How to Create a Daily Routine that Works

Do you want to create a daily routine that works? You're in the right place. I will show you how I developed a routine that allowed me to achieve my goals.

To successfully implement any goal, you need a plan that works. One of the best ways of doing that is to get into a routine that works for you. A routine is a time management strategy that reduces stress, saves time, and helps you focus. The dictionary defines a routine as "a sequence of actions regularly followed." A routine creates balance and predictability. Develop a routine and keep to it. Build in flexibility so that you can tweak it as required. As you continue it becomes second nature as you carry out your scheduled activities.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. Daily Routine

• Mental Visualization
• Create a To-Do List
• Prioritize what is Important
• Breakdown Your Tasks
• Strategically Implement 

3. Benefits of Creating a Routine

4. Pitfalls to Avoid in Following a Routine

5. How to Keep to Your Routine

6. Actions You Can Take Today

7. Conclusion

Introduction

In this post, I would like to share my personal story of finding the perfect routine that worked for me as a busy mom with three young children, a high-pressured job, a graduate program, and care activities running concurrently without a nanny. It was a busy time in my life. I somehow got through it in a way that didn’t cause me stress or burnout. Instead, it allowed me to be effective in all I did. People who knew me kept asking how I was crushing it. I didn’t realize then that I was. Looking back, I recognize I did something in a way that helped me successfully care for my children, start a business, get a PhD, publish a book, and care for my loved ones all at the same time. Hopefully, some tips here might help a busy mom or dad get more done without the stress and overwhelm.

Daily Routine

• Mental Visualization
• Create a To-Do List
• Prioritize what is Important
• Task Breakdown
• Strategic Implementation 

Mental Visualization

The first step was to visualize all I had to do at home and work. I put these in perspective. With that mental picture, I compartmentalized what needed to be done in line with my established priorities. You need to know why you do what you do.

The way you sort and categorize should align with the type of person you are. So you need to know yourself and work according to your nature, or you will consistently be under pressure and find your planned activities difficult to carry out. For instance, if you work better at certain hours of the day, then schedule your activities accordingly.

I like having time to relax, both alone and with my family, but I’m an intuitive person and function best after having some “me” time. I, therefore, keep my Saturdays sacrosanct except when I have unavoidable outings. I function from the inside out.

My strength comes from within me, so I need quiet time always for self-reflection and communication with my creator so I come out refreshed. I always carve out a “me” time after the stress of working on my schedule. 

Create a To-Do List

I also kept and still keep a “To Do” list always, with key activities that must be carried out listed in the order of priorities. That is to prevent me from forgetting anything. This is one of the reasons why you should know yourself. It is best to consolidate your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses.

My strategy for mitigating forgetfulness amid so much activity was to keep a “To-Do” list, which I reviewed and updated every evening so I don’t miss activities that should be handled the next day. I also strike off what has been completed for that day.

My list is kept on top of my side drawer or pasted on my wardrobe door, which happens to be my most visited part of the room, so I always have the list in my face.

Prioritize what is Important

I chose to do those things that were immensely important, not necessarily urgent. My approach in prioritizing was to attend to the activities that were very important and urgent first, then those that were important although not too urgent; finally, I would attend to those that might not be too important but were very urgent and capable of causing a lot of inconveniences if not attended to.

Outside this classification, I decided to push aside, for the time being, those things I couldn’t attend to. The first things to go were socials. It was clear that I could not attend every social activity, and for those I had to attend, my husband and I took our children with us. I remember an important evening ball we had to attend. We could not shelve it, so we chose to take our two children at the time to the ball with us.

It was at one of the very upscale hotels in town, so we needed to maintain decorum. Notwithstanding, we sat on our reserved seats carrying a child each. A lady friend present leaned over to my seat and whispered,” I wish I brought my baby.” This same idea occurred to her, but she felt it would be out of place, and she left her baby, against her better judgment, with the nanny.

I once took my baby, who was teething at the time and had a fever, to an important office strategy retreat for the weekend. The whole family took it as a weekend outing. My husband paid for a hotel room for the family outside the one booked by my office, which I gave up, and we all stayed together in our hotel room for the weekend. While I attended the sessions, my husband was with the baby in our hotel room. Intermittently, I would come during breaks between sessions to check up on them and feed my baby.

Breakdown Your Tasks

My next step was to break up all the office and home activities into specific tasks, which I carried out as follows;

• Preparation for the next day started in the evening of the previous day. I would bring out the school and office dresses to be worn by everyone, making sure no time was lost the next morning, searching for items that should have been sorted out at night. This included packing the baby’s bag and the school bag for my older children. I packed every single item, from changing clothes to snacks to clean-up items that the children would use the next day.

• Early next morning, I would wake up early, pray, bring out the pre-packaged labeled container of what we would eat in the evening, prepare the lunch pack for my older children, bathe the baby, and dress the children. My husband always assisted in getting the children ready. We got dressed and went to work and school.

