How To Create A Routine For Maximum Productivity.

Having a routine or schedule is very important, you would know that by now, you probably have gone on YouTube and seen Kendall Jenner’s daily routine. Everyone shows you their routine, yet you are helpless in making your routine.

Do not blindly follow someone else’s routine, you have to make one that fits you, therefore, you must understand the activities that you do, will drain you mentally, so I categorise my activities into three components:

Highly Mentally Taxing Activities (HMTA):

These activities are complicated, require a lot of focus and must be the top priority of your day. I prefer to do activities like these first, so all of the complex activities in my life are done first, why?

To reference Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People to achieve victory we have to put first things first. These activities are generally important and require a lot of focus. Three activities like these in my life are writing, editing and working on a school project.

If you want to figure out activities of this nature in your life, take a sheet of paper and write down the important activities. Then on that list of important activities tick the activities that have to be done every day, e.g writing an article. Then you would have found your HMTA.

Medium Mentally Taxing Activities (MMTA) :

These activities are not difficult, they do not require a lot of brainpower but they are necessary. You can find these activities unmarked on your list. These activities are crucial too since they help you to strengthen your strengths and additionally work on your weaknesses.

This is learning about a skill that you are well versed in already but you cannot call yourself a master in. For me that consists of writing, I can write an article but I have to work to get to Tim Dennings’ level or to achieve what Nicolas Cole has achieved. So these consist of me reading their articles and understanding the lessons that they have learnt the hard way.

Least Mentally Taxing Activities (LMTA) :

These activities are easy and should not be made into a priority. They do not require as much mental attention as the activities stated above, so for example, changing a lightbulb is not that difficult, so it comes under this activity.

I do not consider working out or any activity that helps me maintain my physical health in this category. Our bodies are like machines, we have to take care of them, health is important and should be made into a priority if it already isn’t. I like to do these activities at the end of the day, that lightbulb can wait till the evening, so can Netflix and watching Narcos.

Understand The Relationship Between Time And Energy.

You have to understand that time and energy are finite. Every action done during the day takes energy and takes time, watching Stranger Things takes energy and time, so does writing a book or playing basketball. Once you understand this concept, invest your time and energy into meaningful activities. Every breath that you take is one step closer to death, this might sound negative but if you think about it the clocks always ticking. You have very limited f’s to give, so give them to the right things.

How Your Previous Day Affects Your Today.

I read this in Feeling Is The Secret by Neville Goddard, he writes about going to bed with a feeling of satisfaction, as if you have already achieved your goals. Feeling good before you sleep, sets the tone of how you will react to life during the next day, we can either learn from our suffering or we can loathe about it.

Secondly getting a good night’s sleep is important, I sleep for seven hours and I like to keep my sleep timings consistent, although I do like to keep Saturday nights for a tradition called movie night. Do not oversleep but do not sleep less either, feeling grumpy in the morning paves the way to a negative day.

Routine Hacks That I Occasionally Use.

These are for times when I can’t be bothered to lift a finger, when I don’t care about the world and when I am bored. You can apply them too.

Pushups: If you feel unmotivated and lazy, drop down and do twenty pushups, seriously try it now. The reason why this works is exercise stimulates the pituitary gland to release endorphins, these trigger an ecstatic feeling which helps you to push through the day. Any form of exercise helps, the reason why I do push-ups is that it makes me feel good and I feel like I have great looking arms, but you can do whatever suits you, any form of exercise will give you this sensation.

Cold Water: Whenever I was bored in class, my teacher would go tell to go and wash my face with cold water, I used to think it would make me look better but once you have cold water splashed all over your face, you wake up from your boredom and feel a bit more motivated.

Have Your Routine In Front Of You Constantly.

I have a whiteboard in my room which has my schedule written down, if I am going out, then I take a picture of my schedule on my phone and work accordingly.

Having a constant reminder helps me keep the focus on my priorities. I use a simple model to make my schedule, I write down the HMTAs first and then the MMTAs after which I write the LMTAs. Then I use a second board to list down my daily goals according to the various roles I play in life, for example, my goal as a son is to spend time with my parents.

To conclude, this is how I made a good daily routine, this was what I had to understand and apply in my life. Two books that I would recommend to you if you want to work on building a routine are The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People and The Compound Effect.

I hope this article adds value to your life.