The Routine that Gave Me Ultimate Growth.
We all are aware that having a routine is very important for achieving your goals. Having a plan is all we need to accomplish anything in our life.
Having a routine has given me enough time for things that I was postponing earlier. We will discuss the challenges that I have faced and how by following a few rituals I was able to overcome those. Let's discuss the following routine in detail in the underline article.
Having a schedule of waking up, gave me a lot of time for extra tasks.
Taking care of my eyes.
Getting fresh air.
Making an organized task list, and stopped doing ad-hoc work.
Picking a hobby or a side hustle.
Spending time with loved ones.
Having a schedule of waking up, gave me a lot of time for extra tasks.
So we can all say that in chorus “ Everyone wants to have a schedule to wake up in the morning”. Personally waking up early has given me a lot of time, that I can spend doing plenty of things like some of my long-planned side hustle, household work, time for personal research, and X number of things. Also having a fixed schedule to wake up, I can plan many things beforehand as I have a prior idea that how much time is present at my disposal.
Earlier even I used to struggle waking up early but after having an understanding of how the sleep cycle in human beings works now I can proudly say that I have found the solution to that first world problem. Till now If you don’t know about how the human sleep cycle works then I will highly recommend that your do read this research that explains it. How does the sleep cycle actually work? For all those who want to understand that in short, I will just explain in brief that the human sleep cycle is divided into REM (rapid-eye-movement) and NREM (non-apid-eye-movement), in a layman language can be defined as different stages of our sleep. While we are sleeping we normally cycle between these two sleeping patterns i. e. REM and NREM sleep. I bet most of us have to face partial paralysis while we are sleeping. It is directly related to the sleeping cycle in which we are, our brain stops movement or action of our organs just to avoid any injury that how we feel that we are paralyzed during our sleep. Since there are many misconceptions about this paralysis but the real reason behind is the switching between REM and NREM sleep. Also, did you must have observed that many times you woke up on your own without the need for any alarm, which generally happens when your sleep cycle ends. If you have never observed tried turning off your alarm and wake your body to naturally wake you. Once you wake up at the end of your sleep cycle, you will feel more energetic and active. Now you must be thinking about why I am telling you about human sleeping patterns. An individual should understand their sleeping pattern,i.e. the body close to when does their cycle ends, as a result, we can wake up on our own without forcing ourselves with an alarm. Once you know when your sleeping cycle usually ends then you will never face this dilemma or problem of waking up. You can schedule your wake-up time as per your body clock. This goes without saying that each of us has the same 24 hours, now how we spend those 24 hours is the key to making our time productive. With a proper schedule, I can make time for most of the things Like working out, doing some of my side hustles, blogging, work, and also take out time for myself. This gives me a sense of fulfillment that I am utilizing my time as much as I can. Might be I am not an expert in every field that I am doing but at least 20 years down the line I won't regret that I didn’t try due to lack of time. We all should be happy that at least we tried.
Taking care of my eyes.
As you all know that our eyes are a very crucial part of our body. Nowadays with the invention of all these new digital products are eyes are always under the constant pressure of looking into the screens. We can’t avoid it since it is the need of the hour.
Eye fatigue is a logic which most of us are not clear about looking constantly into these digital products leads to destroying our eye muscles that in turn leads to blindness. The most common reason for blindness nowadays is due to cataracts. As a 21 century person, you should be aware of how to relax your eye muscles so that that constant stress on the eyes can be released since we cannot avoid our screen time.
Earlier since I have to spend a lot of time in front of my laptop, as a result at the end of the day my eye is used to pain a lot due to constant pressure. It is safe to say that my eyes became very dry that leads to undue pain. That was time to find some solution so I researched a lot about it, that could be the actual reason behind it. Most of us are aware of the blue light these digital devices releases are of low wavelength and comes in contact with our cornea that is the first layer of our eye responsible to deal with any external light source. The emitted blue light is the reason that our eyes became dry. So if you are not aware of how having dry eyes can do to your over-eye health then probably you must be living under the rock.