• At lunchtime, I check up on the children, especially my baby in the crèche. I prefer a crèche because keeping children in a group situation is safer than leaving them alone with a third party. Also, to be sure of hygiene, I prepared everything my baby was going to eat till evening. The crèche attendants were not to mix and prepare anything for the baby. All they did was bring out the particular feed for that hour and place it in the hot water I boiled at home and brought with a big flask. After eating, they would keep the used bottles in a bag I provided, and at the end of the day, I would take the bottles home and wash and sterilize them. While nobody is perfect, in the crèche, both the positive and negative character traits of their caregivers act as self-checks for each of them. They were not likely to exhibit their negative traits in the presence of the supervisor, who, in most cases, is always there. I prefer crèches run by established schools because they usually have an established administrative system in place, and the babies are usually viewed as potential students, most especially if they already have older siblings in the school. So their care is more professionally administered. In most of these schools, there is also a certified nurse, and the caregivers see themselves more as assistant teachers than nannies. Functions are delineated as caregivers focus on the children and are not distracted and burdened with domestic work like some of the nannies at home. Moreover, caregivers are encouraged to attend equally to every child and therefore see themselves as employees of the school rather than employees of a particular mother. 

• Needless to say, I became a walking encyclopedia of all schools and crèches worth their salt as I investigated, researched, visited, and interviewed all the establishments I had short-listed before we finally made our choice of where to keep our children. Every parent should have what they are looking out for in schools. I was not only involved in seeing that my children got the best but also offered my contributions to these schools in checking lapses and proffering solutions on how best to close identified gaps in child care and the quality of facilities provided. I did not relent in my contributions as I knew other children would benefit even after mine had graduated to higher classes. 

• I had specific days for buying groceries and fresh food items from the market. Instead of going there myself, I would send the driver to one of the sellers in the market, whom I had already forged a relationship with. I would give him a list of what I wanted, and he would take it to the lady and wait while she goes into the market and gets the items. He would give her the money, and quite often, I would add a little extra on top to act as an incentive for her. My cooking days were usually Fridays. Once we get home on Friday, I will sort everyone out by preparing dinner and getting the children off to bed then, I will start my cooking for the week since the shopping has already been done. I loved my Saturdays and wanted them free, so I would cook till about 1.00 am to 2.00 am and thereafter prepare and retire for the night or should I say morning. Every other cooking during the week was just a warm-up combination of what I had already prepared on Friday nights. 

• I made sure I pre-boiled the beef and goat meat, marinated the chicken ready for use, and refrigerated all these items. At times, I would go as far as cooking plain rice and beans and steaming other delicacies ready for cooking and freezing. Soups and stews were a permanent feature at home, so throughout the week, I would just pull out of the freezer what I had already cooked, packaged, tagged, and frozen. I will bring it out in the mornings, and by the time I come back in the evenings, it will have thawed out for warming.

• Since we were a small family, except for when we had visitors, I did not have to sweep the whole house daily apart from the frequently used areas, which I swept every evening with the two extra rooms I swept in less than 30 minutes on weekends. I swept in the evenings while the food was cooking on fire, and after I was through cooking, I would dish out our food because we usually ate together. After dishing the food, noting that I first fed and prepared the children for bed, I would then take my bath. Refreshed, we would both sit down to a quiet dinner for two and bond without interruptions. I must say at this point that working together in harmony to achieve family goals helps couples grow closer rather than apart as the marriage gets older. You share a lot of things in common and become partners in progress instead of everyone doing his or her own thing, pulling in money as it were, but developing different interests and closer alliances with others rather than your spouse. 

Strategically Implement

To successfully run a family, a parent has to think strategically most of the time, weighing options against all available alternatives. There has to be, ‘’out of the box’ thinking because the children are not going to be in a particular age bracket forever. The key to success in this is to always have your whole activity profile in perspective. A Daily Planner can help you successfully track all your activities, prioritize, and plan. You can get a digital Daily Planner here to help you create a routine. It can also be printed out as a PDF.

Think through what needs to be done and consider various alternatives to getting every activity done at the time it should be done, but at each stage, weighing the pros and cons of all these alternatives in line with the level of protection it affords the child in particular and the family in general. 

Just as business conditions change and managers have to re-strategize to compete and operate favorably, parents, who are also the managers in the home, have to change their tactics as the children get older, get more inquisitive, and have different experiences.

For instance, when my children got older, I started a doctoral degree program. I left the banking industry to start my own business, and I changed my schedule to accommodate my family, my business, and my PhD program. In the mornings, after sorting out the home and everyone is off to work and school, I will go for my classes, which were quite intensive for the first two years, and to give me more time to attend lectures and meet up at home, we paid for after-school activities in school, and I made sure in the mornings I packed extra lunch.

The after-school program was attended by other students, and since the activities were more recreational than studious, my children enjoyed it very much. At times, I would come to pick them up while they were still involved in an activity they enjoyed, and I would have to wait a little bit longer for them to be ready to go. The beauty of the after-school program was the fact that homework was also done under the supervision of the after-school teaching staff, who checked to see if it was correctly done.

