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60 Daily Routine Examples for a Powerful Daily Schedule
The best examples of daily routines are sometimes the oddest.
A good daily routine is not a cookie cutter program that you get from someone else, but we can gain insight and ideas from the daily schedules of high optimized people to understand what and why they do what they do.
A daily routine is not an option – whatever you do each day already is your routine. Is that routine getting you the results you want in life, or not? That’s are only choice.
Daily Routine Examples look a little like this:
- 4:30am – Wake up (at a precise time everyday)
- Eat Breakfast (optimized for your morning schedule)
- Exercise (to reach your preferred fitness level)
- Pack Lunch (good eating decisions during lunch)
- Mid Afternoon Meditation (Sanity)
- Top Off Groceries after Work (Smart move)
- Clean Everything as soon as I get home!
- Shower
- Relax for the rest of the night
That’s a very simplified and generic example, we’ll get to the more complicated and specific ones below.
Recommended Tool: Morning Ritual Mastery – Creating a Masterful Morning Routine To Optimize your Mind Body and Spirit
What is a daily routine?
A routine is a fixed set of actions that you perform for any given time, place, or circumstance. A daily routine is something that you do every day, during the morning, midday or evening, in order to accomplish something you desire.
We know that 40% of our behaviors of habits, and 95% of our thoughts are subconscious.
We have two choices:
- to let that be a tool we use,
- or a source of destruction for us.
Being a creature of habit is efficient – it’s not something we wanna get rid of.
What we DO want to do, however, is CONTROL that process to make sure that what we habitually do each day serves us, instead of screwing us over (pardon me).
There are two kinds of routines: designed, and unintentional.
Routines by Design:
- like working out each morning,
- reading a certain amount each day
- exercising for your health and fitness
- taking your superfoods
- stretching etc…
2. Unintentional Daily Routines: things that you do everyday, but not necessarily by design, more so by habit:
- Picking your kids up from school
- Paying your bills when they come in
- Going to work
- Getting that coffee before work
- Organizing your desk before you get started
- Letting the dog out for a morning bathroom session
In other words, a daily routine is a set of actions, activities, behaviors, that maintain your life at the level you want it to be at.
When you decide what you want out of life:
- how you want to look,
- how you want to live,
- your level of fitness,
- hobbies,
- adventures,
- and disciplines….
…those are your daily routine.
When you hear others talk about daily routine examples and the importance of setting a solid daily plan, they are probably talking about a list of habits that will skyrocket their productivity, make them healthier, give them the free time they want, and otherwise make their lives successful.
What do daily routines do?
Daily routines accomplish tasks that you need to get done each day, or put you positions you need to be in everyday to maintain your life properly. Most of us already have hygiene routines, so waking up each morning and showering is a routine.
A daily routine takes into consideration effects you want to see in your life, and what actions are required to get those effects. The actions you take to cause them are called your routine.
For the record, this high value (inexpensive but good) course from Stefan James walks you through precisely what I’m about to talk about below. It’s my recommended program for creating the best example of a daily routine that takes care of every aspect of your life.
The best daily routine examples are those that cover the basic areas of human life.
- They keep us healthy
- They keep our money in check
- They maintain our social life
A daily routine is a behavior that provides a result in your life, that you do at a certain time to make the rest of your life happen smoothly.
Daily routines are successful when:
- They keep you at your desired level of physical health
- You are mentally relaxed and stable in your life
- You are embracing life relative to the ideas you choose to live it by
- You are not worried about money or surviving
- And you interact with others in a way that is satisfying to you, and have the time for it.
Should you make a daily routine?
The best daily routine for you is going to add structure and certainty to your life. You know that your bases are covered because you have made your routine around your own happiness and contentment.
When you have a ton on your plate that day, you know your routine covered all the bases and that nothing important was left out, even though a few things were still left on your to-do list.
Leaving your writing, workout routine, project, or garden work until the last minute might be just fine… Until you get a call to go do something interesting, OR an emergency comes up.
Suddenly, the important things aren’t getting done.
The best daily routine example is going to create a list of keystone habits that increase the quality of your life and the base level you live at.
- You can decide how to live the best, healthiest, most well rounded life,
- a solid daily routine is going to make sure those get prioritized each day.
Each day you have a MILLION options to spend your time on.
It’s easy to get bogged down, and when you do, that goal you had, that hobby you wanted to do more of gets left to the end of the day.
→ When you’re at the end of the day, you have less willpower, so convincing yourself to exercise, or write a paper becomes impossible.
→ When your brain has a routine wired into it’s pathways, less willpower juice is required to do important things that might be hard after your energy is spent.
A good daily routine is also going to take activities that will have you in the best physical shape, give you the sharpest mind, and keep fresh updated ideas in your head and make it easy to do them each day.
Learning how to make a daily routine can turn your hectic, busy life into smooth sailin’.
To understand how to make a daily routine, combine your aspirations and goals with the important parts of your daily schedule. Put them all on a list. Then decide how you can optimize your day by performing all those activities at precisely the right time.
But you might have noticed the word “optimized” in the title. That’s because I have some ways that will take your daily schedule to the next level.
Let’s begin.
How to Create a Daily routine
Start with Goals
The best start to your routine is to focus on exactly what YOU want, because that’s the purpose of a routine in the first place.
