Elevate Your New Year: How a Great Routine Fuels Lasting Productivity
Jump-starting your day can be tough for many people, and 2024 brought its fair share of challenges for professionals—myself included. Yet routine is the one thing that can make the biggest difference in how you experience a tumultuous year or any moment in life. Regardless of setbacks, this is a game of mastering your time management to accomplish your goals through the end of the year.
A great routine can make mountain climbing feel like jumping a hurdle or driving over a speed bump. It generates a positive boost in your psyche, fueling your everyday productivity. Establishing a routine is like writing a best practices document for your time management skills and habits.
The Foundation
Given that every person is built differently, it’s important to know that every suggestion should be taken with a grain of salt. Regardless, each suggestion is built upon the foundation of the human condition and what we need to maintain: the mind, body, and spirit. Each task in your routine should help nourish, calibrate, and enhance these three aspects of yourself. Otherwise, your routine is barely half done.
Ideally, your routine shouldn’t take up your whole day to complete. If it does, you have more extensive work to do and may need a vacation. Don’t rush your routine, either. Make sure whatever is weighing on you – mentally, physically, or spiritually – doesn’t seep into your work or personal communications. In other words, have a balanced pace in your routines – get it done quickly, but ensure you’re thoroughly ready to seize the day for your business and clients.
The Steps
Three simple steps can help develop each aspect of yourself so you can establish your routine and start your day strong: meditate, mobilize, and exercise. (You may think mobility could be the same as exercise, but I’ll explain the difference below.)
Pro tip: Do not look at your phone before starting your routine. That blue light and the psychological stress of work as soon as you wake up will throw off your mind, body, and spirit. So, bypass the phone, open the curtains, and greet the day!
- Meditate
Meditation doesn’t necessarily have to be a Hindi or Buddhist practice; rather, it can be any act of reflecting long enough to empty one’s mind. Meditation is about gaining clarity and focus, which often leads to better comprehension and communication. What are some ways to meditate?
- Sitting with your eyes closed while focusing on your breathing
- Cleaning or organizing your apartment/house
- Prayer
- Writing in a journal
- Sitting or standing while staring out your window, preferably looking at nature or your immediate surroundings.
Meditation practices are an investment in your mind, body, and spirit. It also helps to set a timer for meditation activities to keep you on schedule.
- Mobilize
Mobility and exercise are not the same thing.
- Mobility refers to simple everyday movements that the average person can perform. In this modern age of technology and a bureaucratic and corporate sedentary lifestyle, we don’t move as often, so mobilizing is vital for our bodies.
- Exercise involves high-kinaesthesia activities to improve one’s physique and achieve a higher standard of health, physical endurance, and longevity.
Mobilizing should open your body and connect it with your mind. My philosophy is that “Thought and feeling must be one.” I recommend three well-known practices: basic stretches, yoga, and Tai Chi.
Basic stretches – simple movements that we learned in gym class: calf stretch, hamstring stretch, shoulder stretch, neck stretch, hand and back stretches. Refer to this guide.
Yoga because of its founding principles of aligning yourself with your body and your environment. You can find all sorts of excellent yoga instructors or Qi Gong mobility practices on YouTube. My favorite channel is Yoga with Adriene.
Tai Chi has different difficulty levels, but for mobility purposes, you can practice these moves: ward off, roll back, press, push, pull down, split, elbow strike, and lean—Tai Chi guide.
Fun fact: In Japan, they practice rajio taiso (radio calisthenics) multiple times daily. It is named such as it is broadcast over the radio for all to participate, whether at school or work.
- Exercise
Exercise releases endorphins and serotonin, which help maintain a positive outlook and combat burnout—a total shutdown of mind, body, and spirit. That’s why I recommend working out as part of your daily routine. The type of exercise you choose should fit your body type and personal goals. How often you work out is entirely up to you.
Calisthenics (now often referred to as HIIT workouts) can be a great starting point. These bodyweight exercises get your heart pumping, improve flexibility, and build endurance.
For example, here’s my routine, done three to four times a week:
- A 1-mile run (about 9 minutes)
- A 10-minute Bully Juice HIIT workout
- A 3- to 7-minute dumbbell session
I adjust the dumbbell routine depending on my schedule and how much time I’ve devoted to mobility exercises. Ultimately, the goal is to manage your exercise time so you can move on to the next part of your day feeling energized and accomplished.
Consistency
Eventually, you might plan your mornings as follows: 10–15 minutes for meditation, 10–20 minutes for mobility exercises, and 10–20 minutes for a workout (or a quick run, if you prefer).
I’ve followed this routine for over a year, and it has done wonders for my time management and daily productivity. I used to struggle with time management, but after reading doctors’ articles, studying business leaders’ routines, and exploring different health practices, I’ve discovered more about myself—especially my blind spots.
Consistency is the key to making the best use of time, starting the day on a positive note, and keeping mind, body, and spirit aligned. When you combine self-awareness with dedication to your well-being, you create both a productive year and a healthy professional environment.
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