Ask HN: What are your daily (or weekly) routines? Just recently discovered meditation and fasting, and while I've only been doing them for a few weeks, they've had a big effect on me. I'd like to see what other helpful routines are there. How do you go about your days? |
So I'll just throw in 2 things that make a massive difference (along with the meditation, eating well, etc) to me.
Sleeping - especially now I'm a little older, sleeping ~7.5 ish hours a day is pretty important. Far more so if I've been drinking, far more so if I'm stressed. Anything less and I'm not operating at full capacity, if I oversleep I end up tired again (ironically).
Exercise - I gym almost every day, usually every morning before work Monday - Friday (and twice a week in the evening I do a martial arts class). I've been doing this a long time. I've also noticed that in my super busy periods I'm really good at telling myself "I don't have time for the gym." Sadly and noticeably I become progressively less productive when I stop the exercise. It's definitely my number one thing to balance mind / body / productivity.
Roil in Chaos
23.30 Fall into dreamless sleep
At weekends I do not get a coffee break.
This turns off :
1. Ability to blame myself for not being productive after work
2. Ability to constantly worry about stuff that needs to be done
No other daily routine imposed by myself has stuck for years, except this one. Everything else I consider not a routine, but responsibilities - wake up, go to the gym, go to work, go to the supermarket, household work, etc ...
5:30 AM - 6:30 AM - Wake up, get ready, drive to work
6:30 AM - 3:00 PM - Work
3:30 PM - 6:30 PM - Go to coffee shop, study for job interviews / work on side projects
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM - Hang out with wife, kids, and eat dinner
8:00 PM - 10:00 PM - Continue studying, then bedtime
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM - Study for job interviews / work on side projects
12:00 PM - 4:00 PM - Eat lunch and go for walk with wife
4:00 PM - 7:00 PM - Study
7:00 PM - 10:00 PM - Hang out with wife and kids
Wake up ~05:30.
Eat breakfast at home while catching up on HN and Apple News. Make lunch.
Take meds. Brush teeth. Shower.
Drive to train station. Ride train for ~45 minutes. Catch up on email and organize tasks for the day (I use Todoist for daily task tracking).
Arrive at work. Unpack laptop and get setup. Get coffee.
Coding + actual project work for ~2 hours. Daily Standup at 10am PST.
Visit therapist every Wednesday morning.
Meetings/more work for ~90 minutes. Lunch around noon.
Meetings and more development work in the afternoon after lunch.
Leave work ~17:30. ~45 minute ride home on the train where I listen to music and/or podcasts or read to decompress.
Come home. Eat dinner with spouse and kid.
~20:00 get kid to bed, read stories for ~45 minutes.
Spend time with spouse.
Bedtime ~22:30.
Weekends:
Usually a bit more flexible, aside from Saturdays where I take my kid to ice skating class at 12:15.
I usually wake up around 06:00 on weekend days to make breakfast and watch cartoons with my kid while I let my spouse sleep in.
I spend my free time playing piano/guitar and reading.
Roll a joint with as much weed as I can fit into a single zig-zag paper. Leave for work right before rush hour and smoke out going down 237.
Get to work about 4 pm and have an espresso. Read E-mail until I come down a little. Get in the zone and write code until about 7 or 8 pm. Get some dinner at for example, La Milpa. Come back to work and do some testing. Leave about 12 midnight and stop at a dive bar for some beers.
Get home around 2 am, and watch Family Guy and American Dad reruns on Adult Swim until about 5 am. Repeat.
- Making bed
- Drink a glass of water
- Mindful Teeth brushing.
- Prayers and Reciting one page of Quran with explanation.
- Cardio on Airwalk and a couple of dumbbell based workouts.
- Breathing
- Meditation
- Journaling
I use Trello for Month/Week/Day tasks. I also do night journaling where I reflect my thoughts of things happened or what I am going to do.
PS: For those who need some daily dose of motivation, do subscribe to "Be Inspired" Youtube Channel, they rock.
https://www.headspace.com/blog/2015/10/01/brush-brush-brush-...
