Good health to the readers and subscribers of my diary. I want to share my experience of how I moved from chaos to an hourly daily routine. I took examples from the lives of successful people whose rhythm of life is scheduled minute by minute.
Previously, I worked for my grandmother. Served the allotted time from morning to evening and went home. I received a salary once a month. Grandmother always paid the same, regardless of the results of work. If necessary, I gave a magic kick to increase productivity. Now my grandmother is gone, I work on my own and for myself.
The poor results of my work forced me to analyze “Why I don’t have time to do anything and every day I run in one circle, like a squirrel in a wheel.”
They do the same thing every morning
Successful people do the same things every morning. This way they start the day in a structured way. They learn specific behaviors that the body and mind remember. Mark Zuckerberg even goes so far as to wear the same T-shirt every day (of course, he has several). This way he doesn't waste time thinking about his outfit.
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This fine-tuned routine may seem strange and inconvenient, but in fact it makes our everyday days much easier by making them organized. You can try this technique and decide if it really helps. Well, judging by the steadily growing finances of famous billionaires, this path is really effective.
Control your attention with rituals
A daily routine coordinates your work. But he is not responsible for comfort. So every day you set aside an hour of time to calmly fill out the “morning pages”: write down your thoughts, plans, desires. And then you immediately dive into a frantic stream of meetings. Your brain may simply not be ready for such a sudden change in activity.
And the so-called remaining attention is to blame here. Cal Newport writes about him in the book “Head to Work”:
When a person moves from a certain task A to the next task B, his attention does not switch instantly - some remainder of his attention remains occupied with the previous task.
And in order to deceive this remainder, you need to somehow convey to him: “I have already finished working on this task, it’s time to move on to the next one.”
This is what rituals are for—repetitive actions that you are accustomed to. This could be a regular nap after lunch or a short workout before an important meeting, for example.
Rituals are similar to a daily routine and can even be part of it. However, they contain a deeper meaning: they help to calm down, relax, or prepare for new actions.
Successful people usually get up very early
For example, Apple CEO Tim Cook always sets his alarm for 3:45. Then he starts reading the emails. Getting up early doesn't bother him or other successful people. They love their jobs and can't wait to get back to work.
They get a boost of energy in the morning, for example, from a cold shower or from exercising. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey jogs at 5:30. Disney boss Robert Iger works out at the gym every morning. In fact, such a habit is useful not only from the point of view of success, it is good for health. Our body will thank you after a while. You will notice how much your metabolism, speed of food absorption and many other aspects will improve.
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Let's look at an example of what the graphs of successful but completely different people look like.
A young businessman, let's call him Maxim, is used to waking up quite early, at 5:00 in the morning. Jogging, contrast shower, watching the morning press over family breakfast. All important meetings and meetings are scheduled before noon.
The second half of the day is devoted to checking email, getting acquainted with new documents, summing up the results of the day and making plans for tomorrow. After work, Maxim immediately rushes home in order to be in time for a family dinner with his wife and children.
Weekends are completely dedicated to family. From Monday everything repeats itself in the usual circle. The hierarchy of his values: a clear distribution of time between work and family.
Marina, an aspiring poetess, leaves the “embraces of Morpheus” closer to noon. He slowly drinks green tea, admiring the view from the window, and reflects on the meaning of life. Then he goes online and looks at sites dedicated to the topic of art. Several times a week he attends Chinese language courses and goes for massages.
Marina works only when there is inspiration, regardless of the time of day or day of the week. Moreover, there is simply no clear distribution between working days and weekends. If the presentation of your next book is approaching, why not immerse yourself in work on the night from Saturday to Sunday?
Her family is the devoted dog Marfusha and aquarium fish. Marina spends her free time from work at concerts, exhibitions and nightclubs.
Despite such dissimilarity in lifestyle and different priorities, these people are quite successful and stand firmly on their own two feet. There are common concepts that unite them.
Before they start working, they think
Successful people know where they are at the moment. To maintain this understanding throughout the workday (which is very helpful in setting goals and objectives for the future in general), they are in no hurry to get out of bed. To start, they will sit down and think about the day ahead to create a tentative plan in their head.
"To get the best results, you need to think about where you've been, where you are now, and where you want to go," says workplace expert Lynn Taylor.
Daily routine as the basis of a healthy lifestyle
What does it mean to lead a healthy lifestyle? A healthy lifestyle consists of several important components:
- proper nutrition;
- exercise stress;
- rational daily routine;
- hardening and strengthening the immune system;
- personal hygiene;
- maintaining mental hygiene (ability to cope with negative emotions);
- family planning and development of sexual culture;
- health promotion and preventive procedures.
Most modern people are susceptible to various diseases due to non-compliance with healthy lifestyle rules. This is why it is so important to maintain a daily routine for a healthy lifestyle.