It’s to make your life better.
READ: What are goals & How to always do them properly
Are you trying to be healthier and implement more exercise in your life?
- Maybe you want to start reading more
- You could have a desire to reflect on your life or experience a more mindful existence.
- Perhaps you’d like to add more peace to your morning.
- You could decide that your professional life is interfering with your social life, and add mandatory periods where you do nothing but talk to closest friends
Make a List of “Have to Do’s”
Aside from personal goals, there might be tasks that you need to get done to maintain your current lifestyle
- Taking care of your kids
- Preparing stuff for your job
- Other responsibilities that you cannot omit
The point here is to decide whether you want to start doing them at a different time / Or shuffle your personals around the schedule you already have
Be Considerate of Time
When it comes to daily routines, every activity is best fit for a certain time, based on your own schedule, or when that activity will give you the most benefit.
It may be better for you to exercise in the morning if your goal is to build muscle and take advantage of the increased testosterone you have then
Daily routine example #1: It may be better for you to exercise in the morning if your goal is to build muscle and take advantage of the increased testosterone you have then
Daily routine example #2: You might decide it’s better for you to exercise in the afternoon, because you want the most intense workout you can get to maximize fat loss and you’ve had more carbs by then.
Daily routine example #3: Maybe the only time you have to spare is in the evening, so the decision to workout in the evening has been made for you, based on how important the tasks you have to get done in the morning and afternoon are.
Prepare the Routine Before Hand
Make it as easy on yourself as possible. Nobody wants to do anything in the morning. So be smart, and prepare your routine the night before. You’ll notice a huge difference in how easy it seems.
Pushing through the phase where you are starting something new can be difficult, so making the change as easy as possible is always a good bet.
- Set everything up before hand the night or day before
- Have a plan in a designated spot you can consult in case you forget
- Remove objects from your previous routine so that cue is no longer there and you notice something is different
Daily routine example: Because you’re trying to go for a brisk walk each morning
- place your alarm in a different spot than usual.
- Take your slippers and put them in a different spot,
- perhaps in your closet, and move your lamp across the room.
Then take some coffee (if you drink coffee) and put it in a thermos on your bathroom sink.
What you just did is shake yourself out of your present routine and made it easier for yourself to embrace your new routine.
We did this by
- Having you wake up and immediately think to yourself “where the hell is my lamp?”
- Then you get out of bed, and your comfort is taken away (no slippers). Your previous routine of putting on slippers and doing whatever is becoming less attractive. (stepping on cold floor)
- Now you have to find that annoying alarm and figure out how to get it turned off.
- By that time you’re partially awake and “might as well” move to the bathroom and get your day started where a dopamine rich coffee thermos is waiting on you
Easy!
What is the goal you are trying to accomplish?
Sometime’s we know something is good for us but don’t have an idea of how to start.
- What should a routine focus on?
- How can I maximise the effort i put into my routine?
- When should i do my routine?
What to Include in Your Routine
No matter who you are, the best daily routine you will ever be able to come up with is one that cover every angle of human life.
- Your physical maintenance
- Your safety
- Your social life
- A sense of accomplishment
- And achieving mastery
All of these put together, and move toward each day, will ensure you have a solid foundation for tremendous happiness in your life.
Make Sure Your Basic Needs Are Covered
Make sure that your routine keeps your health in check, so that you are always operating ad optimum physical and mental health.
You want to make sure you have all that you need to keep your energy levels up, so that you your physical health is not limiting your potential and ruining your day.
Include Tasks That Add Safety and Certainty To Your Life
Ensure that you have everything in your life in order. It doesn’t mean that your day needs to have everything planned out.
What it does mean is that your life needs to be at whatever level of structure you need to be comfortable with it. Some of us can handle more chaos than others.
Figure out how much “random” and “spontaneous” you need to keep your life exciting, and realize when the point is where your life is too chaotic for you.
Developing a routine, like you are now, is a good way to add structure to your life at will.
Allow Your Personal and Intimate Relationships to Flourish
We’re all different when it comes to how much social interaction we need. Personally, I need very little, and there is no superior way to be.
If you are someone who gets crabby if you’re not out doing something with people, add a bit of that into your life and make sure you always get it.
If you find yourself on the other end, where being around too much sensory input stresses you out, then make sure you include some serious “me time” in your routine.
Other than that, polishing your personal relationships is a good way to keep your life shiny and successful. So to whatever degree you require it, make sure you are setting time aside in your routine to maintain your personal relationships.
Move Towards Prestige and Accomplishment
There is no one definition for accomplishment. Figure out what you need to feel good about yourself and make moves each day toward it.
You might wanna be CEO. You might just wanna be a good widdler, or maybe a tri-athlete.
Write down a few ideas that would make you feel good about yourself, like you’re doing something with your life, plan em out and go.
Maximize your Potential and Achieve Mastery
There is nothing more satisfying in life than mastery. Having mastered the foundations of a craft and becoming so intune that you can hear the craft speak to you is an experience comparable to sexual pleasure.
Pick something you want to become an expert at, and move toward that in your routine each day. Practice, practice practice, and one day the world will appreciate your work.