Nowadays there are many companies that provide lenses that can block the blue light emitting from all such digital devices. If your work revolves around a laptop or any kind of digital device that emits blue right, most of the devices do then I'll highly recommend you to buy a lens that blocks the blue light. Along with having the lens that blocks blue light, it's better if your lens has an antiglare property that will help you reduce the stress which you might be putting on your eyes.
Personally, I am starting using the night mode on my MacBook and also on my mobile device, it makes the screen a little warm. After using all these precautions i.e. blue light blocking lense and using night mode I have observed that now my eyes at the end of the day after using those devices rigorously feel more comfortable and relaxed.
Apart from protecting your eyes from blue light and Glare, you should also be aware of the 20-20-20 rule which is kind of an exercise for your eyes. Now, what does this 20-20-20 rule suggest is that if you are working on your digital device, then after every 20 minutes, for 20 seconds you have to look 20 m apart.
Now looking 20 minutes apart could be changed with some sort of exercise that can be done on each iteration. Just for your information, there are many exercises that you can do for your eyes that can help you relieve the tension on your eye muscles.
If you want to read more about the effect of blue rays on your eyes then you can read on this particular research: Research progress about the effect and prevention of blue light on eyes.
Getting Some Fresh Air
This goes without saying that doing some sort of exercise in the morning will make you active, also it will help you come out of your sleeping hangover, Just saying.
Having some sort of physical activity in your routine will add a purpose to your life and it will motivate you for leaving the comfort of your bed. I personally never faced the problem of waking up because of my morning routine of going to the gym.
If some days I don't wish or feel like going to the gym, those days turn out to be one of those lazy days. I am in no way saying that only going to the gym will only help you to leave your comfy arms off your bed, but you should at least have some sort of routine, that can be a simple walk, jog, or whatever makes you happy. One of my close friends who always struggles waking up early started going gym with me in those chilly early hours. In starting my friend faced a lot of challenges while waking up early but trust me after few months down the line he became more active than before and was present at the gym even before me. Just keep in mind that I usually go for my workout at six in the morning so waking up at that time for my close friend was a blessing in disguise which he was looking for for quite some time. Based on his personal experience he became more disciplined and was able to complete a lot of things in those early hours of the days, for which he used to procrastinate earlier. So an easy takeaway from this point of getting the air doesn’t mean that you have to wake up early for performing some sort of physical activity, but it meant that as soon as you wake up don't have to start working, give yourself some time to grasp all the positive energy that is in the floating in this free world.
Making Task List, stop doing ad-hoc tasks.
When you have a proper list of tasks that you need to accomplish, will help us achieve them very easily as compared to doing those task on Adhoc basis. This was the problem with me as well, most of the time in my mind, I had many new ideas to accomplish but without having a proper plan, I always felt busy, but in turn, I was doing nothing much. I can say very safely that without a proper plan of doing things, you won't be able to fulfill all those things.
Before following the habit of making a proper task list everything was in my mind and while I was doing any particular task, at that time I was thinking about another task that I was supposed to do, but with a proper task less with its duration of doing, I was successfully able to complete all those tasks very easily. But after seeing the big picture those small accomplishments lead to the achievement of a bigger goal.
But I can deny the fact that in those initial days, I was facing challenges with how to make the task place more granular so that I don't spend more time finishing one work and neglecting others. People do have multitasking ability but personally for me if I will do two tasks at one go I won't be able to focus on even one of them and which will lead to procrastinating both of these tasks.
That is why we can see big organizations like Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc have many applications with cross-platform support which can be used for jotting down all the tasks with many other additional features like adding a timeline to those tasks. In starting it is somewhat difficult to distribute those tasks with the duration but trust me once you learn the art of doing it you will thank yourself later.
I won't say that I have understood every aspect to distribute the task but for sure following this strategy, now at least I am able to do many tasks like writing, blogging, making videos, and working to make a brand. Earlier for which I was struggling but now I am able to work on each of my different tracks with the same time frame.
