Don’t Serve The Needs Of Your Daily Routine: It Should Serve You

Most people view their daily responsibilities as laborious chores. However, you shouldn’t feel as if you’re simply serving the needs of your daily routine. It should serve you.

Obviously, we all have to do things we don’t want to do. Most of us don’t want to go to work from 9am-5pm, and most of us don’t want to spend time brushing our teeth or shaving our stubble every morning. Some habits are unavoidable. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean your entire day needs to start repeating itself endlessly. Let’s break the Groundhog Day cycle. It’s time to improve your daily routine.

Reduce time-wasting activities

You should start by reducing time-wasting activities. We can’t cut every activity out of our daily routines. Most of us would like to skip work and just relax with our family and friends, but we need to work to earn money. However, some time-wasting activities can be avoided.

Think of your morning routine, for example. How much time do you spend shaving, plucking, and washing in an effort to groom yourself? You could save time by considering alternate options. Instead of a wet shave, why not try an electric shaver? Or you could even get a beard trimmer if you just want to leave a bit of light stubble; that’d be very quick. If washing yourself in the shower takes forever with your hands, maybe you could get a sponge or a brush to make things easier.

Of course, time-wasting activities aren’t always as obvious as that. With modern technology, you can save time on your grooming routine, but technology isn’t always going to help you save time if it doesn’t work properly. Take your laptop, for instance. So many people dismiss the speed of their laptops. Perhaps yours has slowed down over time, and you might simply tell yourself that it’s old. But the problem might be something else. Clutter can slow down a computer; you might want to try defragmenting your PC to see if that speeds it up. Sometimes, a hidden virus is the root of the problem. You might want to get more information about that by doing some research. That way, you can rid your laptop of any malware that might be slowing it down. You need your laptop on a daily basis, so make sure that you’re not wasting time setting it up or waiting for it to load websites as you try to do your work.

Rethink your working habits

As mentioned in the introduction, you can’t avoid work. We all have to earn money, unfortunately. Still, even if you won the lottery, you might find life a little boring if you had nothing to do and fewer opportunities to socialise with others. So, you shouldn’t see work as a boring chore. If your days feel repetitive, then you should change that. Find ways to improve your job. Rethink your working habits, in other words. Don’t just aim to do the bare minimum. You should aim to switch things up. You could work more efficiently by breaking up your day into more manageable compartments. Take small breaks so that you return to your work with a refreshed mind and body. Also, stop multi-tasking. If you focus on one task at a time, then you’ll do a much better job and you’ll feel much less stressed. You’ll feel less like a robot on overdrive, and you’ll be a more competent worker. It’s a win-win situation.

And set yourself the challenge of doing more than is expected of you. You might just catch the eye of your boss, and that could lead to bigger and better things at your company. If you really want to impress your employer, then you might want to ask them if you can take on new projects. You’ll keep things exciting for yourself, but you’ll also show your boss that you really value your job. You’ll show them that you want to move up to greater things, and that might help your career to progress. It could even lead to a new job role at the company, and that would definitely help to keep things fresh. If you want to switch up your daily routine, then you have to take the proactive approach. You have to ask yourself why your work has become dull and repetitive. If it’s a result of your mindset, then just try to approach your work in a new way. If the problem is deeper than that, of course, then you might want to consider new horizons in terms of your career.

Start sleeping properly

We’re not just talking about waking up early; we’re talking about going to bed early too. In fact, the main thing to ensure is that you get a sufficient amount of sleep. This varies from person to person, so you need to figure out how much rest your body needs. For most adults, 8 hours of sleep is sufficient. So, if you need to get up at 7am to get ready for work on time, then you should be asleep by 11pm. Realistically, that probably means you need to be in bed at 10:30pm. You need to start being disciplined if you want to achieve this. Avoid technology before bed. The goal is to allow your mind to start unwinding. This won’t be possible if it’s stimulated as the result of staring at a bright screen or snacking at a late hour.

And don’t tell yourself that 6 hours of rest is fine as long as you have your morning coffee and catch up on sleep at the weekend. That’s not how it works. Sleep-deprivation doesn’t just affect your energy levels; it affects your overall health. Sleeping poorly for 5 days of the week will have long-term health consequences. Sleep-deprivation can slow your metabolism, for starters; your healthy diet won’t have the effects you desire if you don’t get enough rest. It can also weaken your immune system, so you might be more prone to colds that make you less productive at work.

Moreover, it seems pretty obvious that staying up late and getting up early will not make you more productive in the long run. And it certainly won’t benefit your physical or psychological health. The effects of sleep deprivation on your mental state should be evident if you’ve ever had a bad night’s rest. If you want your daily routine to serve you, then allow yourself the necessity (not the luxury) of sleeping properly every single night.

Chris Price