Week one is here! To see where the journey began, take a look at my introductory page. This week I wanted to focus less on a singular experience and more on how I could make every adventure a little more manageable. Creating a productive and mental health-conscious daily routine is something I have struggled with before. My problems always sprung up when it came to maintaining consistency and not allowing myself to veer off from my daily to-do’s. Hopefully, coming back to this again with a fresher mindset will change that.
Preparations
Preparations for this task mostly came with me separating and sensibly allocating my time blocks. I usually perform better when I can visually see all of the factors in front of me. To take advantage of this, I took to my notebook to map out a rough idea of my schedule. Firstly, I mapped out the two kinds of days I usually have during the week. Weekdays differ from the weekends for me because of my job and other responsibilities like my schoolwork. I wanted to create something that catered to both of these days so that I could realistically manage them both individually. Writing out my days were pretty easy. I think this was because of how predictable my workload is and the common responsibilities I have at my day job.
Learning the Basics First
This process began with me trying my very best at mapping out a rough schedule. This included reoccurring tasks at my day job and common schoolwork assignments I would complete during the week. To me, I found my first draft to be a bit too controlled. During the week I have little time to spend on things I enjoy such as reading, writing, crafting, or even playing games on my PC. I think creating even a small window for these hobbies will give me a nice break between the hustle and bustle of my day.
Seeing my struggles, I decided to find out more about what makes a routine high quality and how to build one for myself. Reading Mariana Plata’s writing, “The Power of Routines in Your Mental Health,” I believe was a great start for me. Seeing just how impactful a routine could be got my wheels turning on just exactly what I wanted from all of this. I had never looked at a schedule and wondered what it could do for my personal life. Now, I see there’s quite a lot it can do for many aspects of my day that I had no idea about. Taking this newfound knowledge, I went on to craft a more collected version of my first draft.
Process
My absolute savior through this entire thing has been using Notion to build and refine my daily routine. I have been a long-time user of Notion for my school work and generally just to keep organized. I can honestly say it’s kept me on track for quite a lot of my projects and to-do’s that I would have likely forgotten otherwise. If interested, I would be delighted in sharing more about how Notion has helped me clean up my life! To get back on track, using Notion’s interface, I created a more general and flexible routine that could comfortably fit my everyday changes.
If interested, you can start using Notion for your own productivity here!
The real test was my ability to follow this routine for the remainder of the week! To help myself along the way, I followed a few simple rules that helped me to remain consistent and not too overworked when I found my productive battery burning out.
Rule #1 Isolate each task at a time if you can
When starting, I quickly noticed that I would often look at the magnitude of work I had for the day and become overwhelmed. Staying focused on the task at hand kept me away from just looking at the clock and estimating the time I had left to complete what I had started
Rule #2 Accept slip ups or mistakes and move on when possible
It’s very difficult to completely adopt an entirely new way of living your life day-to-day. My main goal for creating a daily routine was to alter my procrastination and to add a bit more consistency to my life. If one of my tasks bleeds into another time block or I am unable to finish all the tasks on my list then so be it. There is no such thing as 100% perfection whenever it comes to changing so drastically within a short time.
Rule #3 If overwhelmed, take 10 minutes then jump back in
Intending to remain consistent, I created a cushion for myself with a 10-minute break. If I become overwhelmed, there is a likelihood that I will grow to have a negative association with a fuller schedule. I believe this will only make changing my behavior that much harder. If I give myself a small break to breathe or recollect, I can decompress. However, giving myself too long may tempt me to push off my work the way my procrastination brain has done for quite some time. A small break and then right back to it because I don’t want to lose my momentum!
Taking One Day at a Time
The first few days started a little rocky with me often fumbling around my schedule. There were unpredictable tasks that I had not calculated that required me to adjust my time. Luckily, I was still able to readjust and follow the routine closely despite a few setbacks. Again, I’m aiming to have a healthy relationship with productivity and avoid procrastination.
The last few days of my week grew a bit more smoothly when it came to following the routine. I found a few areas that would have benefited from a more open to-do list and quickly incorporated that into the planning. Overall, I found myself feeling a greater sense of achievement as the week came to a close. I had stuck to the schedule to the best of my ability and ultimately got quite a good bit of work done that I would have likely set aside for “another day.”
Pros
Benefits I had observed over the week were:
Having a stable sleep schedule
Having more time after completing tasks early to read, listen to music, or watch the occasional movie
Making space for more quality time with my family, catching up and enjoying the time I had with them
Staying on top of work tasks, not having to play catch up during the holiday
Overall I found having a more concrete plan for the day to benefit me in quite a few ways that I had not anticipated. Having more family time especially with my sister was incredibly nice to have. It feels like a lot of the time we’re running around so much that we don’t make time to connect with the people close to us. Surprisingly, the daily routine forced me to redirect that in a way that kept my social life in mind.
Cons
Some of the negatives I noticed for the week were:
Not having space for unpredictable events
Required a lot of active attention, making a difficult habit to adopt quickly
Mistakes had the potential to deter me from continuing
Felt less organic when it came to personal time
There weren’t a lot of strong negatives that I had noticed across the week. Mostly I found the greatest difficulty when it came to staying on top of the schedule and not letting my slip-ups deter me from moving forwards.
Final Thoughts
Collecting my thoughts on this experience and on its completion, I believe trying a daily routine has really put into perspective my daily potential. I discovered that having a plan for the day kept me in line enough for me to accomplish more than I would have on my best day with spontaneous productivity. Funny enough, the routine also worked in a way that regulated my body, especially when it came to the food that I ate. There was no longer an abundance of idle time for me to snack on foods I didn’t really need.
Overall, I believe creating a daily routine has been a positive impact on my day and even my health. I am curious to see how continuing to pursue this routine will affect me in the long term. I really would like to continue with this tactic to tackle my procrastination along with more cognitive practices like positive self-reflection. As I do so, I plan to include any updates that arise from my newly adopted practice in this post.