)
  7. 4:00 PM (check emails before returning to flow state)
  8. 7:00 PM (head out to commute)
  9. 7:45 PM (head to the gym/exercise for one hour)
  10. 9:00 PM (grab dinner, anabolic window, call home/loved ones)
  11. 9:30 PM (time for friends, clubs, or passion projects)
  12. 11:45 PM (winddown — journaling, reading and getting ready for bed)
  13. 12:30 AM (out cold)

Sacrifices and Benefits:

First, let’s recap why we even care about optimizing our lives. It boils down to the simple fact that no one likes waiting in line. No one likes spending more time doing things they don’t like to do but absolutely have to. And that’s because they would much rather have more time to be doing the things they actually like; the opportunity cost. In most cases, this preferred activity is to spend more time with friends and family. We trade some extra time spent planning to guarantee time spent with family.

Some of the key assumptions from these case studies are that you work a 9-5 five days a week, and you want to optimize your weekdays. It also assumes you’ve prepped most of your meals over the weekend or count prepping as part of time spent with friends (maybe a roommate), and that your free time nicely overlaps with the clubs or friends you want to spend time with. 

Regardless of which schedule you gravitate towards, notice that the time you wake up doesn’t matter as long as the relative spacing between your meals and activities stays the same. In fact, you could even work a night shift and simply move the timings of the schedules around a bit. 

Yet still, notice the costs and opportunity costs associated with this “perfect schedule” — a disciplined routine (spontaneity becomes reserved for the weekends), a fragile system (overtime work or emergencies can disrupt this flow) and the assumption that everyone reserves exactly two hours a day for friends and activities.

There is also a long list of self-help tips that I didn’t include in the routines, some of which include: 

  • Reading to start the morning or before bed
  • Playing music to relax in the middle of the day
  • Going for walks
  • “Braindumping” (journaling) after digesting info, like the news

Adding any more to this stack of “essentials” will only shrink the amount of time you get with friends and family, which is why we set out to do all this optimization in the first place. Weigh the pros and cons and design a routine that works best for you, taking inspiration from the outlines we’ve looked at here together. The highest impact changes will certainly be in eating habits and sleep schedule. It turns out that some of the best self-help advice we’ve learned here is that, simply, you don’t need (and simply can’t do) it all – you get to pick how to color in your days, just make sure to follow through.