Creating a workable daily routine is vital to achieving your goals and living a happy and healthy life. A well-designed daily routine ensures you stay organized. It will also help reduce stress and improve productivity.
Identify Priorities and Goals
To understand your priorities, you need to know what you ultimately want to achieve. Ask yourself questions and be open to your answers. What are the essential things in your life? What do you want to achieve? What will your obituary say about you? Once you have this information, write down your goals and use them as a guide when designing your daily routine.
Know Your Energy Level and Natural Rhythm
Plan your daily activities for when you are most alert and energetic. It’s important to note that while your natural circadian rhythm is a factor in whether you are more energetic in the morning or the night, your daily habits and routines also play a role.
You can establish healthy sleep habits with a regular sleep-wake schedule, regardless of whether you are naturally a morning person or not. However, for most people, it’s better to work within your true nature instead of trying to fight it. If it takes you two hours to get going in the morning, respect that about yourself and plan accordingly.
Set Aside Enough Time for Self-Care
While self-care is more than bathing and brushing your hair, if you’re not giving yourself enough time to do the basics, you’ll not have enough time to take it up a notch. Caring for yourself is vital for maintaining good physical and mental health. Make sure to include exercise, meditation, and relaxation in your routine, along with your normal daily activities.
Plan Meals and Snacks
Proper nutrition is essential for good health and wellbeing. You wouldn’t leave nutrition to chance for your kids or pets. Plan what you will consume to avoid unhealthy snacks and food, and instead choose high nutrition that nurtures your body – at least 80 percent of the time.
Consider switching out snacks for fresh fruit and vegetables and replacing beverages with filtered tap water. A crunchy sliced apple really is more enjoyable than a bowl of chips. It’s just that most of us habitually choose cheap chips over apples.
Don’t Forget to Schedule Fun Too
Your daily routine should not be all work and no play. Make sure to include activities you enjoy, like reading, watching a movie, or spending time with friends and family. In fact, practice scheduling family time, friend time, and “you” time first. Then put the other stuff in your schedule.
Flexibility Is a Must
Your daily routine should be a guide, not a rigid schedule. Be prepared to adjust and adapt your routine when necessary, depending on the changing demands of your life. Rather than setting specific times for tasks, some people benefit from using block schedules. This allows them to be more flexible in their scheduling without sacrificing what needs to get done.
For example, if you have an unexpected meeting or task come up, you can shift other tasks around your schedule to make room for it. Another example is that you can set aside a certain amount of time each day for activities like exercise or socializing instead of deciding exactly when. Doing this gives you the flexibility to choose what action you want to do each day, while still ensuring that important tasks get done.
Track Your Progress
Regularly evaluate your daily routine. Adjust as needed to ensure that it is helping you achieve your goals, while also living a happy and healthy life. Nothing feels quite as motivating as seeing how far you’ve made it toward a goal you’ve set.
There is no doubt that a well-designed daily routine keeps you organized, reduces stress, and improves productivity. It all starts with identifying priorities and goals, while also considering your natural rhythm and energy levels. Plus, ensuring that you remember to make time for self-care, relaxation, and fun never hurts. When you’re aware of yourself and mindful of how daily activities and habits affect you, creating your daily routine to help you reach your goals will almost happen naturally.