You will discover your potential and feel appreciated at the same time.
All of these take care that your health, wealth, love and happiness are taken care of in your daily routine. So whether or not you complete everything on your to-do list you will be satisfied each day.
It won’t matter if your life gets crazy, or shit hits the fan, when you make a routine out of these areas, you will have a solid foundation to stand on, regardless of the circumstances.
The Secret's of Daily routine
The Secret's of Daily routine
- Activities that maintain you physically and keep you healthy and full of energy
- “To do’s” leave you feeling certain and like your life has structure at the end of the day (even if some things go undone)
- Hobbies and activities that will allow your personal and intimate relationships to flourish!
- Goals that will lead to accomplishment and recognition for you Activities that maximize your potential and move you towards mastering a craft
The Right Time of Day For Your Daily Routine
Now, it’s time for you to decide when you plan on doing all this stuff.
We hear often about morning routines, and evening routines.
These are important because placing an activity in the right location on the clock can help you maximize the reward you get from it.
What’s the use of exercising when you’re exhausted? You’ll have no energy to get all you can from the workout.
The best way to figure out when and where to place parts of your routine in your schedule is to look it up.
Do a google search about “best time to work out” or “best time to go bird spotting”.
You can even get more specific and look up “best time to workout for lean gains” or “best time to exercise during the day if i work in a warehouse”.
Maybe the best time see the spotted owl is at 8am in Utah, but you just wanna see Cardinals, in which case the bird experts tell you that you can find them in your own backyard all day long. All of these variables are going to affect the placement of activities in your daily routine.
3 Biggest Problems Daily Routine’s
Here are the four biggest pains in the ass when it comes to keeping a solid routine.
Habits
Starting your routine might prove difficult if you are so used to doing other things.
Your brain develops neural pathways (trenches), that make it easier for water (you) to flow a certain way (behave). In order to settle firmly in your daily routine, there might be a phase (7 days or so in my experience) where you are having to force yourself to keep the routine.
Keep going and push through it. Adopt the “don’t break the x” mentality. You have a chain of days to get through before your new routine becomes easy and effortless. This routine is better for your life, and it gets easier each day you don’t break the chain.
READ >>> The Best Daily Habits for Extraordinary Results
Your Previous Routine or Schedule
It’s simple. You might have talked to Suzy every day during the time your new routine says you should be reading all those self-improvement books.
The Endowment effect is when we value what we posess more than other things. As far as routine, the endowment effect will cause you to “value” your current routine more than what you could have in the future. It’s a brain thing. Watch out for it.
Be prepared to deal with that. She might get upset, because now you’re changing her routine as well.
Suzy’ll get over it. Talk to her when you can.
Forgetting Your Routine
Forgetting is a huge issue when it comes to getting through the “pain in the ass phase” of making a daily routine.
Have you ever decided that you were going to stop something (like eating junk food), and then you went to get gas, and when you leave the gas station somehow you have a bag full of snickers.
How the hell did that happen? You didn’t even mean to! Well, you forgot.
And because most of us lack focus to a certain degree, our brain when on autopilot, and we weren’t aware enough to override the automatic behavior.
A good way to combat this is to practice mindfulness.
- You need to be aware of what you’re doing, not just because it makes perfect sense, but because you’re gonna wanna be aware of when your brain starts to lead you toward the old routine you’re trying to get away from
Another method is to set implementation intentions, which are “if-then” strategies for avoiding bad habits and embracing opportunities to move toward your goals.
Daily Routine Examples: Ultimate List
These are some of the best activities you could include in your daily routine schedule.
- Wake up. No phone.
- Get your blood pumping somehow
- Some form of meditation
- An optimized breakfast
- Be productive with your work during the first 2 hours. Rest later.
- Socialize in the evening.
- Bed as close to the same time every night
- Pitch black while you sleep
- Learn how many hours you need to sleep and make sure you get them
- Lots of water.
What makes this list the ultimate? Out of all the examples of a daily routine I’ve seen, these are the daily activities that high performers have in common. You could call them daily routine rules – general guidelines that will probably work well for you.
Famous Daily Routine Examples
Stefan James – Self Help and Life Mastery Coach
- Wake up + Smile (it biochemicaly changes your mindset)
- Drink water (first thing in the monring your cells are craving water)
- Takes his supplements (apple cider vinegar, enzymes etc..)
- Reads for 10 minutes (bare minimum)
- After reading, uses his 5 minute Journal and his Productivity planner.
Jim Kwik – Brain Expert
Jim Kwik is a brain and memory coach who’s worked in Hollywood with celebrities, as well as being featured on Mindvalley several times. He’s famous for his expert knowledge on improving brain performance and memory.
- Dream Journal (harnessing his subconscious mind)
- Makes his bed (start and end the day with excellence)
- Super hydrates
- Brushes his teeth (with his opposite hand)
- Deep Breathing Exercises (your brain uses a lot of oxygen)
- Brain Tea Concoction (his own invention) + Super journaling session
- 3-4 minutes of high intensity exercises
- Brain power smoothie – and read (30 mins)
“In order to win the day, you have to win the first hour.”
Examples of Jim’s Evening Routine Activities:
- Light reading. No non fiction and nothing too heady. He’s winding down and wants to embrace his time of rest and relaxation.