“How ridiculous are the demands of people who smoke, drink, overeat, do not work and turn night into day that the doctor make them healthy, despite their unhealthy lifestyle,” - L.N. Tolstoy.
There are various technologies and channels for creating a healthy lifestyle. Among them:
- social: media, educational events in educational institutions and workplaces;
- infrastructural: regional and federal environmental control, preventive institutions;
- personal: standardization of everyday life, the individual’s value system.
Thanks to the above channels, improving the health of each individual person becomes a problem on a national scale. Various institutions are opened and funded that are ready to tell the population what it means to lead a healthy lifestyle: health centers, research centers, institutes for promoting a healthy lifestyle. It is here that the latest technologies for teaching a healthy lifestyle and the skills to maintain it are being developed.
If you want to learn everything about a healthy lifestyle of modern life first-hand, that is, from doctors and researchers, you can contact your district or city institutions. They always welcome new listeners and volunteers.
They make a plan almost every minute
Business consultant and best-selling author Kevin Kruse surveyed more than 200 highly productive people. Among them are billionaires, Olympic athletes and single students.
He found that many of them divided their day into tiny units of time. While most people planned an hourly or half-hour schedule, these people had a more thorough schedule, scheduled minutely.
Olympic gymnast Shannon Miller told him, “To this day, I keep an appointment calendar where I plan almost every minute.”
Yes, it may seem too much for us, but such a detailed schedule sometimes really helps, especially when we have a lot of things on our shoulders that need to be solved today.
No distractions!
In English, the term microdistractions is very popular. It is used when talking about a thousand little things that almost every minute distract the attention of a modern person - numerous push notifications informing about incoming letters, comments, links, and the like. Each time they take away minutes of time, they “knock down” your attention and prevent you from concentrating. That is why successful people usually have separate time for calling, checking email, and even social media. But what if there is something important in the messages? Outsourcing the work with incoming requests to a secretary or assistant - this is the answer of businessmen.
They solve large problems first
Research has shown that people can only work with concentration for four or five hours before productivity declines. Therefore, it would be fatal to waste this valuable time on administrative tasks or answering countless emails.
That's why successful people start with tasks that require attention and execution. For example, write a text, perform calculations, develop strategies. Thus, they invest all their effectiveness in solving global problems, leaving small ones for the time when their concentration wanes.
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Best time to work
For me, this is the time when results appear. This is the least creative time, during which you need to do all the “dirty” work, sorting out and bringing to life everything that was invented during periods of creativity.
Daytime hours are best for such activities.
During the day I write articles, prepare trainings, work on websites, in general, I do all the technical work. Towards the evening I sketch out a plan for the next day.
I also noticed this nuance: the less “brains” the work requires, the later it can be done; everything where you need to think is better done immediately after lunch.
They don't work during lunch
Working during your lunch break is a mistake. Successful people use free time to turn off or recharge their batteries. Bill Gates, for example, likes to play cards at noon, so he comes up with other thoughts in the process.
Warren Buffett spends lunch every day with a different person. Why? Because he's been auctioning off his lunch dates for years to the highest bidder. Proceeds go to charitable organizations, and volunteers who invest in this program receive buffet benefits because it gives interesting new acquaintances.
They work even when there is a period of “inefficiency”
After lunch, many people experience a sharp decline in productivity. The body is busy digesting, sometimes this leads to fatigue and lack of concentration.
Successful people use this ineffective time for meetings and calls. If you have a fixed date, there are no excuses.
"You have to go to the meeting anyway, and the incentive to go there and talk to other people will help you focus," says motivation expert Laura Vanderkam.
This maneuver helps you avoid wasting time while still remaining productive.
They think about their problems regularly
The day can never be completely planned. After all, sometimes something unexpected happens that can upset you. Therefore, successful people plan their problem matters and their solutions within half an hour every evening.
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In these 30 minutes, you will be able to cope with unexpected problems and find solutions. And, as you can see, you don’t need to think about this all day, a free half hour in the evening is enough.
Daily routine of a successful person
Success comes from the word to keep up, more precisely from the verb meaning action. It is not the one who acts a lot who succeeds, but the one who does less, but on time. Here is an example of a daily plan, based on which you can easily create your daily schedule.
- 05:30 - 06:00, rise
What time do you wake up in the morning? How things will go during the day depends on when and in what mood we woke up.
- 06:00 - 07:00, morning exercises
The time when the sun rises and nature wakes up is the best moment to start the day, and the best start to the day is exercise. There is an opportunity to do exercises in the fresh air - be sure to go outside.
- 07:00 - 09:00, breakfast, morning exercises
Having woken up at six in the morning, even after exercise, by seven to eight o’clock in the morning the body will be ready to have breakfast. To maintain efficiency and good spirits, the body needs to consume vitamins, minerals, micro and macroelements every day. Slowly, after breakfast, take a look at your to-do list again and, if necessary, adjust your tasks for the day.
