Let’s look at the benefits you can gain from having the perfect daily routine. Having a routine doesn’t mean you will be bored, and it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy any spontaneity in life or enjoy fun and adventure. In fact, a daily routine can make your life easier – so your carefree attitude can be matched by your life and you can embrace fun when it pops up.
This might be a challenge for you to understand, especially if you are someone who rebels against organization. But, believe it or not, there is actually a certain type of freedom that comes with having the perfect daily routine.
The Perfect Daily Routine
Think realistically about what life would be like with no routine in place. There are no expectations, there are no set hours or demands, and no rules! It sounds kind of fun, but after eight hours of streaming through Netflix, you’d realize that you got nothing done. Chaos would ensue. It wouldn’t take long at all before everything falls apart.
No structure may sound good, but it doesn’t take long to realize that it will simply fuel your stress levels. There are a number of benefits to living life with a daily routine and these are the reasons why:
Improved Mental Health
Your mental health is heavily influenced by your stress levels. Just think about how you feel mentally during the most chaotic days. A daily routine helps mitigate that stress and removes a lot of the guesswork. So, having that routine will, in turn, help you manage your mental health.
One of the most effective ways to protect your mental health is to include thinking time in your daily routine. This is when you can address any worries you may have – one of the most common ways to do this is by keeping a journal
Improved Sleep
A daily routine isn’t just beneficial to your day, it’s also beneficial for the evening hours. Your body will appreciate a bedtime ritual that can improve your rhythm. There’s a lot to be said for going to bed and waking up at the same time each night/day.
Once you’re in the groove, you will find it easier to get to sleep at night and stay asleep. You may think that letting your day come to you is the easier and most effective way to live life. That’s just not the case, it’s easier to create a routine and live by that structure. Believe me, it is worth it to have structure in your life.
More Time For Relaxation
With a routine, you can find more time for relaxation. Part of creating a routine that works for you means sitting down and looking at how you spend your time now. From there, you can set a routine and make sure you include time for your favorite hobbies and activities, as well as relaxation time. Your day, week, and month should be broken down into chunks. Schedule things to do that you love in your free time and then organize everything else around it.
Breaking Bad Habits
A daily routine is essentially one big habit. It’s up to you to determine whether that is a good habit or a bad one. As mentioned earlier, it’s wise to write out how you spend your time and then look at what bad habits you can replace with good ones. You won’t have much time to fall into those bad habits when you’re busy creating a new routine that is filled with good habits.
No Procrastination
It’s harder to avoid doing what you need to do when you only have a specific time period to complete it in. You will be more focused on a project when you know this is the period in which you have to complete it. Your daily routine is an outline and all you have to do is follow it.
Without a daily routine, life is allowed to just happen. Your day tends to get wasted because you spend a lot of your time trying to figure out what to do. You may get caught up in performing for others. A daily routine provides you with control over how your day unfolds for you.
How Having The Perfect Daily Routine Helps Lower Stress
There is nothing exciting about routine. That’s something that we can all agree on. The thought of rising each morning at the same time to choke down breakfast before hopping into the shower and heading off to work… it’s not the life we imagine for ourselves, but these are some of the necessities.
How far you take the rest of your daily routine is entirely up to you, but as you can see above, there are many benefits to having a daily routine.
How can routine have such a big say over your stress levels?
Creating healthy habits allows your body to run on autopilot. When you can slip into autopilot you don’t have to deal with stress. For example, you walk in your front door after a hard day at work and you hang your keys on a hook and set your purse on the table below it. The following morning, you are heading for the front door and you can grab them on your way out.
For many people, trying to find keys, wallets, and purses are a stressful way to kick off the day. It’s all unnecessary – a routine will help you manage the stress you face. It might seem like a small thing, but just think about how stressful those moments are when you can’t find something you need and you are in a rush.
You can still enjoy excitement and chase adventure, but a daily routine will drain less mental energy, manage surprises, and reduce your stress.
When treating stress, insomnia, and anxiety, there is one common thread… routine.
Part of managing anxiety is checking in to determine what you are feeling anxious or worried about. It’s only then that you can address it. So, just as you have a routine to improve the strength of your physical body, it’s something that we also need to work on for our mental health.
Create a schedule for your work meetings and tasks, for dinner, chores, exercise, bills, and everything else you face on a daily basis. Put it all in your schedule, create a routine that will lead to healthy habits over time.
A routine offers an anchor. It’s something that provides you with comfort when life isn’t all that great. Our modern lives are unpredictable, and anxiety is on the rise.
Once you get into the swing of your daily routine, you will act on it without even thinking. That means you won’t try to make excuses for not going to the gym or sitting down to work on your hobby. So, it’s not even just a stress buster, it’s also a boost for your creativity.
How To Make A Perfect Daily Routine
What does a healthy routine look like? Well, sit down and write out your daily activities (also complete one for the week). Does it look healthy? Where can you cut things out and make improvements? Tweak your current “routine”. Now give yourself time to get into it. It will be second nature in no time. Additionally, you can make periodic tweaks to that routine to keep it fresh and exciting. Even the smallest tweak can revitalize you.
Creating a routine can boost your focus from the moment your eyes open in the morning until you drift back to sleep each night.
It might sound cheesy, but starting your day with a positive mantra is an excellent way to improve your health, manage your stress, and ultimately, provide you with additional focus.
So, every morning as you get out of bed (or even before your feet hit the ground), utter that mantra aloud. Everything is awesome. This is going to be the greatest day of my life. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t get enough sleep or yesterday wasn’t a great day. These positive words are putting you in the right mindset for the entire day.
Remember, the events of your day won’t dictate whether it’s a bad one or a good one. How you respond to those events will. The phrase you choose is up to you, but it should be dripping in positivity.
Don’t turn to technology as soon as you wake up. This sets you up to react all day, rather than to be proactive. You will simply get yourself caught up in other’s priorities.
How does this affect your focus?
When you react to the wishes and wants of others, it’s knocking you off of your own schedule. So, creating a routine of tackling your tasks first improve your focus and helps you manage your day more effectively.
The Daily To-Do
One of the most efficient ways to maintain focus and create a routine with your to-do list.
By choosing a number of tasks that you want to complete each day, you are achieving two things. The first is that you are planning your day. A plan helps you to be effective during the day and rather than just tackling tasks, you are moving forward with purpose. More importantly, a routine helps you stay on task. You know what needs to be done and your focus is on completing it.
Your to-do list shouldn’t be too large as that will have the opposite effect. Try to keep your entire daily routine down to the size of a post-it. It means you can keep that note handy and you aren’t trying to overwhelm yourself. If life happens and you can’t get through your entire list, don’t stress, just move your undone items to the next day and take it from there.
No day will ever look the same as the ones that have gone before, even when you have a daily routine. Your routine is the basic framework to manage your day. It allows you to control your actions, and break your day into chunks. All of this will help keep you on track and maintain your focus.
Please comment below if you have any other ideas on how to create the perfect daily routine.