- Sleeps in a colder room for better sleep
- Exercises for a small amount (3 to 4 mins) in the morning to have 75% deeper sleep at night.
Clancy Burke (news reporter):
Morning Routine:
- Wake up
- Shower
- Tea
- Makeup + podcast
- Get dressed
- Do hair + slightly
- Arrive at work by 2:45am
- Finish hair and make up at work
After Work Routine: She split sleeps in order to accomodate her job with her lifestyle.
- Get home at 12:15pm
- Take off make up
- Eat lunch
- Time for bed + blacken the whole room to mimic night time
- Wake up from nap at 430pm + Goes to the gym in the same clothes she slept in
- Shower + “her time” with her journal
- Night time routine stuff with her boyfriend + watch the news with a game of Quiddler
- Dinner (always asparagus) and something different for her boyfriend every night + The Bachelorette with her boyfriend while she read’s her kindle
- Snack = Ezekial toast with avocado and everything bagel mix (one of my favorites too only i use chili flakes instead)
- Second half of her sleep for the day
Halle Burns (College student routine):
- 6:30am wake up, go for a walk, do some yoga
- shower + personal hygeine
- Pick out clothes, clothes should tell others about who you are
- Coffee and breakfast (oatmeal and bananas) + while she sits and does some work or listens to music
Nate O’brien (maximum productivity daily routine)
- Wake up at the same time every day
- Get the blood pumping. its easier to be productive when you move your body
- While you’re moving your body – dont use your phone. its about control. dont get caught up in the world right away
- Reflection while he walks. think about your life. what are your goals right now. plan to achieve them in the morning
- Goes to the art museum and watches the sun rise
- Back to his house. breakfast and coffee/tea. this is when he allows himself to check his phone
- 8-12 (this is when he works) turn all notifications off on your PC and also your phone
- He focuses on the most mind consuming task first thing in the day. he optimizes his will power
- 12-1 takes another walk
- 1pm he switches it up and goes to work in a different location like a library
- 4 to 6…he batches all his phone calls and meetings together.
- Makes some dinner
- Some free time at now relax and socialize
- Shuts everything off and winds down. reads a book and falls asleep around 10pm.
Leo Babauta: Zenhabits.com
- 1. 4:30am wake up time
- 2. Hydrate
- 3. Decide the most important tasks of the day (limit the list to 3)
- 4. Fix lunch for kids
- 5. Eat breakfast & read.
- 6. Exercise OR meditate.
- 7. Take a shower
- 8. Wake the family up at 6:30 a.m.
Barak Obama: During Presidency
- Works out in the morning around 7am before heading to the office. alternating between weights and cardio
- Breakfast with his family after his workout
- Short commute to the oval office, during which he spent time visualizing the rest of his day
- Arrives at office at 9.30am
- Meeting with the joint chiefs of staff – short and sweet
- Leaves for his residence around 6:30pm
- Works at home doing paperwork and and reading documents until his reading time
- Reading time at 11:30pm
- Bed at 12:30am
‘The rest of my time will be more productive if you give me my workout time”
Barack Obama’s Daily Routine advice:
- Carve out time to think, making growth and progress means setting periods to be creative
- He demanded that his staff allow him to workout first thing in the morning six days a week because he know it made him better at his job
- He found balance in his hectic and busy life by maintaining daily habits that kept him centered
- Go hard at what you’re doing, then when you’re done, give 100 percent of yourself to the next thing.
Gideon Akande: Fitness & Wellness Coach
- Wake up between 4:30 and 5:00am.
- Use this time to get alert and active
- Check phone for important communications
- Shower, dress (no social media or distractions)
- Sees first client of the day at 5:45am
Daily Routine Examples for Adults
Here is a daily routine example that will generally work for all adults.
- Wake up earlier than you need to and take care of you (exercise, reading, newspaper and coffee, relaxation)
- Do your most important thing. For most of us this is when we go to work
- Either have the most important thing is accomplished, or on your lunch break, reset/unwind with breathing exercises or meditation.
- Eat an optimized lunch. Figure out what level of physical activity you’ve done, add that to what you need to get you to dinner, and eat it for lunch. Heavy carbs make you sleepy if you don’t need them. Remember that.
- Take a quick 20 minute nap in the afternoon if you can manage it. 20 minute naps reset and revitalize you.
- If you can’t take a nap at work, take one as soon as you get home if you are disciplined enough to not over sleep.
- Then, after your nap, take care of your after work activities like picking the kids up from school or preparing dinner.
- Enjoy yourself in the evening (whatever time evening is for you) and make sure to create a “before bed ritual” that relaxes you (like reading) and get high quality sleep.
Routine for Practical Adults
Practical people like to plan, organize and create lists/schedules. I’m a very practical person, and this is close to what my personal routine is.
- Wake up, quick shower (helps me wake up 120 secs max)
- Straight to my home gym (just a bench with adjustable dumbbells)
- Longer shower (5 mins)
- Sit with my dogs, tea and a notebook – write down my priorities for the day and any ideas that come to mind while it’s quiet in the morning
- Get to work and conquer the priorities
- After about 2 hours of work, 5 minutes of playing with my dogs
- 2 more hours of work, until all priorities are accomplished, or until it’s time for dinner.
