How To Make an Optimized Daily Routine

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 Make a Daily routine for yourself

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.

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.

1. Set everything up before hand the night or day before
2. Have a plan in a designated spot you can consult in case you forget
3. 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

1. place your alarm in a different spot than usual.
2. Take your slippers and put them in a different spot,
3. 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!

Setting a routine the Right Way

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.

1. Your physical maintenance
2. Your safety
3. Your social life
4. A sense of accomplishment
5. 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 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.

Problems You’ll Encounter When Making a Daily Routine

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.