1. Wake, Toilet, 200 ml Water 2. Yoga (sun salutations x2) + listen to tech news podcast (10 min) 3. Water 200 ml, Brush Teeth, Quick Shower (8 min) 4. Get Dressed (10 min) 5. Water 200 ml 6. Journaling (5 min) 7. Look at Todo list & Calendar (5 min) 8. Start first work time block
In the evening, I have a shut down ritual that starts at about 9:30pm where I reset back to a neutral state:
1. Take computer back to desktop (close apps + use OneTab to save any tabbed chrome sessions I might need to reference again later) 2. Clear desk of unnecessary junk, put stuff back where it belongs. 3. Shower (Shampoo + Condition Hair, Wash Body + Face) 4. Light candle 5. Turn off bright lights 5. Meditate (15 - 30 min) 6. Extinguish candle 7. Go to bed
Pre-planning what I will eat for an entire week so I don't have to think about it daily
Daily exercise stretch with the routine pre planned.
I love pre planning a routine on a weekly basis that I feel will maximize my time, and I love the feeling of nailing that routine
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Fasting-Intermittent-A...
Meditate (yes)
Read my spiritual texts (ACIM, buddhism)
Gym (powerlifting)
Running (gotsta)
Eat well (MFP)
...and for me, one of the biggest differences has been only drinking every other month (modulation is easier when it's 100%, defined, temporal) and not eating after 6pm.
Those two free my mind, but also allow for... other flows.
Wake up at around 06:30
Shower, etc..
Travel to the Uni
Attend class
1 hour misc. break of work or piano
Attend class
A few hours of either school work, dev work, barista work, or I'll have coffee with someone. Maybe piano in here too.
Skateboarding for 1-3 hours
Travel home and make some food, shower, sleep.Evenings on weekdays Have some snacks (usually nuts) Meditation for 21 minutes. PBS news for about an hour while having dinner Maybe some more YouTube for about an hour. Reading and relaxing before bed.
Weekend If the weather is good make it a point to either run or hike If it's bad just walk in the city
I wake up around 6:30 eat breakfast. Leave around 7:15 Take train at 7:30 (crowded train, reading Hacker News, tech news, game news and study Japanese) Arrive around 8:30 at work, and I make a coffee. Don’t start work just yet so I watch Collider Movies news. 9:00 start work (prepare for meetings, light programming or planning new layout for new event or features) 10:10 we have System morning meeting. (Today’s task announcement, other relative news for today or shared meeting announcement) 10:30 Team morning meeting (Announcement from planners about progress of new event layouts, basic sales announcement for yesterday and other announcement regarding the project) 10:40 work starts again (work from now on also consist of answering junior developers questions and problems when called upon, also checking progress of what all programmers are doing) 13:30 Lunch for an hour 14:30 return to work 18:00 Work finished 18:10 Take train home (Study Japanese or programming) 19:00 Spend time with family and newborn 23:00 Time for myself 24:00 Go to bed
Work Routines: Lunch with the team, afternoon snack, making tea
Home: doing dishes, walking the dogs
Most of these offer meditative or stress release time that releves a different stress that builds up daily or weekly. For instance, I get very anxious when the house is a mess, and doing the dishes offers me quiet time to think to myself, and clean up the house.
Relaxation: - Television - Video games - Tennis - Gym
Spiritualism: - Visit my church - Read a good book - Meditate
Work: - Studying - Desktop customization - Breakfast - Morning tea - Lunch - Afternoon snacks - Afternoon tea - Dinner - Desert - Snacks
I am very fond of these things.
Health - if I'm not healthy, I'm no good to anyone.
Family/Friends - wife first, children second, friends third.
Career/Work/Finances.
Wake up at around 5 every morning.
I wake up around 4:30 - 5 most mornings. That's the time my wife wakes up
As the dev lead, I have to juggle being in the office and interacting with the rest of the team and other departments with actual development. I work from home on Tuesdays and Thursday's.
My wife leaves home at 5:00 and my son wakes up at 6:30. That's the prime time for me to have uninterrupted quiet time.
Monday,Wednesday,Friday
5:00 - 6:30, study, go through my RSS feed, maybe spend some time working on proof of concepts that aren't job related to learn a new technology.
