How routine changed my life
Every single successful person has one thing in common. It’s so vital to success I would almost call it the key to success.
In reality, it’s just a factor of success.
Routine.
In my last article, I wrote about how time management and prioritisation is key, This is still very much true and it’s something that I believe on a deeper level.
Remember success is defined by you, not by somebody else. We view it differently, it’s up to you to define and align the content in this article with your view.
Now, I will be upfront, this won’t work for everyone and that’s completely okay because no two people are the same. I know a lot of people that just the word routine would make them shut down because it bores them, it’s like if you listen to a song on repeat. The thing is, there’s a ‘nack’ to routine, so it isn’t like having Spotify on repeat (unless it’s our podcast, that never gets boring).
For me though, it has completely changed my life.
Below is a rough table of what my day looks like, more for when I’m at work.
Then I do what I need to at work (every day is slightly different, but at the same time it’s important to have structure during your workday).
For a routine to work effectively, you need to be flexible, I would usually allow 30 minutes overlap for anything to work.
Okay, so you’re thinking, how the F@$# has this changed your life. (I’m glad you asked), but before I give you all the answers I’m going to highlight the parts of my routine that have improved my life.
Starting my day early. I am NOT a morning person, I actually hate waking up early, but it’s something that I’m continuing to overcome. One thing I absolutely hate (especially during the morning) is rushing, I find it’s unnecessary especially if the rest of my day is going to be hectic, this is the time that I can use to take things at a good calm pace. Eventually, I want to work on waking up an hour later, I do truly believe the early bird gets the worm, but it’s a bit of process trying to find the balance between waking up early, going to sleep early and figuring out what is effective and what can be maintained on a long term basis. A large part of developing a consistent sleep schedule, health specialists (or your sleep data app) recommend 7–9 hours of sleep on a consistent sleep schedule.
If you’re reading this, good chances are you’ve read enough posts about how meditation is super important especially in the world today, but once again it doesn’t work for everyone and that’s ok. There are so many health benefits to it, but I’ll spare you from me going on another tangent about them. But yeah, so I Mediaite for a couple of minutes even if it’s closing my eyes and counting my breaths. I’m a Christian, and I pray in the shower, I’m not particularly doing it for God or for my religion, it’s more for me…it connects me to something for the day, it’s what grounds me and I technically class my morning prayer as apart of my meditation for the morning. I’ve actually spoken to a couple of people and they also pray in the shower, so don’t judge me too hard (haha).
The reason I didn’t include my standard workday is that I don’t really have a standard workday. But when I get to work, I check my emails, I spend the first 30 minutes following up on any email or anything that have come in overnight, then I spend another 30 minutes doing any urgent tasks that need to get done as soon as possible. Then I continue with whatever is happening with my day. I work 5 days a week (Tuesday — Saturday) as a Real Estate Agent, I try to schedule Half a day to a Full day to do Freelance work (generally Monday), then an hour per night to work on Freelance work/My projects and some professional development (ie courses), Sunday is left free for family and friends, which generally carries over to half of Monday.
I’ll skip forward to “plan next day”, if any of you have watched a Ryan Serhant video or know who he is, in his day to day he “starts his day the night before.’’ Which essentially means, he plans his day the night before, he schedules everything in his calendar and if he had pre-booked meetings then everything else is scheduled around them.
This, this is one of the major factors that have completely changed my life. Everything that I do I schedule, if it’s not in my calendar then it’s not going to happen. The calendar doesn’t run my life, it’s an assist, it lets me think about what I’m doing so I don’t have to think about what I’m doing in the future or where I need to be when.
If any of you know me on a personal level, then you’d know I have it of projects going on, I work a 9 to 5 and I have about 4 side projects, two of which are businesses. The other two are personal projects. Most nights I like to try and spend an hour or so on at least one of them. Obviously, this depends on how my day has been, example if I’m super tired then I won’t push myself to make something happen during this time. Instead, I will relax by watching Netflix then I will meditate, pray then sleep. As I said, I’m not a morning person, and which is why I do this kind of stuff at night. I do want to try and switch it around a bit, I want to figure out another routine which could make better use of my mornings as it is a time that I can be productive I just need more sleep and to be fully awake when I’m trying to work.
This final part of my day is super important. I started the day with meditation and prayer, I finish it the same way. Simply because it grounds me. It lets me take a breath, it’s something that doesn’t change.
Remember, to have a successful routine you need to be flexible, things happen, plans change….you can’t let everything crumble if something comes up during your day.
So how did any of this actually change my life?
A person can only do so much, have you ever been super stressed or super busy, and you’re trying to do a million and one things all at the same time. Organisation and having a routine that you follow every day has created clear time slots in my day that I know I can fit in more things. Specifically having a routine means I am able to make sure I do certain things every single day, for example; doing work on personal projects/business development. Another example is actually meditating in the morning and at night, I know for a fact it wouldn’t happen as I’ve had many times where I haven’t scheduled it in and it simply hasn’t happened because I have forgotten about it. Without scheduling these into my calendar and having them apart of my daily routine it wouldn’t happen, or at least not as regularly as it does. Find something that grounds you and do it every single day, build your routine and create time for yourself, people in your life and the parts of life that matter to you.
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