Habits > Motivation

Exactly 7 days ago, I decided to prepare a routine for myself.

In an ideal world, here’s what I wanted it to look like:

This routine majorly focused on three things:

1. Getting up early - Ideal time between 7 to 7.30 AM in the morning

2. Read - Start small, with no page-wise target, no-self help books

3. Wrap up my work on time - preferably early so that I can plan better for the next day

To achieve this, I created a routine for the next 7 days.

The rules were simple - ‘If you miss a part of the routine, don’t mess up the rest of the routine for the rest of the day’.

Why a routine?

When you start a routine, it can have two outcomes:

• You adopt them and reach your goal

• You break them - and make a routine 2.0 with bigger deadlines and less difficult tasks which ultimately make you question your will.

I was not a big fan of routines but I also don’t want to associate with the second category.

Routines make you feel like you’re back in school or that you’re some kind of a nice kid.

I thought that routines make life very monotonous and that I want to adjust to the surroundings around me. This made me develop a habit of not planning my day.

So how did I get everything done in a day?

• Do my work at random times of the day without any sense of time.

• It cost me an entire day to finish one hour worth of tasks

• I wasn’t able to focus on one thing without worrying about 10 other things

See I had a habit. Throughout multiple points during the day, I resorted to watching small pieces of content on social media to get geared up toward working more. This included music, videos, and trying different strategies these lifestyle gurus talk about.

But after wandering around from one point to another without having a general direction, you eventually want to set a path for yourself to run on every day.

So I created a routine that I can adopt in my life. Not so easy, not so difficult.

So, how successful was I in adopting this routine?

What you’re seeing is a breakdown of the last week where every day, I counted if I did these 6 things -

1. Getting up on time,

2. reading,

3. working,

4. having lunch at home,

5. completing all meetings,

6. and wrapping up my work on time.

Even though I conquered mornings every day, I missed a day of reading and wasn’t successful in wrapping up my work on time every evening.

So that’s ‘almost’ 2 out of 3 things that I achieved and adjusted in my routine.

A takeaway

There are plenty of times when you run into dead ends in your day.

Most times you want to start something and can’t find the motivation to go through with the task.

We procrastinate - so much so that we almost work tenfold when we are about to reach our deadline. All this happens because we chase motivation rather than adopting a certain habit.

Let’s say you lay down a set of tasks for tomorrow that even includes getting up early in the morning. Even if you couldn’t finish all the tasks but still woke up on time, you already made a difference in your lifestyle.

Start small, build a CONSISTENT timeline for yourself every day, and pivot it according to how your life changes. Instead of regular doses of motivation that won’t last you even a day, a habit will take you far in life.