Rituals

You know those days where everything just clicked? You felt in the zone doing work. You made healthy choices with food throughout the day. You really connected and were present with friends, family, and colleagues.

I love those days.

But why do they feel so elusive sometimes? In the past year or so, I’ve found that the days where I complete my morning or evening rituals, there is a much higher probability that I will have one of those days that just felt right.

My rituals have changed over time with items coming and going as I attempt to be mindful of how effective they are at improving the quality of my days. With that said, here are my current daily rituals as of January 2018:

Morning Ritual

Workout

Six days out of the week, my morning ritual starts simply with a workout. I have found my morning workout to be my anchor (a metaphor I picked from The Rock. Yes, that The Rock). In the past, I’ve been self-critical towards the timing of my morning ritual in regards to working out (shouldn’t I be meditating or reviewing my goals before all else?), but I’ve come to terms with the fact that I operate best physically exerting myself first thing in the morning.

(Along with — or perhaps due to — working out first thing, I also consume a lot of water first thing in the morning. Stay hydrated kids!)

Review Goals List

After I’ve showered and driven to work (or back to my home office), I’ll start the remaining items in my morning ritual. First up is doing a quick review of my annual goals. I’m not necessarily diving deep into the minutiae of the goals, simply reading a list of the goals for the year. This basic list (which the Full Focus Planner conveniently has a place for at the very front of the notebook) serves a North Star, setting the direction for my day. (Apparently, I like boating metaphors).

Review Daily Big 3

As part of my weekly review, I set three tasks I want to complete to make progress on my goals and significant projects in my life (the Weekly Big 3). Every night, as part of my evening ritual, I set the Daily Big 3. . . but, more on that later. In the morning, I review the three tasks I set so I know what to focus on throughout the day.

Read The Daily Stoic

Every morning, I read the passage from The Daily Stoic (the full title is The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living) — a daily devotional book of stoic philosophy. Like Wikipedia states, “The Daily Stoic is an original translation of selections from several stoic philosophers including Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Zeno, and others. It aims to provide lessons about personal growth, life management and practicing mindfulness.”

I have a hard-cover copy of the book in my home office, a downloaded copy of the audiobook via Audible on my iPhone, plus a digital version via Kindle (which I can access on my Mac or iOS devices). The book provides so much value, I always want to be able to access it.

Read a Conscious Communication Card

Lesley introduced me to Conscious Communication cards, which are a fantastic tool/communication framework for talking to and modeling respectful communication to kids (produced by the coaches at TEACH Through Love.

The cards (in a manner similar to “Eat this, not that”), presents alternative communication prompts to common parenting situations. I find it really helpful to read and internalize the phrases on a daily basis.

Journal

I write in a journal every morning; because I keep a digital journal using the Day One app, I’m able to access and write in the journal on my Mac or iOS devices. I have a TextExpander snippet that creates the same prompts for me to write every morning:

• I am grateful for. . .
• I capture three things that I express gratitude for
• What would make today great?
• I write down the first three tasks, meetings, situations that would make today successful. These are sometimes related to, but certainly not limited to, my Daily Big 3.
• I am. . .
• This is simply a daily affirmation. Often I write, “Today, I am healthy, focused, strong.” It helps me keep health front of mind throughout the day.

Workday Startup Ritual

The concept of a workday startup ritual is one I picked up from Michael Hyatt (and specifically his Full Focus Planner). The purpose of this ritual is to mentally prepare for the day, which basically consists of tasks that tell your brain, “Okay, brain. We’re going into work mode now.”

Process Email

I get email. Oh boy, do I get an email. As the Director of Development for a digital agency that focuses on email, let me tell you: I get email. Email can really be a source of shallow work, though.

Thus, I aspire to check my email about three times a day: in the morning as part of this ritual, sometime around lunchtime, and then as part of the upcoming shutdown ritual.

Review Schedule

In order to make progress on my Daily Big 3, I need to be aware of what else is on my calendar. As part of my evening routine, I add calendar items to the agenda portion of my Full Focus Planner daily page; if nothing else has been added to the schedule since then, I’ll pencil in some work sessions around meetings to make progress on goals and projects.

Process Task Manager

The inbox of my task manager collects random tasks through emails, voice clips I add via Siri, etc. I like to start my day off with an empty inbox, as I know it will surely collect more throughout the day (which is okay. . . that’s what it is for!).

Start Freedom Session

I wrote about my use of Freedom — a website and distraction blocker — in an earlier blog post. 99% of the time, I’ll already have an automatic Freedom session running, but just in case. . . .

Workday Shutdown Ritual

My workday shutdown ritual is very similar to the startup ritual. Its purpose is to remove yourself from a work mentality and prepare for the rest of your evening.

Process Email

I get email.

Process Full Focus Planner

I like to review any notes from the day (meetings or otherwise) that I’ve taken in my notebook. Some notes may be transferred to the task manager inbox, others might be captured as reference material in my note-taking app of choice.

Process Task Manager

Just like in the morning, I like to close out the workday with as clean of a slate as possible when it comes to inboxes.

Evening Ritual

The evening ritual is all about setting up future Zachary for success. (A lot of the work done at night is to reduce the possible decision fatigue that could take place “tomorrow”).

Prep Water Bottles for Workout

Stay hydrated kids! (Also — and I’m just asking for a friend — how many Blender Bottles is too many Blender Bottles?)

Prep Workout Clothes

Removing any friction between getting myself up at 4 AM and into the gym by 4:45 AM is huge.

Prep Full Focus Planner (Daily Big 3 + Schedule)

I can really help myself out for my Morning and Workday Startup rituals by taking a few moments in the evening to:

• review how the day went
• asking myself what do I want/need to work on tomorrow
• checking to see if my schedule will allow for that work; or should I update my schedule as needed

Also — and this is definitely just a subjective feeling — but I can rest better at night knowing that I’ve got “tomorrow” lined up and ready to roll (as best I can).

Finalize MyFitnessPal

I’ve been tracking my macros since the summer of 2017 and have found such freedom in that discipline. In the evenings, I just want to double-check that I captured everything appropriately.

Prep MyFitnessPal for Tomorrow

But more important to my nutritional success is the setting of my macros the night before. Lesley and I plan out our meals for the week over the weekend; so I consult the whiteboard, find out what is for dinner “tomorrow,” and input all the meals for tomorrow into MyFitnessPal. This takes guessing out of the equation and keeps me on track for the following day.

Closing Thoughts

And that’s it! Okay, this may look like a long list. In all honesty, the sum total of all of these tasks is maybe 30 minutes. And the value I get out of completing my rituals (more days that clicked) is well worth a half an hour.