- Make dinner after 8-10 hours of work
- Shower after dinner and read or watch some entertainment
- Lights out, devices off thirty minutes before bed
Please keep in mind that I’m what you call a work-a-holic, am single and work from home. Adjust as you need to for your particular circumstances.
Please also take note that there’s no lunch or breakfast scheduled in there. I normally have a shake in the morning and an already prepared salad (meal prep) in the fridge that I scarf down quickly.
Routine For Emotional Adults
This is not so much a daily schedule as it is a list of things that should included in your daily schedule. Slot them wherever you think is best.
- Keep a notebook with you and at the end of the day journal about your emotions, reactions, what intense things happened and how did they make you feel. This is important for understanding yourself
- Make a list of activities that help you manage your stress in a healthy way, and give your opportunities throughout the day to engage in them
- Your physical health can affect your emotional health. Eat healthy food, and exercise regularly.
- Express your feelings in healthy ways. It might be appropriate to wait 30 minutes to an hour before responding to an intense situation.
- Have someone close to you that you can talk to when things get heavy./
- Understand whether you mostly fight, flee, freeze or fawn when things get rough
- What makes you feel good? Do it.
- Make an affirmation card. Write down issues you have in general, than positive affirmations to reorient yourself when they happen. Now, laminate that card and keep it on you at all times. Pull it out during the day to remind yourself how you want to feel.
Daily Routine Examples for Social Adults
In general, if you are primarily social, you don’t necessarily need to constantly be in huge crowds, you just need to engage in activities that make them feel less lonely.
You already know how to hang out with friends and go to parties, etc… So here are some daily routine examples to help you fill your social fuel tank without being overly extroverted.
- Spending time with romantic partners
- Spending time with friends and family
- Spending time with pets
- Watching YouTube Reaction channels and seeing how they respond to the same content you responded to
- Joining an online group, or forum
- Watching a Twitch streamer who identifies with similar lifestyles and activities as you
- Reading biographies of people who inspire you
- Creating a group chat or text – possibly around a TV show that you know a bunch of your friends are into
- Follow a celebrity on social media in a healthy way
- Join an extra curricular activity, like martial arts or salsa dancing
Routine for Action Taking Adults
If you’re a go-getter, action taker, goal setting or just feel like your main weapon in life is your ability to put forth serious effort, include this activities in your daily routine.
Daily routine examples for Result getting Adults
- Consult your life plan daily
- Make a list of your main priority for the day each morning and conquer it first thing
- Read or learn something about how to be more effective in the pursuit of your goals
- Make an attempt to accomplish your to do list 6 hours after you wake up
- Take your brain and body optimization supplements (herbs, teas, nootropics, superfoods etc…)
- Label each task on your to do list with the amount of time you think it should take to accomplish. Time yourself and compare when it’s finished.
- Take a 5-10 minute break every 2 hours of work
- Take a 20 minute nap each day to recharge and not see diminishing returns on your energy/effort
- Drink fruit smoothies with nuts and berries to keep your brain fueled all day
- Record your results for the day, what worked and what didn’t, and takes notes that you can consult later to refine your process
Daily Routine Examples for Home and Family
Here are daily routine examples for keeping your home life in check, raising happy, smart healthy kids and making sure your house doesn’t fall apart. 🙂
- make time to spend with your kids
- accomplish your cleaning priorities
- decide your dinner plans in the morning
- take time to relax after intense parenting
- exercise and make sure your kids exercise too
- ensure that your kids study and learning musical instruments.
- fix yourself and your kids an optimal breakfast, cereal offers them nothing
- do learning exercises like reading with your kids each day / read nonfiction yourself
Example of a High Energy Daily Routine
- Drink water
- Stretch + High Energy Exercise
- Cold Shower
- Calm Meditation Session
- High Energy Stretching
- Short Exercise and High Protein Lunch
- Evening Stretch
- Pre-sleep Snack
Water first thing in the morning clears out your system of toxins, revitalizes your organs, and rehydrates you (increasing your energy).
Getting your heart rate and breathing up ASAP is an excellent way to wake up and have more energy.
Among several other things, taking a cold shower increases energy and alertness.
Find a quiet spot and just breath. It does wonders for your system and you come back to work feeling completely revitalized.
After sitting at a desk all day, or just doing the same activity over and over again, stretching can make you feel ready to go again.
Lunch time can leave you feeling sluggish. 30 seconds of pushups can make it so that what you eat doesn’t cause drowsiness or lethargy.
Certain foods can increase the quality of your sleep.
Eat something like: almonds, turkey, kiwi, walnuts, or chamomile tea.
A hot shower relieves muscle tension makes it easier to relax on your way to bed.
The blue light from devices like your phone can make it difficult for you to produce melatonin, affecting the quality of your sleep.
You can use a blue light blocker setting on your device (TV or phone) OR you can get some blue blocker glasses (like these).
Daily Routine Example for Goals, Achievement & Success
- Brain Dump To-do list + Prioritize Tasks
- Visualize Your Successful Day
- Execution on Most Important Task
- Create a To-Done List + Reprioritize tasks
- Short 18 minute nap
- Short Success Visualization Exercise + High Protein Lunch
- Review and Prioritize
- Tie up your loose ends + Unwind for the night
- Journal about Your Success that day
Write down everything you think you have to do for the day. Then decide on your outcomes (Using The RPM Planning Method). Now circle all the tasks that help you achieve those outcomes. Prioritize those.
