Why You Should Build a Daily Routine

Everyone knows it all too well. You set up your goals and are really psyched about going through with it and then the next day you wake up, make some coffee to get the day started only to find yourself on YouTube on some talk on how to improve productivity and achieve your goals. Although I am always a big advocate of educating yourself and everybody at our company is reading an hour each day to improve himself, I would argue that at some point you just need to go do shit and learn on the way. There is always more to learn and I think everyone knows at that point that this is just an excuse to procrastinate. At these times I keep in mind what my mum always told me:

“Wenn ma’s macht dann lernt ma’s.”

in English: “If you do it then you’ll learn it.”

What helped me most in staying on track with my goals was establishing a daily routine. It gives you self-confidence, trust in the process and overall a happier life.

So, here’s the thing that increased my overall mental health and set me up to achieve most of my goals, my daily routine. Take it as an example and adjust it to your needs.

Basic Rules

Before diving into my daily routine, I want to point out some basic rules to keep in mind. This is for you to understand the idea behind building habits and why it is crucial to build some to make your life easier and more fulfilling. Habits do have a kind of negative image, if setup correctly they are quite the opposite though. So as the knight points out in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:

“You must choose, but choose wisely”

Build Good Habits and Become their Slave

One thing that sets successful and not so successful people apart is the ability to build good habits. This way you can automate the daily decisions and concentrate on the important ones. Scientists argue, that your brain only has the capacity for deep focus for two hours a day. So, if you waste your time making decisions, you can also make a habit, you most likely lose on some of the more important ones.

“Build good habits an become their slave!”

— Matthew McConaughey

Make Small Steps One by One

This one had a major influence on my life and applying this to my life really changed everything. I might even write a whole article about this at some point in the future. The idea is basically to only change a small thing and make small steps each at a time.

So, let’s say you want to get up earlier each morning and go for a run. If you set yourself the goal to get up an hour earlier and go jogging for 45 min every second day, you most likely will do it one or two times and then you quit. This is because it is just such a big change and as human beings, we are habit oriented creatures. Everything outside of our routine or comfort zone is exhausting.

Fortunately, you can trick your brain by only making a tiny adjustment to your routine first. In this example you would set the alarm an hour earlier just to open the curtains of your bedroom. After that you can go to bed again and sleep for one more hour if you want.

The first time you will probably really go to bed again, but after the second or third day you will most likely stay up at least one time and before you notice, you get up an hour earlier each day. Once you established this routine, you set up the next tiny step, say for example put on your running shoes and go for a 5- or 10-min walk.

By the same method you go step by step to finally having your whole routine in place after a few weeks. This single method will transform your life trust me, just go try it out yourself next morning.

“Small steps work — grandiose goals don’t.”

— Sonia Choquette

Never Miss Twice

To get something started is really the first thing you need to do, but obviously not the hardest part. Everyone started something just to quit a little bit afterwards. To be honest, I have been struggling with this for a long time in my life as well. So how can we avoid this? Simple. James Clear has a super simple principle he points out in his book Atomic Habits.

Of course, there will at some point come something up, why you cannot go through with your habit at this particular day. May it be a train you need to take or a birthday of a friend, you name it. There is just nothing you can do about it. The important thing is how you go about it and how to do this is to make a deal with yourself to never miss your habit more than one time in a row. Because after the second time it already becomes a habit and you definitely don’t want to lose your hardly built habit.

“NEVER MISS TWICE!”

— James Clear

I cannot state this clearly enough under no circumstance ever may you miss twice in a row. You can miss one time no worries, but never miss twice. Write this on your wall, put it up as your screensaver or whatever, but never miss twice in a row!

My Daily Routine

As I pointed out at the beginning already, you only have two hours of deep focus each day and another 5 hours of mediocre focus. The remaining time, you should basically only do unimportant tasks like reading your emails. So here is my daily routine:

• 05.40 — Get up, drink some water and go to the bathroom
• 05.45 — Go for a short run
• 06.20 — Read a book or a book summary
• 06.45 — A short meditation
• 07.00 — Jour Fix meeting with my team at LYTE Vapes
• 07.30 — Start working on the most important tasks, that call for creativity
• 12.00 — Check emails and work on important but easy to do tasks
• 14.00 — Lunch
• 15.00 — Meetings, video calls and less important tasks
• 17.30 — Daily review with my team at LYTE Vapes
• 17.45 — Leave the office
• 18.00 — Go to the gym
• 19.30 — Cook and and eat dinner
• 22.15 — Go to sleep

The First Two Hours

To get the day started on the right foot, you definitely want to make sure to build your habits for the first 30 min of the day at least. You know the feeling, when your alarm rings and you are tired and just want to sleep a little bit longer.

Your brain is not functioning to 100% at this point and you cannot make good decisions. This is why it is important to build good habits. Don’t let your brain trick you. Your body will always try to rest, this is an evolutionary precondition. It is you who can resist the urge and do what would in truth be the right decision for you.

What was by far the greatest habit I ever built, was going for a short run in the morning. First, I was super skeptical, but after doing it one time, I cannot think of anything else. The energy level is just insane.

After the run, you have the best two hours of the day ahead of you. As scientists argue, you only have two hours of high efficiency each day. In these two hours you are most creative and you should make sure to make the most challenging, most important tasks during this time. I normally use them to read and educate myself and to make plans for future projects.

Get Everything Important Done Before Lunch

After your two hours of deep focus, you have five more hours of mediocre focus. During this time, you are still super productive, but not as creative as in the two hours before. It is therefore best to do important tasks, that don’t require such a high amount of brain work.

For myself, I found out that you can increase your deep focus time, by practicing intermittent fasting. This is a method, where you only eat during 6 or 8 hours a day. The metabolism of your body increases and you are healthier overall. Because of this I eat for the first time at 2pm. This might sound super hard, if you drink enough water, it will be no problem however and your focus will increase big times. The good side effect of this is that you have all the important tasks done already by lunch.

You definitely want to make sure that you stay on course with your goals and don’t drift off to some urgent tasks that don’t move you forward. This is why I only schedule meetings after lunch. So, between 3 pm and 5.30pm I do all my meetings for the day. Also, I am only replying to emails after lunch. We all know that replying to emails is somewhat rewarding because you feel like you achieve something, but don’t let yourself fool you. You know yourself that in most cases this will not move you forward.

Block your time in the morning to work on your goals and the most important tasks to achieve them.

Meetings and emails can be done in the afternoon.

Get Enough Sleep and Good Nutrition

Last but not least, I want to point out the importance of your physical and mental health. With all the habit forming it may sound like you should become a machine, what is really the opposite of what I want to tell you. All of this should support your life to make it as easy and smooth as possible. To live your life the way you want to. Therefore, your health is of paramount importance. So, get enough sleep take care of your nutrition and make sports, because in the end your physical and mental health is what matters most.

Build daily routines to live the life YOU want.