Why building a powerful daily routine

Many successful people have a powerful daily routine so that they can start their day with clarity and intention, go through the day with efficiency and productivity, and finish the day with satisfaction and progress. 

That list of successful people who cherish their daily routines includes former US President Barack Obama, Vogue’s editor in chief Anna Wintour, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and many other CEOs, creators and entrepreneurs. 

Everybody’s winning daily routine is a bit different and here are some ideas how you can build your own power routine:

It starts with the night before 

• Finish eating dinner at least 4 hours (ideally 5 hours) before bedtime 

This will give you enough time to digest before heading to bed. It also helps to have a lighter dinner or eat a smaller portion in the evening.

• Plan and prepare outfits & bag for tomorrow

Planning out tomorrow’s priorities and activities ahead of time brings your mind order and efficiency in the morning. 

In addition, it is also smart to prepare outfits or bags the day before, especially when you have an important meeting tomorrow. Sometimes, we spend way too much time picking out outfits in the morning when our brain is still waking up. It is also less likely that we forget things if we prepare early. 

• Determine your wind-down time by ensuring enough sleep 

Everybody’s ideal sleep time is a bit different but you do need to have enough rest for a productive day. Work out a bedtime schedule that fits you. 

For example, if your body needs 8 hours of rest for a productive day and you’ve decided to get up at 7am tomorrow, then work backwards to arrive at an 11 pm bedtime. Set your alarm at the scheduled wake up time and put your phone away from your bed – so that you have to physically get out of bed to turn the alarm off. 

Personally, I like my wind-down time to start one hour before bedtime – that is 10 pm in this scenario. This will give you enough time to calm down and prepare for bed. 

• Avoid phones and other electronic devices during wind-down

Browsing social media on your phone usually makes you more excited and less relaxed, so avoid phones and other electronic devices if you can. 

Instead, choose activities that are calm to you and induce sleep, such as reading books, journaling, meditation and stretching etc.. Then turn off the lights 15 minutes before your bedtime and doze off. 

Build a powerful morning ritual

• Get up and sit down

After you physically get out of bed to turn off the alarm, sit down and allow yourself some time to wake up. Do not go back to laying in bed! You might still be sleepy while sitting down but it’s okay. Bravos on getting out of bed.

• Reflect, read and write

While you are still waking up and sitting there, you can do some reflection, reading, writing and other slow activities (for me, making coffee and reflecting is my favorite morning ritual) to warm up your brain and body. Design and choose your own wake-up activities. 

This is the start of your day and the rest of your life. It is a blank page with all the possibilities. 

To start filling the blank page, you can ask yourself: 

1. What am I grateful for in life? 

2. If everything goes perfectly in 10 years, what would my life be like? Who would I become? 

3. What can I do today to get closer to my goals & dream? 

Of course, you can customize the questions you’d like to reflect on. The goal is to help you start the day with intention and clarity. With this clarity, we align our goals with daily actions. Actions and choices make up our life. 

• Make your bed

Simple as it might sound, this is the first achievement you can make in your day. As the US Navy SEAL William H. McCraven said, “If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed”. 

According to McCraven, making the bed “give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. And by the end of the day that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed”. 

Besides making your bed, you can start your day with 20 squats or learning a new language for 10 minutes. These small achievements can add up and boost your confidence for a better day.

Get to it with fire

• Set ONE thing as your daily highlight

Sit at the work desk (ideally a desk free from distractions), choose one thing to be the highlight of the day. This highlight activity is the thing you absolutely have to get done today. If you had accomplished your daily highlight, your day was a success.

This concept of “daily highlight” comes from Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky’s book “Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day”.

• Make a to-do list and determine other priorities

After deciding on your daily highlight, you can write down all the things that need to be done – big or small. 

Then in your list, apply the 80/20 rule (which is 80% of outcomes result from 20% of all causes for any given event) to determine the most important activities that will bring you the most impact.   

• Eat the frog (tackle the most difficult yet important task first)

Oftentimes, our daily highlight or priorities can be difficult or mentally challenging. Embrace the challenge upfront when you have the most brain power and productivity in the morning. 

After completing or making progress on this one ugly yet precious frog, you will feel in control and confident for the reminder of the day.

• Quick review on progress at noon

Have a quick midday check on what’s NEEDED to be done today (including your daily highlight) and your progress.

If you haven’t completed it in the morning, start working on it ASAP and only stop when you finish the task.

• Allow flexibility later during the day

Yes, we are human-beings and we are allowed flexibility to be spontaneous and creative as long as you have at least completed your one daily highlight.

How to recover from disruptions

Sometimes things don’t go as planned. Perhaps you have a few more drinks than you are supposed to. That’s okay. We are humans!

Here are a few tips on how to recover from disruptions of your plans: 

• Review daily highlight & priorities and try to complete one of them
• If you can’t complete any of these priorities, do it the first thing next morning
• Perform your evening routine so that you can start over to a fresh morning

Live with Intention

A powerful daily routine can help us to sharpen our focus, energize our day and live purposefully. Build and invest consistent efforts into your power routine for intentional living. 

Life is too short to live without intention.