Visualization creates what neuroscientists call “re-memory”. Visualizing creates a form of memory in your brain that allows you to perform better. If you visualize a successful day, you’re more likely to have one.
Don’t leave the most valuable thing until after lunch, do it now while you’re at 100% charge.
Move everything finished over to your done list, and reprioritize what’s left.
This is a personal recommendation. 18 minute naps are called power naps. You wake up right before your body gets serious about sleep. This leaves you feeling recharged instead of sluggish.
Do a mid day visualization exercise and then eat a high energy lunch. Protein is an immediate injection of energy. Carbs are stored energy, so if you sit at a desk all day they’re not really ideal.
Read my review on the best method for visualization during the day, scientifically validated at removing stress and anxiety, and increasing performance.
My favorite mid day snack are almonds and blueberries. The feeling after a handful of each can only be described as “ZING!”.
There are a million things to do everyday, but not all of them are really necessary.
Some things on your todo list are “would be nice”, some are “urgent”, others are “random ideas”.
Take a look and see how well you did at prioritizing your tasks.
What was left undone, and maybe that’s ok?
Make sure everything is neat and tidy.
I’m obsessive about turning things off (like locked doors, or oven knobs).
Make sure everything in your life is “turned off”, tidied up and in it’s place.
Keeping a journal is a good idea for staying organized and on top of your weekly and monthly progress.
It allows you to follow trends in your life, and it gives you some feedback analysis for your strengths and weaknesses.
Record your success that day.
Jot down your thoughts about your performance.
Daily Routine Example – Relationships, Social Life
- Spend some time by yourself
- Schedule a short Period with your Partner
- Schedule a lunch date with a colleague
- Send your kids and your Partner and afternoon “I love you” text
- Have a conversation with someone important to you
- Think of a way you can surprise your partner
You’re more likely to have nice relationships when your you:them ratio is good. Spend some time by yourself so you’re fully prepared to give to others.
Always, always, always prioritize your relationship. A million different things will compete for your attention each day, don’t let your relationship be one of those things that is left undone when you go to sleep.
Genuinely appreciate them and the part they play. Try to see them from a place of understanding rather than judgement.
Don’t be creepy. It can be a simple, nonchalant compliment that’s not over-the-top. Act like it’s no big deal and it won’t be awkward.
Again, don’t be awkward. Maybe you could get two sammiches to start, and say
“Hey, you’re not gonna believe this, but they gave me two sammiches instead of one. You want it or not?”
This is something I enjoy. Everyone loves surprises. The idea that someone thought of, and planned a surprise while you weren’t looking is a great feeling.
Don’t every go to sleep angry. Angry to bed means angry to wake, which means angry for the rest of the day (and the cycle continues).
Example Daily Routine for Happiness and Over all Well being
- Watch the Sunrise
- Do Something You Enjoy
- Have a Mindfulness Session
- Decide How you’ll Impact others today
- Brain dump all your stress
- Write down the emotions you’ve felt
- 15 Minutes of Now
- Be introspective in a Journal
- Have a Laugh
- Practice Gratitude
The effects of watching the sunrise are mostly subjective. My experience is that my best ideas come from being silent in the morning, and if you’re awake, you might as well watch the sun come up. It’s trippy and maginificent simultaneously.
It gives off a sense of grandeur, offers a soothing healing experience and makes you feel at peace (it’s normally dead quiet).
This doesn’t need to be anything complicated. Decide a theme for the day (like courage) and make a point to foster that in yourself and then offer it to others.
For more clarity on the mark you’d like to leave on others, learn how to create your own personal vision statement.
The morning build up can easily carry over into the second half of your day. Make sure to cleanse your mind of the morning junk and start fresh in the afternoon.
Don’t deny your experiences. Acknowledge them, let them breathe, and then transmute them by understanding them. You’ll end up understanding yourself and others better when you do this.
Sit there on your lunch break (or an appropriate time for you) and be silent. You’re not a hippie, you’re not a yogi, you’re just a human being who enjoys some peace and quiet every now and then.
Listen to your thoughts, and let them go.
Don’t worry about others’ noise or the construction team outside. Just make sure you’re quiet and control yourself by controlling your breathing. This stuff is backed by science, it’s not magic 😉
The most difficult thing is to know thyself. Keeping a journal is an easy way to record your life and look at the data you’ve collected every month or quarter.
You’ll notice trends in your life, have a broader perspective on life in general, and you’ll experience a wider perspective.
Daily Routine Examples for Productivity & Organization
- Write down Everything you have to do
- Prioritize your To Do List
- Declutter your work / living space from yesterday
- Plan Dinner and Evening Activities during Lunch
- Check your bank account
- Plan of Attack
- Mis en Place
- Create a ToDone List
- Plan tomorrow in Advance
- Have some “me time”
Dump your entire day into an app like evernote or trello. Put everything in one place and order it by your own standard. Some effective ways to accomplish tasks:
- By importance / priority
- By difficulty
- By deadline
- By how pleasurable they are
Make sure yesterday isn’t contaminating today. Put everything back in it’s place, organize your files and yesterdays work.
