You Need a Daily Routine
People always tell you how to make the most of your morning hours, but your morning routine – whatever it is – is fine . What you really need is a daily routine.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to start your day on the right foot. For me, this means drinking a glass of water, walking the dog, making a quick breakfast rich in protein, and then drinking a strong cup of black coffee. After that, I sit down to scan important emails, check Slack, play music that matches my mood that day, and start writing. For me, this hasn’t changed much over the past few years.
But in the evening my energy drops. I’m still full after lunch (food coma time), I’m exhausted from my morning writing session, my attention starts to fade, so I start wandering mindlessly on the Internet, and my video games and Netflix queue whisper sweet trivia to me. an ear. You probably know this feeling. Afternoons are the most distracting: you are tired, irritable, and much more impulsive . So I had to come up with a routine that allowed me to be productive during the day, while still recognizing my natural workflow. Here’s what I recommend.
Get up and move
First, get up from the table and stir. If you just sit there, your discomfort will only get worse. I moved my daily workouts to midday instead of morning, and now I feel more refreshed and energized. However, you don’t need to run or lift weights to reap the benefits. A simple walk around 3:00 pm – ideally outside for some fresh air in nature – will save you the funk. Even if you can’t go outside, take a walk around the office anyway . Move your body at the same time every day so your brain knows you are still doing the job.
Work on easy things
Enter the “light list”. In every job there are some aspects that are not so difficult. You know housekeeping, organization, repetitive tasks and general correspondence. Save it all for the day when you can turn on autopilot and work it all out while listening to your favorite tunes. For me, this means responding to emails, finding stories to promote, doing research for other stories, editing photos, and organizing files as needed. If any of this is not urgent that day, I don’t care about it until lunchtime. It’s just me, my headphones, upbeat music, soda, and a detached run through the tedious things I have to do. You’d be surprised how much that change alone will make for your day.
Spend just five minutes on this “big deal”
If and only if you need to finish a larger project, tell yourself that you will just work on it for five minutes . Actually set a timer on your phone or whatever and do the best you can in those five minutes. You can do a good job and get over the day’s recession in those five minutes. If you do, be sure to reward yourself and reinforce this behavior. If you don’t, that’s okay, don’t punish yourself. Go back for a while to easy things and try again later.
Kill your loved ones
Regardless of what kind of work you do, we all have “favorites” or personal favorites that we think are necessary for our work, but in fact are not. In writing, this often refers to eye-rolling words or phrases, but it can be present in any type of work. For example, this unusual graphics in a PowerPoint slideshow, or this flashy line of code that doesn’t actually improve the user experience. Basically what you love personally, but that you haven’t critically thought about.
Well, after all, you almost got it right, right? It’s time to strike. The classic saying is, “Write drunk, edit sober,” but I prefer the “write drunk, edit with a hangover” approach (no, I don’t write drunk every day). When you have a hangover – or, in this case, you burned out at the end of the day – you don’t care about all the little things that you thought were awfully smart at the beginning of the day. Use your irritability to your advantage and optimize what you’ve done.
Plan tomorrow
Last but not least, spend between the last hour and half an hour or so of your day planning for tomorrow. Decide what to do first and what you need to do in the morning when you are awake and energized. Everything else can be moved to your daily “light list”. I also usually spend this time writing notes to myself. That way, when I arrive the next morning, I have sticky reminders all over the place telling me what to do, and I don’t waste my mental energy trying to remember everything.