It took me a while to realize this, but now I am glad that I realize the importance of a routine. You know, I used to be that guy who would push the snooze button several times until I didn't have a choice and had to wake up. The first hours of my day would be frequently terrible. Always in a hurry, running against the time. Quite frequently I wouldn't have a proper breakfast and showering wasn't a pleasurable and relaxing moment as it should be. My thoughts would be only focused on when I would finally open my computer and start working.
2 years ago at the age of 32 I decided to change this and started implementing a few good habits while cutting the bad ones. When studying about habits, I stumbled upon the idea of "keystone habits". Duhigg, who wrote "The Power of Habits", explains it as the soil from which other habits grow. It's like an habit that once integrated into your life makes it much easier to build or change other habits. In my case, the keystone habit that is helping me to start the day on the right note is a combination of 2: Sleeping well and waking up early. Having at least 7 hours of good sleep provides me with the energy I need to get most things done. Managing to wake up early, gives me the necessary time to prepare my body and mind for the day, and make an effective plan to work towards my goals. In the beginning, I used to just force myself to wake up early and in the end of the day I would be begging for my bed. Slowly this turned this into a habit, and in less then a week I got used to sleep between 11 pm and 12 am and start my day at 6:30 am / 7 am. When I enjoy my work (like now), my day goes more like:
I was a Late Larry till the age of 25. Scrambling every morning, I’d rush to shower, forget to shave, throw on wrinkled clothes, skip breakfast and panic asI sat in traffic, knowing I would miss my train and be late for work….Again. Internally I was extremely driven and wanted success. Externally I looked like an unmotivated goof who just rolled out of bed and didn’t give a think. This morning “behaviour” impacted my job and almost got me canned, more than once. It snowballed to impact my physical and mental health, caused anxiety, and left me with ‘busy’ syndrome with ‘no time’ for friends, family or even dating. I read countless books, blogs and anything on how to fix it, but just couldn't. Running late impacted my job, health, mental ability and social life...All because my morning started wrong. I’d come home exhausted, and stressed about the next morning. This impacted my sleep. I'd wake up in a cold sweat from dreams about being late! It was a vicious cycle. The next morning I’d feel tired from a terrible sleep and would repeat the same thing over-and-over again. Then one day I ran a simple experiment that changed my life. I acknowledged that there was a problem that needed to be fixed. So I created a daily routine for myself in which I wrote out every menial morning task + amount of time required and started following it as religiously as possible. That was the Gist of it. Psychologically, knowing how much time I had kept me on track and got me out the door in the morning. After about a week of trying this out, the result was Total Awesomeness. First, I got to work on friggin time! Once at work, I no longer felt stress or paranoia hanging over my head. I felt energized, organized and more confident.
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AuthorAshish Abrol is a Technical Evangelist at heart. As a Web Architecture Consultant he specializes in IT Management Consulting and Enterprise Architecture with a speciality in High Performance SOA and Open Source Frameworks. I sure did take a long time to enter actively into blogosphere. Honestly, as a passive player all this time, I have gained a lot from the adept content of some serious bloggers. That strongly encouraged me to contribute back to the community, and learn in the process as well.
-Ashish Archives
July 2020
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