Start fresh, and clean up any work areas that you’ll be using for the day so that you can give brand new effort and potential to your work for today.
Be efficient with your time. “All good things come to he who hussles while he waits” – Charlie Munger
What are you doing on your bus ride or uber trip? What about while you’re waiting in line? Have things like audio books, pdfs etc.. to occupy your “in between” time.
Be organized in all areas, including your money. What are you bills each month? Where is your money going? How much money came out of your account today?
Check your bank account everyday to have your money in your face. It might only require a brief moment to see that nothing new has happened, but those are numbers you always wanna have in your head.
How do you plan to execute this afternoon? How are you gonna handle the morning’s loose ends and still be productive this afternoon?
Get everything in your office/home organized.
- Fold clothes, put clothes out for tomorrow.
- Do any cleaning that needs done.
- Respond to a few texts and emails
Create a list of your accomplishments for the day. Examine your productivity today relative to other days and see the difference.
You might even notice that you’re more productive at certain times of the day and priortize important tasks for those times in particular.
Don’t leave tomorrow for when you’re drowzy and craving your coffee. Make sure you have a general plan for tomorrow, even if it means dumping your thoughts down on a sheet of paper just so you can fall asleep without worrying about them.
You can’t be organized and productive 24/7. Give yourself some time to unwind and be lazy so you don’t go insane. Sometimes breaks are like pulling a rubber band back…so you can launch farther forward!
Ideal Daily Routine for Professionals
- Prioritize your work load
- Hone your skills
- Stay on the cutting edge
- Consult your career plan
- What type of professional are you today?
Prioritize your workload
Let’s face it – not everything is worth the time. There’s stuff that needs to get done, stuff you’d like to get done, and stuff you just thought would be cool to get done. Everyone in every sphere knows that real results come from focusing on what matters and taking care of the minor details when there is time.
- What do you need to do today? Right this minute? Or all hell breaks lose?
- What sounds cool but isn’t the priority right now?
- What is someone else’s job entirely?
- Which things are on your work schedule but shouldn’t be.
If you’re in charge, make the call.
If you’re just an employee, put together a reasonable, mature, and productive list of reasons for your boss about why certain things are important and certain things aren’t.
Hone your skills – Or practice learning new ones
Species who adapt survive. Species who fail to adapt leave the gene pool. 10 years ago Instagram and Facebook ads didn’t exist. Neither did free plus shipping offers, Amazon prime, or Netflix. Are you still relying on the skills you learned 10 years ago? Hell, five years ago?
Chances are, there’s something completely different happening in your industry every 3-6 months.
Make sure you have the skills to stay on top of things.
Stay on the cutting edge of your industry
When you notice your industry si changing, adapt as quickly as possible. When you become truly receptive to the direction the world is moving in, you’ll be able to cause those changes instead of waiting on them to develop.
Consult your career plan
You do have a career plan, right? Or are you just going at things willy nilly? Where’s your list of:
- the amount of money you wanna make by a certain time
- how promotions you want
- what type of popularity with the world you want
- the moves you want to make
- is this profession a stepping stone into something bigger for you?
If you don’t have a life plan, that’s fine, start by creating a vision statement.
Decide what type of professional you are for the day
This is mostly a mental thing. Determine what effect you want to have on your environment that day, what results you want, how you want your underlings, employers and colleagues to see you, and become that.
You could try some affirmations, or just do a tiny meditation for a few minutes, aligning with who you want to be that day, and all the results that come with it.
Are you going to focus on being hardworking, confident, funny, or all three? Make a decision and be it.
Daily Routine Examples for Students
Here is a list of routine activities you can use as a student in order to avoid the stresses and pitfalls we fall prey to while we’re in school. If you take them seriously, you’ll have way more fun, and have a lot less stress in your life.
This coming from someone who’s gone through college twice – just trust me.
- Meditate or Mindfulness practice
- Call your parents
- Time management
- Be concerned about your debt and create passive income
- Consult your life plan
Time management
When I was in school, the biggest source of frustration was not understanding how much focus and effort to give to which tasks.
- homework
- projects
- friends
- partying
- extra-carricular and afternoon activities
- groups you belong to
- Exams
The secrets to time management are prioritization, focus, and discipline.
Prioritization means knowing which tasks are important and which arent. The most important things get done first and everything else comes after.
Discipline means when you have a chance to go partying on Thursday afternoon at 2pm, you work on school instead, knowing that you’ll wish you did after the party is over anyway…
Focus means that when you sit down to work, you sit down…and you work. No youtube, no netflix, none of your favorite but seriously distracting music in the background.
Focus is what helps you spend only the time necessary on tasks, and not a moment more. It actually gives you more time in your life for everything else.
How do you combine these three elements and practice expert level time management?
Example of a Successful Daily Routine for Students:
- Make a list of your priority taks first thing in the morning.
- Wake up early and get those tasks out of the way.
- Keep your phone turned off to avoid distractions during this time
- Set a time to work, and only work. AFter you’re finished, you can do whatever you want.
