My everyday life (routine)

Routine is a recommendation not a strict law. But without routine you can skip many important things and lose your discipline and motivation.

I split my working day into core chunks, and I’m trying to follow them every day.

Here is high-level diagram of my routine:

daily routine chunks.excalidraw
My daily routine

1. Wake up

Good checklist for wake-up:

  • Wash your face and brush your teeth, both are important.
  • Drink a glass of water (or coffee 😈).
  • Prepare your workspace, fewer distractions improve your productivity.
  • Put your devices on charger.
  • Learn something new.
  • Do basic training, 35+ minutes sessions (in my case run).
  • Walk outside for 10–20 minutes to get enough energy from sun (vitamin D).

2. TODO

Things-to-do (AKA to-do list), planning my day is my first chunk of the day. Here I prepare my day, week, month, etc.

Priorities:

  • Schedule anything unimportant and which I not plan to do today, be honest.
  • Check your goals, expertness, health, family tasks, etc.
  • Review your calendar and tasks, maybe something has high-priority.
  • Plan something important (3 high-level tasks), for combinatorial explosion.
  • Mark completed tasks.

3. Chunk #1. Deep work session, focusing on the most critical tasks

Disable distractions, prepare water, breath deeply few minutes and start.

Main goals:

  • Bring your mind to the task (5-minute meditation if needed).
  • Time amount about 3 hours.
  • Reduce distractions, let know everyone you will be busy.
  • Focus on main tasks, go from hard to easy or important to less important.
  • Limit timing for tasks.
  • Take at least one 10–15 minutes break in this session.
  • Drink more water to stay hydrated.

Completed important task give me emotional charge and motivation.

4. Chunk #2. Less demanding tasks

After main working time I give my mind some relax time. Give rest to your eyes and mind and fuel your body and give time to food digestion.

This is good time to do something brainless, with low energy consumption. But don’t sleep immediately after lunch and for long time.

Finish started tasks, connect with people, help them if you can.

5. Workout and Dinner

Only morning physical activity is not enough for me. I need to do some additional physical activity.

Regular work-out are important for better energy and healthy mind. Better to do it according Physical exercise plan and track your progress and results.

Dinner time. After workout, I get rest and recovery time. Maybe it’s good time for tea or some other drink with some food (not a lot).

6. Learn something new

This chunk is starting in the evening. I need to learn something new. Without this process I don’t really do any progress, I think it’s also interesting and fun sometimes. I learn according to learning techniques. I usually spend some time to learn before this chunk, this is also good time to review learned information with spaced repetition technique.

7. Fun

It’s good time to practice learned information by working with projects. Sometimes you haven’t energy for it, it’s fine. You can do something else.

It’s also good time for life activities.

8. Relax

You need to give your bran and mind some time to relax. At this time I can consume some media, read fiction books, listen music, etc.

Some tasks before sleep:

  • Place E-devices on charger.
  • Review your working profiles, social networks.
  • Upload videos, photos, articles, etc.

9. Sleep

Don’t forget about yourself and don’t try to make longer your day (this is bad idea). Try to start sleep maximum at 00:00 (with some preparations before), breath deeply and keep thinking about something good.