Design a daily routine

- Good news. You probably already follow a daily routine. You already have set rhythms and habits that shape your daily life, from morning to night. What do you do when you wake up? Do you scroll on your phone? Hit a snooze button? Bounce out of bed and into exercise clothes? How do you answer emails? As they come? Twice a day? Do you rearrange your workspace daily? What about weekly? Or is it whenever it looks too piled to concentrate? Unfortunately, the rhythms and habits you already have might not be the best for you. The best for staying grounded, connected, and productive. So I have some better news for you. With a few intentional shifts, your daily routine? It can serve you. With some adjustments to the rhythms and habits you currently practice, you can experience greater freedom and balance, while saving time and energy. What many people fail to realize is this. A clear routine will actually set you free. Your daily routine has a huge impact on what you can accomplish. When you train yourself to follow a routine, doing the next hard thing? It gets easier. You don't have to fight preferences. You don't have to summon the willpower, or even make a choice. You simply submit your decision-making to the choices that past you already made about the best way to face today. When you take out the decision-making and the willpower battle, the game changes. What does this look like for you? Three simple steps. Let's unpack them one-by-one. First, you'll need to identify the rhythms and habits you want to shape your day. Think about the bottlenecks and distractions you face. For instance, if you answer emails all day long, choose to answer email one or a few specific times, each day. Also think about what you hope to accomplish, and how to make it easier. If you want to get morning exercise done, add laying out exercise clothes to your daily routine right before you get in bed. This will reduce the friction between waking and starting your run. Once you've identified the right rhythms, sync them to your calendar. Consider your workflow: meetings, varying energy levels throughout the day. And let those factors inform how you build out your daily calendar. For instance, block actual time on your calendar for responding to email, and establish the habit of laying out exercise clothes right after you brush your teeth. And another tip. This one's free. Habits stick faster when you stack them. It's easier to train yourself to lay out exercise clothes if you stack that practice onto brushing your teeth. Finally, follow the routine. This is undoubtedly the hardest step. If you've matched your new routine to values, you'll have the intrinsic motivation to get through a few days and maybe a few weeks. But if you've stacked your habits, made connections to the things you already do? Your chances for success, longterm, will skyrocket. Regardless, take it one day at a time. Watch for points of friction that you can remove and be gracious with yourself. It will take time, but it's worth it.