We all aspire to be productive. And in this post I discussed four key steps that will help you create your own productive routine. Let’s begin.

Specify what’s your Ideal Day

Plan out how you want your day to be if and then you have full control of your time. Your ideal day will include three sections - Morning, Midday and Evening. Structure your day as to what works best for you. 

What should happen in the morning, midday and evening that will make the day a success?

Here’s mine:

Mornings - I like to spend my mornings for self-care such as journaling, quiet time and reading. My morning starts on or before 6AM and finishes at 8AM where my work usually starts. On days when I don’t have work I still want to follow the same wake up time so my body clock would get used to it. For work I usually also spend the mornings for the most critical tasks and those are considered daily tasks.

Midday - Mostly the energy levels during the midday drops so it’s a great moment to spend on admin work instead. These are tasks such as reading and replying to emails, cleaning rooms, organizing files, meetings, and so on. 

Evening - Evening can be spent in two things - winding down and preparing for the next day. You can spend the evening doing skincare, continuing any tasks left from the morning and midday, and creating a to do list for the next day. 

Plot your day

Another helpful tip I have for you is to practice plotting your day. I love to do this on Google Calendar because it’s so easy to use. You can drag and drop things and really move it around until you get a day that fits everything you need to accomplish. 

Plotting your day is also closely associated with time blocking. Time blocking is a productivity hack wherein you divide your day into blocks of time. Dedicate a specific time block for each task. 

Think of plotting your day like a budget. You want to allocate your time well and make sure it is spent on what’s important. 

Be flexible with your time

We all want to create our own productive routine but we also need to accept that we do not hold what will happen for tomorrow. Life happens and there are events that would be moved and tasks that will need more time. 

The whole point of establishing your productive routine is to help you navigate on your day-to-day so that despite the hiccups, you will still feel sane. Don’t forget to be flexible. Planning every hour of the day without even allowance for short breaks or mistakes is not productive as well. 

Practice, practice, practice!

You will never know if a  productive routine works for you unless you try it for yourself. Thus, you ought to practice your desired schedule once and for all. 

If you read this post and you are inspired to create your own productive routine you can start with listing down what an ideal day for you looks like. Then, you want to plot your tomorrow, making sure the important tasks have a scheduled time. 

Once you're done with the first two tasks, re-charge and try it the next day. Do what you set yourself to do, not letting any distractions hinder you. 

I hope you enjoyed this post. This is a reminder for me too, as I strive to intensify my productive routine.