‘We are what we repeatedly do” – Aristotle. This statement holds true in everyone’s life. Some of the world’s most successful people have a routine and follow it regularly. Recently, I was feeling very demotivated and unenergetic. I couldn’t focus on completing things that I started. I felt extremely lazy and kept over thinking. I have this habit of reading books to inspire myself, to motivate myself to carry on. So, I looked for such books on kindle and ended up with one called ‘Daily Routine Mastery’ by Dominic Mann. The table of contents looked quite interesting and doable, and thus I plunged myself into reading it.
Mann, talks about some creative and successful people who have rigorous daily routines, like Franz Kafka and Richard Branson. Routines are the first and the most important step for one to progress towards their goals. Don’t we all have tasks to complete at work or home? And we also have only 24 hours, in which we spend at least 8 hours sleeping, leaving us with 16 hours of ‘awake time’. How do we complete what’s on our plate? With the help of consistent routine. I say consistent because, unless we do something repeatedly, we cannot build it into a habit, for example, take exercise, if we do not it every day and at a set time, we tend to slack, and we all know about the famous ‘I shall start on Monday’ meme.
Dominic Mann further elaborates about morning routine, he talks about ‘the 20/20/20 formula’, also called the ‘Hour of Power’.
• 20 minutes of strong and powerful exercise – to pump up the blood flow
• 20 minutes of meditation – for focus and concentration
• 20 minutes of inspiration – to keep oneself motivated
This 60-minute routine will make you happy and keep you energised throughout the day. We do hear people say, oh! It’s one life and why do we need to stick to a routine? I guess, they have misunderstood the concept. How we start our day, decides, how we spend it as well. Hence, Mann says, start your day proactively and powerfully.
This is just the first stair of the many we need to climb to master the art of daily routine. Stay tuned for the next one!