Daily Routines for Success – R for Review

A few months back, I attended a webinar on motherhood. Motherhood? Yeah… am not there yet… not even close! But I was looking for some inspiration 😉 … and I digress. My key takeaway from the webinar was the power of daily routines. (That and that Motherhood is hard!)

Since then, I have been introducing books and articles on daily routines into my daily routine. I never had an ingrained daily routine that lasted more than 3 months before. Then it progressively got worse when I married my Superman (superhero with two jobs and phone calls at all odd hours, I think you get the picture). So it was only recently that I decided to bring in some discipline with a daily routine. And believe me, I can already see the benefits.

Throughout this week, on my website, I will share my experience of building seven daily routines that have helped me stay sane without being overwhelmed. 🙂

Routine #1 – Review Goals

As you would have gathered from some of my previous articles on this website, I am big on goals and bucket lists. I am currently working my way through things that I want to achieve by the end this year – with just 55 more days to go. I review my goals every day because this helps me align my activities during the course of the day to my goals.

Reflecting on your goals need not be a time-consuming activity. At a given point in time, I only focus on 2-3 goals. So the review of my list and tracking of my progress takes hardly 5 minutes. Here are my 3-step process for reviewing my goals:

Step 1: Reflect

It is always good to journal as you reflect on your goals. You can do this in a digital format or take the traditional “Dear Diary” route. Since you will be doing this every day, the journaling can be a couple of sentences summarising the progress made so far and a vision of what lies ahead.

I read through my goal list and usually make notes about my progress in my journal. I find writing down on a physical paper with a pen helps me focus without online distractions.

Step 2: Plan

Once the reflection is completed, you can set up the next steps for each of your goals. You can decide to focus on one goal each day. Or you could set tasks for all of your goals every day. These needn’t necessarily be huge tedious next steps. They can be as easy as making a phone call or ordering something.  Important thing is that every single step counts.

I choose a task for the day that will take me one more step closer to each of my goals. Some days, these next steps require more than just a few minutes. In such instances, I block out an hour or so on my calendar to work on those tasks.

Step 3: Track

If your goals are health-oriented or financial in nature, this daily routine can be extended to take stock of the activity too (e.g. tracking food intake or exercise, expense tracking).

I use an application on my phone to track the progress for some of my goals.

Over time this simple daily routine has helped me understand the true priorities in my life – be it in the matters of relationships, passions or obligations. Before I used to sometimes feel overwhelmed with tasks and obligations competing with each other for my time and focus. But this simple routine has freed up my mind and given me clarity.

Now your turn… 🙂

I will be back with more about my Daily Routine. So stay tuned.