15-minute calendar entries, instant noodles and unmade beds: The routine fuelling Australia’s $100 million woman

Chief executives, leading sports stars and media personalities have never been more aware of what it means to lead a healthy lifestyle. After all, they’re among some of the busiest people in the country.

These days, it’s all about self-care, balancing peak performance with the mental load – and making sure we all get those precious eight hours. But is a regular gym session, a coastal walk or an ocean swim enough? 

We asked Australia’s leading personalities about the routines and habits that support them in being the best at their game.

First up, Jane Lu, the founder of Showpo.

At 40, she is the brains behind a $100 million fashion empire, the host of podcast The Lazy CEO and a mother to two children. 

But success wasn’t linear for Lu. 

She famously quit her job as an accountant but put on a suit and rode the bus into the city with her mother every day, pretending she was still employed at EY, the Sydney office she had already walked away from. 

The pop-up store business she secretly started with a friend spectacularly failed and Lu was officially broke – a moment in life she describes as “rock bottom”. 

But that gamble was about to pay off, and she launched Showpo a month later from her parents’ garage. 

The young entrepreneur is now a permanent fixture on the Financial Review Young Rich List - a debut she made at just 31 years old - and employs more than 100 people. 

With all those spinning plates, just how does Jane prioritise her body and mind? There was only one way to find out. Here, her secrets to healthy living…

What’s the very first thing you do in the morning to set yourself up for a successful day?

Check my phone. It helps my eyes open up, otherwise I’d probably just snooze my alarm.

I know people want me to say I check my emails or the news, but honestly, I’m just checking all my messaging apps and often end up doomscrolling Instagram Reels for about 15 minutes. It just helps me wake up!

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We can imagine you’ve got a stacked calendar, what time is your alarm set for? 

If I had it my way, I wouldn’t roll out of bed until 9am. But I’m taking my health more seriously this year, which means hitting the gym three times a week. So [on those days] I’m up at 7.45am and out the door five minutes later.

Let’s chat routines: Is there a morning habit you think is overhyped?

Overhyped morning routines? Where do I start?! Making your bed. I genuinely can’t understand why anyone makes their bed when they’re just going to get back into it later that night anyway. 

And what’s your non-negotiable ritual to guarantee a good nights’ sleep?

I plan out the next day fully in my calendar. Every 15 minutes is allocated, so I know exactly what I need to do to hit the ground running. Knowing everything is planned helps me switch off and sleep peacefully.

I also have a Bluetooth eye mask that plays YouTube videos, which I listen to as I fall asleep.

Interesting! Are there any videos in particular you’re listening to?

I love listening to all kinds of rise and falls of businesses, movie reviews, and currently I’m loving a channel called Elephant in the Room. It helps me doze off - probably because (ironically) I’m not a good listener.

What time are you calling it a night?

I usually go to bed around midnight, sometimes 1am... Is it enough sleep? Probably not. But I do my best work between 8.30 and 11.30pm once the kids are in bed and there’s no Slack message popping up every two minutes. 

That’s my deep thinking time.

With days that long you must have perfected a go-to lazy meal or snack to keep yourbody fuelled when you just don’t have the time or energy to cook, right? 

I actually don’t know how to cook, but I can make a pretty good instant noodle. I’d love to say I’m doing something crazy and boujee, but boiling water is about the extent of my cooking skills.

Are you willing to share with us your trick to elevating your instant noodles? (We won’t tell anyone, promise.) 

I love to add an egg, frankfurt sausage, corn, chilli oil, dried shallots. I don’t know how to cook, but I sure know how to boil and add!

Most of us don’t have a spare hour to spend at the gym every day. So if you only have 15 minutes to be active, on your busiest, most exhausting day, what would that look like?

If it’s my busiest, most exhausting day, I’m probably not even going to bother spending 15 minutes being active. I think getting those 15 minutes back on a crazy day, rather than trying to squeeze one more thing in, is better for my mental health.

What would you do with those 15 minutes?

I have a running to-do list in my Notes app, and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten it down to zero in the last 16 years, so I’d use those 15 minutes to tick one thing off the list. 

One less thing to think about means I can sleep a little easier that night.

What’s one task you’ve automated or outsourced to save your brain power for the more important things?

One of the first things I learnt as an accountant back in the day was the concept of “materiality”. You decide what’s material and what isn’t, and once you’ve established that, you don’t keep wasting brainpower on the small things.

Setting boundaries has been a key way to preserve your physical and mental health. What is one boundary you’ve set in your career or personal life that felt difficult at the time, but has really helped reduce your stress levels?

As a founder, there’s always another message, decision or problem waiting for you. Creating pockets of time where I’m properly present with my family, rather than physically there but mentally still at work, has been really important to me.

What might you make room for if you could set your mental load down, even for just one evening?

Doing absolutely nothing productive. 

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Having dinner, drinking wine, watching a terrible TV show or doomscrolling YouTube Shorts without feeling like I should be optimising every minute of the evening.

OK, go on then, give us your recommendations for YouTube Shorts…

Lots of stand up comedy, [videos on] random history and geography facts. Oh, and I’m currently really into Would I Lie to You and Toni and Ryan. They're hilarious, relatable and very easy to accidentally watch for way too long.