How Jesse Collins Produces the Grammys and Emmys Without Losing His Mind
Jesse Collins, 53, the producer behind big live TV events like the Grammys and Rihanna’s Internet-breaking Super Bowl show, has been in a perpetual state of go for more than a decade. At 50, he realized his body was rounder and his old regimen of “about 20 Mountain Dews a day” wasn’t boosting his energy. Here’s how he makes it all happen now.
5:10 a.m. Wake up and shape up
Collins starts his day by checking his Lumen metabolism-measurement device to “see if it’s gonna be a low-carb or a medium- or high-carb day” and later eats based on Lumen’s recommendations. On his 30-minute drive to the Just Train gym for an hour of weight training and running, the business calls roll in.
7:30 a.m. Feed the mind
After working out, Collins has a solid breakfast of eggs, sausage, and smoked salmon at home, no matter how long his to-do list is. “A clean diet and exercise really keep the stress down,” he says. “The gym can sometimes not happen, and I’m okay. But if I miss breakfast, I’m agitated, I’m off. I can’t focus.”
9:00 a.m. Manage the chaos
Collins’s day is a storm of meetings with network and studio execs, calls with talent managers, and Zoom chats with agents. Producing massive events simultaneously can require four flights between two cities in a day. His stress-reduction principle: prioritize progress over perfection.“Even if you don’t accomplish everything, at least if you made some progress, some attempt—it creates a domino[effect] of success.”
2:00 p.m. Recharge
When his energy dips, he’ll shut his door, put on his headphones, and“really escape with music”—from Jay-Z, Stevie Wonder, and Erykah Badu to the Eagles and Usher. Plus, he finds slivers of time to recharge through sleep. “If a Zoom or a meeting ends at 45 minutes after the hour and the next one’s on the hour, I can sleep for 12 minutes.”
6:00(ish) p.m. Postmates and chill
It’s hard for Collins to carve out time to cook for himself, so the meal-delivery service Postmates becomes the chef of the house. “It’s always a protein and a vegetable,” he says. Salmon, rotisserie chicken, duck: all great mains. After dinner, he intentionally disconnects for an hour by turning his phone face down as he watches something he loves on TV, like The Wire or Ted Lasso, with his fiancée, Dionne Harmon.
10:00 p.m. Head to bed, ideally
As long as his late-night MSNBC viewing involves “Rachel Maddow saying the world is crazy, but it’s not over,” he can peacefully drift off to sleep. He also prepares for bed by listening to DJ mixes that Questlove personally texts him. (Aperk of the job.) That is, until he wakes up at 2:00 in the morning, thinking about what he has to do the next day. But after 15 or 30 minutes, his mind quiets, and he goes back to sleep.
This article originally appeared in the January/February 2024 issue of Men's Health
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