For years I’ve spoken about the power of habits, and tangentially, I’ve spoken about many routines that I have–from meditation (Episode 32), to my Day Reset strategy (Episode 69), and more. I use a variety of routines to minimize distractions and maximize my productivity. None more than any others, I have three daily routines I use every day: my morning, midday, and evening productivity routines. While the makeup of my particular morning, midday and evening routines are not pertinent to you, the concept of having them for productive habits and activities for your own life and work is important.
What are the most important areas of your life? Once defined, what are the habits or activities that you should be doing on a regular basis (daily, several times per week, or a few times per month) that will help level-up or maintain those areas of life? Those should be the items you fit into your daily routines.
The morning and evening productivity routines nourish each other’s momentum. In that, if I execute poorly on the prior evening routine then my morning routine will invariably suffer. Pay attention to this effect. Likewise, I use my morning routine to rally back into action if I had a poor up-at-bat the prior evening routine.
Also, productivity routines necessitate change as you become more productive. That is, as you take care of yourself more, your mind and body will give you access to more productivity. Over time, you should see some parts of your routine become superfluous and other, new habits emerge. This is natural and you shouldn’t try to limit the organic development of your routines.
However, productivity routines can only remain productive if they aren’t hindered by several limiting factors. The top three I see frequently are:
- People try to jam-pack everything and the kitchen sink into a morning or evening routine.
- Your routines are unnatural, or unhealthy. Drinking a shot of tequila or eating a whole lemon in the morning may jar you awake and sound like a good routine at the moment you think of it, but, seriously, it’s not going to be sustainable.
- You lack the motivation to do it.
Identify the routines that will nourish your productivity in your major life categories, fit them in naturally into the flow of your morning, midday and evening, and benefit from the compound benefits of productive routines.