What does your daily routine look like?
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| Source: Imgur |
"If only my routine were PERFECT. Then I too would be PERFECT!" I say this every morning, each time believing that if only I could figure out that ultimate life hack, I could Have It All. I wake up full of ambitions to Get It Done, but crawl back into bed later admitting defeat. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
My daily routine looks something like this:
Wake up at 6:30 or earlier ♥ Run 2 miles or do bike intervals for 20 minutes ♥ Shower, get dressed, go to classes ♥ Go to work ♥ Do my homework ♥ Go to the gym ♥ Fall asleep at midnight or later ♥What I want my daily routine to look like is this:
Wake up at 6:30 or earlier ♥ Run 3 miles ♥ Shower, get dressed ♥ Plan my day out over breakfast ♥ Go to classes ♥ Get all my homework done ♥ Go to both my jobs ♥ Go to the gym ♥ Watch an episode of TV ♥ Fall asleep at 11 PM ♥What a glorious looking schedule. Look at how much sleep I get! Look at how much stuff I get done! Look at how I get to eat breakfast! (I might talk a good game about healthy eating, but I'll totally sacrifice meals just for a bit of extra time in the day.)
Well the key to accomplishing anything is figuring out how to make what we have now look more like what we want. You've all heard my thoughts on how to wake up early, so how exactly do you hack the rest of your life?
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| Source: WeHeartIt |
Start small, then get big
Look at my schedule. I want to run three miles every morning, but I only have twenty minutes to do so. That's a six minute mile and right now, it's so not happening. So I'll start with two ten minute miles, which I can handle, and aim to run those full three miles by 2012. I may even make a schedule for myself! (For I am a schedule obsessive fool...)
The Pomodoro Technique
So the best way to get things done is to power on through until the task is complete, right?
BZZT. NO. Everyone knows that you have to break things down into small, easy to manage chunks. You don't eat the whole cake in one sitting, you cut it into slices; you don't run a marathon, you run a couple million steps.
Each person has his or her own way of doing things, but my very favorite is the Pomodoro Technique, which basically calls for this:
1. Choose a task to be accomplishedI have no idea why this is so effective, but it has made my life about a gazillion times easier. It helps me blitz through my homework at warp speed, leaving me lots of time to faff around on the Internet and go to the gym. (Or, you know, see my friends. Social life, what?)
2. Set the Pomodoro to 25 minutes (the Pomodoro is the timer)
3. Work on the task until the Pomodoro rings, then put a check on your sheet of paper
4. Take a short break (5 minutes is OK)
5. Every 4 Pomodoros take a longer break
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| Source: Favim |
Break the rules.
Sometimes the whole daily routine isn't helping. Sometimes it just drives home the fact that you are in a rut and your life is boring and you are boring and you should just give up on ever being an interesting person...and on days when you feel like that, step out of your life. Call in sick, skip a class, whatever it is you need to do - take the day off and make yourself feel good. Go on a bike ride, go shopping, pamper yourself. It's your own personal one day vacation and you have all the choices in the world!
However...I would not recommend spending the day watching TV or movies. While this is something I've done myself and there is a certain rejuvenating effect after, most of the times it just leaves me groggy and reluctant to return to my normal life. The point of the exercise isn't to turn your brain off for a couple of hours, but to recharge it - key difference there! Come back to your life feeling fresh and ready to take on the world again.
What's your daily routine like? And what do you want to change about it?
