Give Yourself Some Structure

When you breathe, you cannot breathe in continuously, you cannot breathe out continuously. You have to alternate. You have to cycle. But you know that after each breath out, you will breathe in. After each inhalation, you will exhale. It's predictable. It's for the most part automatic. For the most part, you don't have to spend your time thinking about breathing, and your mind is freed up to focus on other things. Setting up a daily or weekly routine is like this too.





When you give yourself a routine, you're giving yourself a rhythm for a day. If you have a structure to your day, you can free your mind to focus on the details that fill in the structure. You follow the rhythm of your day through activity and then rest. And as the sun comes up the next day, you have activity again too.

When you create structure, you create predictability. When you create predictability, your mind automates how to prepare you for the day. It follows the rhythm. And like any rhythm, it's there as a base, and then you can improvise and create around it. You're not locked into it, you build on it.

Having a general structure to each day is the path to putting balance in the day, and making sure that you get enough time to take care of yourself on multiple levels - physically, mentally, emotionally, etc.

Take some time to think about how you might structure a day. What do you want to fit in each day? What do you need to fit in each day? What are you able to realistically fit in a day? Where is there room to fit in more of what you want to fit in? What times of day are you most productive and energetic, and how do you want to spend that energy?

Similarly, take some time to think about how to structure a week.

Here's what works for me in my weekday routine, maybe it could help you:

• Wake up, stay in bed a few minutes to think about what I was dreaming and what I want from the day ahead.
• Get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, and take care of other morning stuff. 
• Commute to work and settle in my office.
• Be as productive as possible, complete as many tasks as possible, or take a deep dive to make progress into a challenging piece of work.
• Take the second half of the work day to do more meetings, lunch occasionally, follow up on different thoughts I had in the morning, plan and prepare for the next day, finish up any tasks that I can.
• Head out from work and go get some exercise or physical activity.
• Head home, cook and eat dinner. I try to finish dinner at least 2 h before I want to go to sleep.
• Wind down in the evening.
• Head to sleep.

A few bits of knowledge about myself lead me to structure my day like this:

1. I am much more productive first thing in the morning at work, than at any other time of day. This is the best time for me to get important things done.
2. I've found a place to exercise after work that is not too crowded, so this timing works well for me.
3. After I exercise I like to eat, but I can eat lightly in the day before I exercise.
4. If I eat too close to bedtime, I won't get to sleep easily.

If you aren't sure where to start, just plan some weekday routine and stick with it for a week. On the weekend, check in with yourself on what worked and what didn't work, and replan your routine and try again. When you find what works to make sure you take care of yourself and your responsibilities, you can move on to deeper questions and deeper actions in your life.