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Not an official Andy Frisella, 75 Hard or Operator Standard website. Andy Frisella did not write or review this page.
Why this comes before day 1
75 Hard tests your discipline. It doesn't plan your day.
Here's our view, and it's ours, not the program's: a lot of 75 Hard attempts break on logistics, not willpower. The second workout gets squeezed out, a dinner nobody planned for shows up, a travel day wrecks the routine. People go all in on day 1 with no daily system behind them, so every day starts from scratch.
This week fixes that before the count starts. You set up a daily system that plans tomorrow tonight, tracks what got done, and shows you where your day breaks. Then you start 75 Hard, or restart it, with a system already running.
- Thinking about starting? Run this week first, then pick your day 1.
- Failed and restarting? Run this week, then restart with a plan that covers the spot where your last attempt broke.
75 Hard is Andy Frisella's program, and its official rules are at 75hard.com. Nothing here is part of the official program, and The Operator Standard isn't an official 75 Hard tool. Check any rule question with the official source.
How to use this: do one day per day. Each day has a short setup inside the app, the reason it matters, and one thing to do tonight. The Operator Standard's own FAQ says the app takes "a few minutes in the morning and a few minutes at night." That's the target here too.
Step 0 · Before Day 1
Get the app
This guide is a walkthrough of The Operator Standard, the daily execution app from Andy Frisella's team that runs on an AI planner called ARCANE. Everything below happens inside it, so start here.
- Open The Operator Standard here and pick a membership. The app is on the App Store for iPhone, and there's also a listing on Google Play.
- Create your account and sign in on your phone.
- Allow notifications. Your morning brief and weekly report show up as notifications, and that's how the app reaches you.
It's a paid membership with no free tier listed. On October 31, 2026 the official site listed Pro at $50/month or $500/year, and the App Store listed $49.99/month or $549.99/year for in-app purchase. See current pricing before you join.
Day 1 · Once you're in the app
Define your vision and set up to three goals
- Go through your first ARCANE session. ARCANE asks what you actually want and helps you describe the version of yourself you're working toward. It uses that vision to plan everything else. Take ten honest minutes here.
- Add your goals. Each goal is tagged with a life area, and you can have up to three active at a time. Setting one takes a few quick screens: pick an area, find your goal, choose your days, answer a few questions from ARCANE, then review the plan it builds.
- Pick goals that touch different areas, like one for your body, one for work or money, and one for family or the mind. Three small goals you hit beat six you ignore.
- Prepping for 75 Hard? Don't turn the challenge's daily rules into goals. Make your goals what the 75 days are for: the body, the business, the relationship.
- Connect your calendar so your morning brief can plan around what's already booked.
Tonight: look over each goal's plan and edit anything that doesn't fit your real week. You can edit, pause or remove a goal from its goal page later.
Day 2
Plan tomorrow tonight
- Set your day-start time and your reminder. They're separate settings in the Daily Briefing. Put the start time around when you actually wake up.
- Tap Plan Tomorrow tonight. You can also plan from the morning brief or by asking ARCANE.
- Deal with leftovers first. Planning starts by settling anything left from today, so you choose what carries over.
- Add your own tasks, then let ARCANE fill the open slots. Edit or swap any suggestion, then save the day in one tap.
- 75 Hard tie-in: while you plan, book a real time slot for both workouts, the outdoor one included, and for your reading. If a task doesn't have a slot, it's the one that gets dropped at 9 p.m.
- Keep errands out of your critical tasks. Use the separate to-do tasks for anything not tied to a goal, like groceries or a dentist call.
Tonight: save tomorrow's plan before bed. That's the habit to keep for life.
Day 3
Run the morning brief and win the day
- Open your morning brief first, before email or social. It's a one-screen dashboard of your day that opens with a "Today's Strategy" headline from ARCANE.
- Do your five critical tasks. Complete all five and you've won the day. If something real changes, edit the task in the briefing instead of skipping it.
- Hardest first. Knock out the task you're most likely to dodge before noon. On 75 Hard, that's usually the outdoor workout.
- Check off each task as you finish it. Seeing what's done keeps you honest about the score.
Tonight: write a Journal entry about what got done, what didn't and why. ARCANE reads your entries to learn your patterns and sharpen the next day's plan. Then tap Plan Tomorrow.
Day 4
Let Streaks & Strikes keep score
- Look at your streak. Each day you win adds to it.
- Understand Strikes. Miss a task and you get a strike. That's the accountability built into the app. A strike isn't failure. It shows you where the plan was too big or the day was too full.
- 75 Hard tie-in: in 75 Hard, one miss resets you to day 1. A strike in your prep week costs you nothing and shows you exactly where your day is fragile. Fix that spot before your day 1.
- Make one task smaller if you need to. If a task keeps getting skipped, shrink it to a version you'd do on your worst day.
Tonight: journal, then plan tomorrow. If you won today, share your streak card if you want to. It's built for IG Stories.
Day 5
Use ARCANE when you're stuck
- Pick the task you've been putting off and open a chat with ARCANE about it. Think out loud, and ask it to break the task into the first 20 minutes of work.
- Review its suggestions. Proposed changes come as cards you can edit before you accept them.
- Plan the hard days early. Ask ARCANE to help you plan a travel day or a night out so the day still gets done. On 75 Hard, those are the days that end attempts.
- Use it for upkeep too. Ask ARCANE to rename a repeating task, move a task to another goal, resume a paused goal, or set a reminder that isn't tied to a goal.
Tonight: journal, then plan tomorrow with ARCANE's help.
Day 6
Join a crew and check your stats
- Join a Crew. Crews are small accountability groups. Before you join one, check its Crew Health score to see which crews are active.
- Check in where people can see it. The crew roster shows each member as Not Started, In Progress or Won for the day. Say hello in crew chat.
- Open your Stats. Tap Stats on the task list page to see your stats dashboard. From there you can open the leaderboards to see how you rank on days won, tasks finished and streaks.
- Doing 75 Hard? Going through it with people who see your day status every day is a different experience from doing it alone. Mention in your crew that you're starting, or restarting.
- Browse Topics if you want conversations around a specific interest. You can join a topic or start your own.
Tonight: journal, plan tomorrow, and see whether anyone in your crew won today.
Day 7
Read your week and set up week two
- Read your Weekly Progress Report. The app notifies you when it's ready. It shows what moved, what slipped, and where to focus next.
- Adjust your goals. Keep what's working. Edit or pause a goal that's dragging, or mark one complete if you've hit it.
- Try one challenge. The app can build challenges aimed at your weak spots. Pick one for week two.
- Pick your 75 Hard day 1. If you won most days this week, set your start date. If you didn't, run one more week first. It's better to find the weak spot now than on day 40.
- Learn something. Play an MFCEO Project episode in the app, then use the option on the episode to open an ARCANE chat. It ties the lesson to your own vision and goals.
Tonight: plan Monday. You've finished the starter week. From here it's one daily loop: brief, five tasks, journal, plan tomorrow. Bring it into 75 Hard and past day 75.
Set up the system, then start the count
Every step above happens in The Operator Standard. Set it up before your 75 Hard day 1, or before your restart, and keep using it after day 75.
Paid membership. See current pricing on the official site. Tracked link: I work on the team that builds it.
Features described here come from the official Operator Standard website and the App Store listing (version 1.42.0), checked October 31, 2026. Screens and button names can change between app updates.
Not an official Andy Frisella, 75 Hard or Operator Standard website. Andy Frisella did not write or review this page.