- 09:00 - 12:00, the most fruitful time for
The body's ability to work is not constant throughout the day. Mark the times when you are full of energy and the times when you are sleepy as a fly. Plan your day taking into account your body.
Until 12 o'clock, the moment when you can get a lot done. During the period when thoughts flow easily and clearly, it is easiest to concentrate - do important tasks of category “A”.
- 12:00 - 14:00, lunch break, change of activity
Knowledge workers, engage in physical activity during this time. Those who are engaged in physical labor, on the contrary, read a book, think about the mystery of time... And don’t forget about lunch.
- 14:00 -17:30, completing tasks according to schedule
If the tasks of category “A” are completed, we proceed to list “B”.
- 17:30 - 19:00, dinner
This is a time when you can relax, unwind, and have a leisurely dinner.
- 19:00 - 21:00, personal time
You can finish what you didn’t manage to do during the day. Check your email and social networks. Time to be with family, fulfill a friend's request. Shake yourself up and take a light jog for the strength of your future sleep. Cyclic sports increase self-discipline and develop the skills to distribute one’s strength over a long distance.
- 21:00 - 22:00, summing up the day
In the evening, check the list to see if everything has been completed. If not, analyze the reasons that prevented you. Evaluate what took more time and what difficulties arose. Make a schedule of priority tasks for tomorrow.
By gaining experience in analyzing failed tasks, you will learn to rationally create a daily routine. Prioritizing tasks by importance and making a list of tasks that you can delegate to others will soon become a habit.
- 22:00 - 23:00 evening toilet, getting ready for bed
This is the time when you can sit comfortably and read a book before going to bed. Listen to calm music, discarding all disturbing thoughts.
- 23:00 - 05:30 sleep
It is recommended to go to bed no later than 23:00, because from 23:00 to 01:00 is the time when our brain and body rest most effectively. To wake up at the scheduled six in the morning, go to bed before 23 is a prerequisite. There can be no talk of any productivity if you don’t give your body enough sleep.
By following the routine every day, all the points will become second nature, and it will be easy to plan your affairs in the long term.
In this video, I suggest you watch an excerpt from a lecture on the basics of time management and planning your day.
They remain productive after work
Of course, you should relax after work and not work until late at night. Successful people still make good use of their time. They engage in projects and interests that they promote, rather than just wasting time eating and watching a TV show.
When asked about the secret of his success, Elon Musk answers: “I read books.” It is said that as a teenager he read two volumes a day. He uses books to inspire and hone his character.
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Other actions may also help you progress. For example, learn a foreign language, play a musical instrument, draw or collect a collection. Do things that add value to your life.
What does an Effective Working Day mean to me?
Before moving on to the recommendations, let's define for ourselves what an effective working day means. It doesn’t matter whether you work for yourself or have a hired job, there is only one principle by which you can distinguish a good day from a bad one - Do you feel satisfied with how you lived this day?
Many people believe that the daily routine of every successful person is based on creating a minute-by-minute schedule of what needs to be done and when. This makes sense, but it is absolutely not the point. I approach this issue completely differently. Strict deadlines for getting up, going to bed and eating are not suitable for me personally, since I cannot work effectively if I do not get enough sleep or, conversely, I cannot quit work for lunch when inspiration comes.
What matters is what the day is filled with, not the hours and minutes written down in a notebook. Each person’s life is individual and each of us has our own priorities - what is important to us (health, family, work, business, etc.). These are the things you need to build on - they should all be included in your routine.
They create conditions for healthy sleep
Successful people place great importance on sleep. They know that sleep makes them quite productive. That's why they put away their laptop and mobile phone an hour before they go to bed. Media entrepreneur Arianna Huffington has banned all technology from the bedroom.
Joel Gascoigne, one of the inventors of the Buffer app, walks every evening. “It allows me to evaluate the day's work, think about more difficult tasks, gradually stop thinking about work and reach a state of fatigue,” he writes on his blog.
Influence of biological rhythms
If a person suddenly changes his rhythm of life or flies across several time zones, then he experiences severe fatigue and decreased performance. The reason is a mismatch between the lifestyle and its usual biological rhythms.
Biological rhythms (biorhythms) - This is the duration and intensity of successive biological processes in a living organism.
Biorhythms are internal (endogenous), these are the internal biological clocks of the body, and external (exogenous), for example, the change of day and night or working on the night shift and sleeping during the day.
Circadian rhythms are changes in the level of activity of processes occurring in the body during the day.
Biorhythms have only recently been recognized by official science. But the experience of using them in various applied areas allows us to judge that they must be taken into account when planning your day.