Just for reference, I will share an experience, while I was working for an organization they were having no task management board like Jira, Trello, etc for maintaining the task which the team would be doing. Every task that the team does was all Adhoc and was based on the new requirement that comes on the fly. So in the end, not much was achieved and everyone was struggling to understand what they have done combined. But with the introduction of the task management boards, all the team members became more relaxed and were aware of what they need to achieve in the next few weeks which make them plan accordingly. Now they have enough time to research and work on the task they been assigned. Now the team was feeling more fulfilled and had a track of what they have done in the past quarter which gave them a feeling of been noticed for their work. With this new introduction of the task tracking board, comparatively more tasks were completed. The team had a vision of where the final product was going instead of getting those tasks a dog and getting no vision at all.
Picking a hobby or a side hustle.
With the invention of social media, we have found a new way of spending our time doing nothing just checking out other people who are getting rich by drawing our attention. Obviously, I am not an expectation as I have been doing the same. Social media seems to be very attractive and addictive just like a drug which you know for a fact that it is not doing any benefit unless you are a social media influencer but it's an addiction and it becomes very difficult to get rid of it.
Now since we were aware of what is the problem, so I tried to find out what could be the possible solution, as result, found that having a side hassle or following any hobby is the way out of social media stealing my attention span and making me do that endless scroll since it is a very easy source of entertainment that you can get sitting at your home or at any place. Although I have many hobbies also have achieved a lot by spending my time in one of my side hustle. I personally want to point out that having a side hustle has helped me a lot in getting out of this social media trap. Although I am not a master in blogging at least I am sending some time off in jotting my well-curated thoughts. Sometimes I'm not in the mood of blogging after my day-to-day work then photography came as a savior. I like to capture frames that say a story. Many of my photographer friends told me a lesson that a picture should say a story aloud. If you took a good picture it will say the entire story. That small lesson has made me understand the entire art of capturing the frame and spending my time in photography and I am left with very little time spending on these useless things. Even if I am not earning anything from any particular hobby but the things which I learn with this side hustle will help me a lot. Also, I am not saying that my day is only divided into these two things but what I am trying to teach is that having a side hassle will help you feel fulfilled and secondly it will help you to avoid wasting your time on those useless things which you know that you don't have to do but you do because you have that extra time.
Spending time with your loved ones.
So this is not something which comes under your routine but this is the moral duty that you need to perform as many of us know that spending time with our loved ones will help us make happy that earning money is not the end goal of our life.
Which is work from home policy that came due to this unfortunate pandemic sounds like a blessing for me and many individuals like me, although working in an office was also a good feeling you were able to meet new people and understand their mindset, but with this work from home now you are able to spend more time with your loved ones in the place which you think you like the most. Working from home has given many of us a chance to spend some good time with our family, understand what they are going through. I personally feel the difference in my attitude after spending time with my family since helps me understand them better now. We already had a lot of lunchtimes together. People are taking full advantage of working from home, or by working from the place they love the most and enjoy the environment which was missing earlier.
Final Thoughts
Having a routine in life will help you achieve more as compared to having no routine. As said earlier without any plan you will feel busy without doing any work. I have worked both ways with a proper routine and without as well and for sure I will always choose to have a proper routine. You should have waking up time, sleeping time, and luxury time where you can enjoy your time with your loved ones. All these make your brain, heart-healthy and happy. Earning money should be the goal in your life but you also do have a life apart from your work and your stressed lifestyle. Take care of yourself as your body will be the last thing that you will be having. Have some side hustle that will help you make a bit more creative since working on that extra thing will make you think differently to make you and your work unique. With all the points discussed above, I personally have felt a feeling of achieving something at least not wasting my time on those things which I should not waste. We should always remember that anything which is not done would never be fulfilled. I hope you got an insight into how having a routine will help you achieve more as compared to doing without a plan.