Once we got home, I would cook and sort out their bags for the next day; the children would bathe themselves, change into their nightwear, and come down for dinner. After going through the day with them, scanning through the homework, and bonding, they would retire for the night.

Then, I was free to focus on my assignments, research, or writing papers for the rest of the evening. In between, my husband would have returned from work and been served dinner, and in between watching the news, bonding with each other, and finishing up school work, we would eventually retire for the night. 

When the intensive coursework ended, child-care routines were also amended, and schedules changed as required. Boarding school also came in along the line, remember, the children, by God’s grace, are growing, and parents are, at this point, able to expand their array of interests when their children go off to boarding schools of their choice. At this juncture, parents can deepen their involvement in any venture of choice without compromising the safety of their children.

Benefits of Creating a Routine

Some of the benefits you can derive from having a routine include;

Stress Management

Routines can help you reduce stress and overwhelm. Having clarity and direction about what needs to be done and how to do it removes a lot of pressure from you, putting you in a more relaxed frame of mind to function.

Self-Management

I always say that you cannot manage time, you can only manage yourself within the specified time frame you have for that activity. Routines help you organize both yourself and your scheduled activities by working smart.

Time Management

You eliminate time wasters and distractions when you have a routine. You don’t spend time thinking about what to do because a routine is like a road map, with each activity feeding into the next. You focus on the activity most likely to move the needle for you, thereby, optimizing your time.

Promotes Better Health

You are healthier with greater focus, less stress, and likely more sleep. Having a routine helps you achieve that because it brings order and eliminates chaos. Your scheduled activities can be systemized for greater efficiency.

Control Your Day 

You can take control of your day with routines, which introduce predictability, better focus, and time savers. You have control over how you spend your day, with more time to do the activities you love. 

Cultivate Better Habits

You can develop healthy habits, like eating better, exercising more, and wasting less time on your phone. Routines will certainly up your time management game.

Pitfalls to Avoid in Following a Routine

Some of the pitfalls to avoid in creating a routine are;

1. Setting unclear goals
2. Not sticking to what is important
3. Activity without results
4. Creating rigid routines that lead to fatigue
5. Forgetting to plan everything out

How to Stick to Your Routine

Sticking to a routine can be overwhelming, however, do the following to ensure you do not waver;

1. Set clear goals that move you forward to avoid spending your time in unproductive activities. 
2. Align your routine to your nature. Find out when you work best and do your work then. 
3. Find ways of motivating yourself by building in little rewards to make your routine rewarding. 
4. Avoid excessive rigidity, but maintain structure and flexibility to avoid overwhelm.

Actions You Can Take Today

• Write down every single activity you have to undertake in your office and your home. Everything can be written on the same sheet of paper, separated by a horizontal line from top to bottom. Number them in order of priority and put them in sequence. For those you have to do every day, get an orderly routine for them, and for those you do occasionally, choose the best time you would like to do them and try to stick with that time. Remember to get your Daily Planner here to help you create a routine. If you are like me and get bored after a while, then re-schedule the time and make your chores more interesting. For instance, you can put a small music player in the kitchen and listen to your favorite tunes while you work. 

• List some fundamental goals you want to achieve in your lifetime and tie them to your God-given destiny and to the type of children you would like to raise. Work towards your personal and professional goals by breaking them into smaller daily and weekly goals to strive for. Develop a routine and crush your goals. As you hit your daily goals with a predictable set of actions, you will achieve the life goals you listed by the end of the year or whatever time you specified.

• Prayerfully think about your life for the next 20 years to even 50 years if you can, and play it like a film in your mind to yourself. Try to let it run in your mind while you picture all you believe God is leading you to contribute to yourself, your family, the larger society, and to God. And work towards living the life you desire by taking predictable actions each day towards the life you want. Bear this in mind, then determine your vision, mission, goals, and purpose for existence as an individual. Visualize the activities that will help you contribute meaningfully in life, and place them sequentially according to what needs to be done at different phases of your life. Identify also what you don’t need to do. It is very important to have boundaries in life, clearly establishing what constitutes a distraction. Everyone’s destination in life is not the same therefore, seek and follow your path.

Conclusion

The skill set required to run your life is similar to that required to run a successful business. Your life should be purposeful and profitable. Understand the concept of life and determine what counts. You should live with intention. Realize you have no control over it except in the way you live it. Therefore, create a goal-oriented structure that brings results. Get back to the basics. Put what is important first and make your life count. Set priorities and get a routine. Use time management skills to get more done. Plan, strategize, re-strategize when necessary, and work your plan.

My Routine is culled from my book, CHILD CARE - 7 REASONS TO JETTISON THE NANNY: A Thought-Provoking Narrative for Parents and Parents-to-be

Download Your Daily Planner Here

CREDIT

Photo 1 by Mikhail Nilov

Photo 2 by Bich Tran

Photo 3 by Katec Planner