6:30 make sure my son is up, get ready for work.
7:15 - 8:30. Commute to work, listen to podcasts.
8:30 - 6:00 Work
6:00 - 7:15 Commute, call my wife, listen to podcasts.
7:15 - 9:00. Spend time with my wife and son (if he feels like it - typical teenager)
9:00 sleep
Tuesday/Thursday
5:00 - 6:30, study, go through my RSS feed, maybe spend some time working on proof of concepts that aren't job related to learn a new technology.
6:30 - 5:00 Work
5:00 - 6:30 Workout and catch up on TV, watch a PluralSight course, or listen to a podcast. We converted a bedroom to a home gym with weights, a treadmill and an elliptical.
My wife has outside hobbies including going to a fitness classes that are usually on these days. So if I want to work, study, or workout longer these days. I can - especially with no commute.
Saturday/Sunday
No set schedule, but I do workout another 90 minutes both days and might study some depending on what's going on with the family. But after working out, family first.
Some days i wake up and go straight to work at ~7.30, at my desk for 8.10. Some days ill lie around watch tv and relax in the morning till 9 and get to desk ~9.45.
Meaning to use more of my ‘lazy’ mornings to go swimming but never end up doing it.
Leave work between 5 and 6. Cook for my partner who tends to work later. Watch TV till 10, sleep.
On paper, looks terrible now, need to do more with my time.
- My alarm goes off at 7am. I ignore it and sleep for another 30 minutes. I do this because it helps me have dreams I can recall, and my biological clock wakes me up reliably anyway.
- Drink some water or cranberry juice and check email, HN, etc.
- Shower and brush teeth at the same time.
- Have a Rockstar Pure Zero energy drink. These have absolutely no effect on me at this point, but it's a ritual I enjoy. People who know me find this absurd, but it's considered normal to pay much more than I do for a coffee or sugar-filled frapuccino from Starbucks every morning.
- Drive to train station and take train to work.
- The first ~4 hours of work are what I consider my "office hours", which means that it's a time where I am going to work casually on light tasks with the expectation that I'm going to be interrupted by meetings and helping people. I do this for a couple reasons: One reason is that I don't think it's good for people to work hard for more than 4 hours a day, and the other is that I need to block off a period of the day where I can concentrate on an important task. After my office hours, it's unlikely that I'm going to be needed for anything, so I will either work from home for the rest of the day or be slow to reply to low-priority issues.
- Get home around 5:30pm. Either eat at Waba Grill or go to the grocery store to get ingredients to make dinner at home. I hardly keep anything in my fridge and pantry because I'm likely to pig out. Plus it gives me an opportunity to be around people.
- Work out in my home gym. I have my Xbox set up in front of my treadmill, so I'll play Halo Reach multiplayer while walking between 3 and 4 MPH. No, I've never fallen and hurt myself; I have an excellent inner ear. For strength, I mostly rely on my Total Gym and my pull-up bar. Pull-ups are amazing, by the way. If I could take one piece of gym equipment with me anywhere I go, it would be a pull-up bar.
- If it's a Tuesday, my neighbor and I hang out on my porch and chat about life and the state of the world over beer or whisky.
- Work on personal projects. I do this way too much, and it takes a toll on my health. Sitting down for long periods of time sucks.
- Go to bed between 10:30p, but realistically I'll fall asleep around 11:30p because I listen to lectures on YouTube to wind down.
My weekends too often get consumed by coding personal projects. Again, this is a mixed bag because I would be thrilled to create a project that ends up being successful, but it also means long periods of time where I'm not getting outside. If I'm not coding anything, then I'm definitely out in the wilderness.
7:45 -> wake up
7:45 - 8:00 -> breakfast
8:00 -> bike
8:10 - 9:35 -> gym
9:35 -> bike
9:45 - 19 -> work
19 -> bike
19 - 21 -> free time (work/side project/ sport/stuff)
21 - 22 -> eat
22 - 23 -> prepare to go to bed
23:00 -> sleep
That's terrible, you're ruining your sleep circle and losing 30 min of real sleep.