Debt and passive income
You know what sucks? Paying $40k a year for sex drugs and rock n roll. Which is basically what college is.
Not trying to crush your dream, but if you plan on staying in school and making the most of it, you’re better off reducing the amount of money you’ll owe when it’s all said and done.
Of course, there are grants, loans, and free money that you already know about. Chances are, you already know whether you qualify for all that stuff or not.
But did you know there’s another way to reduce the amount of money you owe when school is finished?
It’s called paying it off.
How do you do this? The answer is to make more money – and not a side job at the restaurant or school paper either. I’m talking real money. Like several thousands per month (or week) money.
Sound unrealistic? It’s totally realistic, there are teenagers milking the online market for everything it’s worth as we speak.
Start an online business or side hustle and avoid wage slavery after school’s over.
Consult your life plan and prioritize
If you’re like me, the first time you went to college you had no idea what you were even doing there? As a millennial, going to college is just something you do. In fact, getting into college isn’t really even that impressive anymore. If you didn’t get into college, it’s weird, abnormal, and you must not have even applied or something – because there’s no way you got rejected.
You shot gunned applied to like ten schools, and have no idea what you want to do with your life…right? I was in the same boat. Or maybe you’re like “Actually, I know exactly what I want from this experience”.
Do you really? So you have a life plan, written down, with a start, finish, path in between and how your degree is going to help you achieve all that?
Good for you.
In case you don’t – try creating a life plan and every day make sure the classes you take, the activities you’re involved in etc… are in line with how you want your life to play out.
Communicate with your family
The worst thing about school is being homesick. Personally, I never got homesick, but I had some friends who did and it really tore them apart.
Slowly I watched them sink into depression and they become sick, mentally unstable, a little bonkers, and not fun to be around.
Just call your parents man, it’s 2022.
Meditate or practice Mindfulness
Stress can pile up in your life quickly if you’re not vigilant and actively destressing. Dump all your worries and detox your system with some meditation, or some other practice that works for you.
Especially something like mindfulness practice, which has been proven to help treat anxiety, restlessness, stress and a whole host of other ills.
Best Daily Routine for Healthy Life (healthy body and mind)
Embrace the right morning exercise
Exercise is a pwerful way to kickstart your morning.
If you can push through the pain your brain experiences when you think about being so active so early in the morning, afterward, you’ll experience an intense level of focus and some seriously awesome feel good chemicals dumped into your body by your brain.
Good move.
Try something like:
- Strength training
- Tai Chi
- Intense walking
- Swimming
Even 100 jumping jacks is better than nothing.
Stimulate your brain in the morning
Prioritize early in the morning
A huge part of life is progress, and the other side of the progress coin is not wasting time. Your main priority in life is to protect your intangible currencies:
- time
- focus
- energy
- mindset
They’re not bank notes, and you cannot buy bread with them , but they’re valuable none-the-less. Prioritization means deciding what’s pertinent right now and doing it.
Choose to embrace the things that truly move you forward in life and let everything else pile up and get done whenever it gets done.
If your prioritzatoin is out of whack, you’ll leave the important stuff on the back burner and your life will start falling apart.
The easiest way to start prioritising your life is to create a life plan.
Let the Brain Chemicals Flow with loved ones
Important human brain chemicals:
- Serotonin – mood determinant – low levels equals depression
- Dopamine – motivation and movement – low levels equal stagnation at all levels
- Glutamate – learning, memory and cognition – low levels equals brain fog
- Norepinephrine – blood pressure and certain illnesses
How to get them flowing:
Serotonin: most is produced in your gut. Poor gut health can cause depression. Start taking a decent probiotic. But make sure you use one that works, like this one.
Dopamine: have sex in the morning, spend some time petting your dog, work for the first 2 hours each morning and reward yourelf afterward.
Dump your stress in a journal
Journaling is proven to reduce stress, anxiety and depression in women, men, and students.
Things you can journal about:
- ideas
- things that bother you
- stress you accumulated during the day
- questions you have about life
- prayers
- affirmations
- having conversations with yourself
- plans
Just make sure you get the right journal – there are few things worse than trying to cram yourself into the wrong journal.
This one is my favorite.
You could also try planners, journals and other stationary from my favorite companies (they get my business a lot).
- Erin Condren – register for a free account and get a $10 coupon
- The Daily Greatness Planner – excellent value!
My Favorite Tools for Daily Routines
Morning Ritual Mastery – Creating a Masterful Morning Routine To Optimize your Mind Body and Spirit
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– Brian
You did a complete job on this post. It was well done and I appreciate the hard work. This comment looks like a bot comment but I’m sincere, nice post.
Thanks Steve. What was the reason you came to this post? Other than the obvious.
I enjoyed this compilation. I found it after writing my own routine that I WANT to be doing and I’m happy to see that it’s similar to many of these. One thing I noticed that I’d like to address was “Don’t go to bed angry.” While that’s a good rule to try and live by, it can be equally as detrimental to force a resolution with your partner before you or they are ready for one. Sometimes a good sleep will help the brain put some pieces together. Saying something before bed like ” Let’s take some time to sleep… Read more »
That’s actually a solid point. Thanks for pointing that out Lea. 🙂 When it comes to going to bed with a clear mind, I find that cookies and milk help a lot.