I set a lot of goals for the next 3 months. I may or may not have set myself up for failure but either way I will be better in 3 months than I am now. That is all that matters. I do want to achieve all my goals though. The only way that will happen is if I have a plan. The purpose of this post is to lay out my plan.
If something is of high priority we typically should do it before anything else. I view the first few hours of the day as the key to success.
Morning Routine
I have a vision of the perfect morning routine and that is what I would like to make a reality. It goes something like this.
- 30 minutes – Pray/Meditate (outside preferably), Study the word of God.
- 1 hr – Exercise and Stretch while listening to inspirational/educational podcasts or audio books. (I may have to start a push up routine)
- 30 minutes – Breakfast with family and read scriptures together and pray.
- 30 minutes – Shower and get ready
The exact times are not as important as the routine itself the order can even be flexible. The whole idea is to make these activities a priority. Feed the body, mind and spirit right away!
Evening Routine
The kids go to bed around 8pm. Before that I try to spend quality time playing and having fun. Between 6-8pm is already a well established routine thanks to my wife. We clean up dinner and play until about 7pm then baths, get ready for bed, read books all happens.
After 8pm I have been known to waste time. I like to decompress but I constantly have projects to be working on but what I really want to do is relax. What ends up happening is I don’t really relax and I don’t really spend focused time on my projects so I end up staying up late to finish freelance work. Then I get little sleep and my morning routine is shot and I am more stressed and more work gets piled on and I stay up late again and the proccess continues until Sunday when I finally crash and, thankfully, I have a policy to not work on Sunday because that is the only time I let myself really decompress. I have even been able to take an afternoon nap every once in a while.
I’m not sure how to be more successful between 8-10pm I still need to figure out what the best routine would be. I think I need to have a true go to bed routine where I really wind down because I typically go until I can’t hold my eyes open then shuffle into bed between 12 and 1am on the typical night and 2-3am when things are really crazy.
Weekly Habits
Most of the other goals can be achieved by establishing weekly habits.
- Monday night as a family night. We gather together to discuss the week ahead and to teach our children and have fun together.
- Tuesday night will be the night I focus on my projects such as Thintopia and Octonerd. I will also spend an occassional Thursday or Saturday on these projects.
- Wednesday nights I have Boy Scouts / Mutual
- Friday. With 3 children it can be difficult to make time to go on dates. I want to get into a habit of spending time weekly to talk and spend focused time together.
Thursday, Saturday and Sunday will be free nights although Sunday I will focus on rest and creative persuits such as music and photography. Thursday and Saturday will be more focused on work.
