ACTIVITY: The Ideal Routine Blueprint
Identify an idealized, personalized routine that can help you plan your days.
Every so often, I’ll suggest a short activity to help you feel less overwhelmed and more purposeful. You should be able to complete it in less than 15 minutes.
Today’s activity: design an ideal daily routine, one not bound by current constraints. This can help identify what activities truly matter to you and how you can incorporate elements of this ideal process into your actual life.
(This is a bit different from an exercise about your ideal, perfect day. Here we’re focusing specifically on an ideal routine, something you do most days.)
As Gretchen Rubin says: “What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.”
This is one of the simple-but-profound Gretchen-isms (there are many!) that I think about a lot. Perhaps it’s because I tend to live by a fairly specific routine—not every day, but at least most of the time. I want to protect it because it’s working for me.
My Weekday Routine
My weekday routine consists of a few guidelines (not hard-and-fast rules, just parameters I try to follow without getting legalistic about it):
Be at my desk by 7am. Do a few small things, check on anything urgent, and then spend at least one writing session (30 minutes) before leaving to exercise. Enjoy my first cup of coffee.
Exercise by 9am. I run 5-7 miles most mornings, but sometimes I run a bit less and lift weights or go to a yoga class. One of the weekdays is a longer run, usually 9-10 miles.
Spend as many morning hours as possible with no meetings or calls. Breakfast and second cup of coffee after my run. A series of Pomodoro sessions, typically 30-40 minutes each, before taking a break and switching tasks.
The workday is built around three priorities that I identify the night before. There are also usually a bunch of small things, too, but I do my best to focus on the three priorities. This is sometimes hard to do! Often I only get to two of them, but three is the goal.
Specific priorities might include: 1 hour of book writing, record 3-4 podcast episodes, write 1 post for this newsletter, and so on. Each one is specific and measurable in the sense that I know when it’s done.
Note: “Write for 1 hour” is more helpful than “Write 1 chapter.” Chapters could take many hours! I sometimes go by word count as well, e.g. “Write 1,000 words”Take an afternoon break for as long as I need. It’s usually about two hours or so, but sometimes shorter. If there are calls, I try do these then, though the late morning (after I’ve been able to work independently for a bit) also works.
Pick up with a late afternoon work session where I finish some morning work, get to small things I ignored earlier, but also try to do something creative like outlining or editing what I wrote in the morning.
Close my Apple Watch rings every day (this one actually IS a rule, I have an 1,900+ day streak. As long as I do the morning run, it isn’t usually a problem. But on recovery days, I have to work at it more)
No rules or guidelines for the evening. Sometimes I work late, but it really depends on a) what needs to be done, and b) how I’m feeling
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That’s pretty much it! Depending on your preferences, my routine might sound either overly rigid or too flexible. Either way, I understand—that’s why you need to figure out your own ideal routine.
Here’s How YOU Do It
Step 1: Reflect on Your Core Values
Start by pinpointing what truly matters to you—health, career, creativity, family? Your routine should mirror these values, guiding your daily actions.
Step 2: Pin Down Non-Negotiables
Identify the must-dos in your day, like work, exercise, or family time. These are the pillars around which you'll build your ideal routine.
Step 3: Segment Your Day
Divide your day into morning, afternoon, and evening. Assign activities that align with your values to each segment, ensuring a balanced distribution of energy and focus.
Step 4: Embrace Flexibility
Life is unpredictable. Design your routine with wiggle room for the unexpected, ensuring it’s realistic and sustainable.
Step 5: Start Small
Choose one or two aspects of your ideal routine to integrate first. Small changes are easier to manage and more likely to stick.
Step 6: Iterate and Evolve
Routinely reassess your routine. What’s working? What isn’t? Adjust as needed to keep your daily habits in line with your evolving goals and priorities.
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*Is it sometimes helpful to break the routine and do something different? Absolutely! And other times we need to revise or rebuild the routine because something has changed. But both these actions point to the same truth: the need for a routine, or at least the general helpfulness of one.
This actually is one thing AI is good for. With a little prompting, you can get something down that can work for you and can be flexible at the same time.
I am attrocious with my evening ritual. The trash panda of the night, as it were - all garbage and I look like i haven't slept in weeks.
I sat down and ran a generic situation through AI with some prompting and asking questions to what was important to me. The system gave me multiple things that I can concentrate on as well as whatever I think could work with as a flexible option (if I don't feel like something, I can swap it out for ten other options and still move the needle).
While I haven't hit 100% on my evening routines, I am doing far more now than I ever did without that process.
Great idea! I have a condensed onto one page weekly list with days in the left and Priorities on the right. And a “Nice as well” on the right. When I’m planning the days in the left, I’ll write in the priorities. But it’s often based on time instead of the day before. I like the concept of moving them over as the week progresses.