Productivity Tip:

Start With Your Priorities, Not Other People’s

Many of us start the workday by opening email, Slack, or social media. The problem? Before we’ve decided what matters most, we’re already reacting to everyone else’s requests and priorities. 📩

In this week’s routine, shared by entrepreneur and CEO Dario Markovic, we find a simple alternative: start with your priorities first. For Dario, that’s reviewing business metrics. You might base it on whatever goals and projects you have at that moment.

One easy way to do this is with the daily section of Panda Planner. Before opening your inbox, spend a few minutes identifying your top priorities and what would make the day feel successful. Having them written down makes it easier to stay focused when distractions inevitably arise.

Try it yourself this week: spend the first 10 minutes of your workday setting or reviewing your priorities before checking email or social media. Let us know how it goes for you!

Routine Breakdown

Dario Markovic, CEO & Partner at Eric Javits, Entrepreneur & Father

The Morning Routine Behind a $20M E-Commerce Business

“I joined Eric Javits, a 35-year-old New York luxury hat brand, in mid-2020 when COVID had pushed it to the brink of bankruptcy,” says Dario Markovic. “I set up the Shopify store from scratch and grew the e-commerce side from around $120K a year to over $20M in five years.

“The routine below is what holds the day together across product, retail expansion, and operations, and what protects family time before the work starts.”

The Routine:

• Wake up at 7:00 AM. “I used to push earlier wake-ups thinking it would make me more productive. It didn’t. Seven works because the rest of the day is intense enough; I don’t need to fake intensity at 5 AM to prove anything to anyone.”
• Family time and breakfast. “This is non-negotiable. The first hour of my day belongs to my family, not to the inbox. As an entrepreneur, it’s easy to convince yourself that every minute matters, but the minutes that matter most are the ones at home, before the world starts pulling at you.”
• Data check. “Once I’m at my desk, the first thing I open is the dashboards: sales from the previous day, conversion rate, ad spend, returns. I run an e-commerce business, so the numbers are the truth. Reading them first sets the tone for what actually needs my attention, instead of letting other people set it for me through email.”
• Slack. “After the data, I move to Slack. The team is global, so by the time I’m online there’s already context I need to catch up on. I batch this, read everything, respond to what’s blocking someone, defer the rest. Slack is a useful tool, but it’ll eat your whole day if you let it.”
• No social media in the morning. “I deliberately stay off Instagram, LinkedIn, all of it before lunch. Social media is designed to hijack your attention and reset your priorities to whatever’s trending. I’d rather start the day with my own data and my own decisions than someone else’s content.”

Why it works:

• Says Dario: “The structure protects two things that are easy to lose as a CEO: family time and decision quality. Family at the start, data before noise, and no social media until I’ve already done the real work. Most of what people call ‘productivity’ is just protecting yourself from distraction long enough to do the few things that actually matter.”

At its core, this routine is about protecting attention. Family comes before work, data comes before messages, and priorities come before distractions. That simple sequence means the day is driven by intention rather than reaction. What do you think of Dario’s routine?