Hi everyone! Today I’m sharing my daily routine because I finally feel like I’ve optimized it to a point where it makes me feel really good every day and might actually be worth sharing. Hope you enjoy it and get something out of it.
06:45
Wake up. No matter how much sleep I get, it’s really hard for me to get out of bed. I’m just not a morning person. Even if I wake up before my alarm goes off, I don’t want to get out of bed. Once I get out of bed though, I feel totally fine. One thing that’s really helped me is that I use an alarm clock that doesn’t come with snooze functionality (I use Sense). That way, I don’t fall back asleep because my fear of sleeping in and missing something is greater than my desire to stay in bed forever. Another thing I’m going try is to move my phone charger away from my bed so I don’t waste time in bed in the morning checking Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.
Another thing I do is always set my alarm for the same time, even I go to sleep late. If I go to sleep late, I just suffer the next day, learn from it, and go to sleep earlier next time.
06:55
OK I’ve managed to get out of bed. I drink a full glass of water, brush my teeth, and wash my face.
Sometimes, I meditate. I’ve been trying to do it every day, but I try not to be too hard on myself if I don’t feel like it some days. Starting to meditate has helped me to notice when I get distracted and get myself refocused. If you’re looking for apps to learn to meditate, I recommend Headspace. It’s really eased me into mediation and see the benefits of it.
07:05
It’s breakfast time! Some of my favorite breakfasts are:
- Toast topped with sliced avocados, olive oil, cracked black pepper, and salt.
- Toast with a very generous portion of almond butter. Sliced bananas would also go really well on top.
- Greek yogurt with pomegranate seeds. This is usually on the side along with one of the toasts above. I’m pretty hungry in the morning, so it’s a nice addition to have.
Not only are these breakfasts super delicious and make me look forward to my mornings, but they also make me feel great and get me ready for a busy day.
Oh! And don’t forget the tea. It’s my favorite part. I usually like to drink something strong, like black tea since I try to avoid very caffeinated drinks in the afternoon, and instead opt for something like green tea or herbal blends. Black tea is reserved for the morning, and it gives me another reason to look forward to my morning breakfast. Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
07:20
I’m done eating my breakfast, and now I just have my cup of tea. I try to eat before I start doing other things, because I want to focus on the delicious food when I’m eating. At this point, I either get a book or my laptop to work on personal projects like apps, conference talks, or blog posts.
Right now, I’m reading objc.io’s Core Data book while running the sample project on my computer.
Setting aside time in the morning to work on something that is just for me has been the most impactful thing I’ve started doing for myself. I wake up for myself.
08:30
Leave for work. This time varies a lot depending on how my side-project or book or whatever I’m doing right before is going. I try to at least get to a good stopping point before leaving for work.
I have a pretty long commute of 45 min. During this time, I either use Duolingo to learn Dutch or listen to podcasts. This actually makes me look forward to commuting on the horrible Bay Area transit system.
09:15ish
Get to work. The first thing I do (after washing my hands of public transportation germs) is drink a nice, tall glass of water. I used to drink another cup of black tea as soon as I got to the office, but I realized that this was making me dehydrated. I would sometimes feel completley awful during the day, and I just assumed that I needed more tea and caffeine. Turns out I was just dehydrated. I highly recommend opting for water next time you feel like you need another tea or coffee.
I start my day with checking email and Slack and getting that out of the way. I usually don’t check my email again until before I leave work. For Slack, I heavily filter my notifications so I only get notifications for channels that I actively need to take part in.
Then I see if any pull-requests need reviewing, or if I need to follow up on any pull-requests that I have opened up. Because I’m in San Francisco and most of the team is in New York and they are 3 hours ahead, I try to get things that require back and forth communication done earlier in the day. One plus side of mostly working with New York is that almost all of the meetings are over by early afternoon for me. This way, I have the entire afternoon to focus on purely coding. If you work on a team that’s in a single timezone, I recommend creating a meeting on your calendar that says “No meetings” and really stick to it and say no to invites during that time. Context switching is so expensive and it’s just not worth it.
I also try to make sure I learn something new at work each day. The great thing about working on a great team is that there are so many smart people to learn from, so there’s no excuse for me to leave work without learning something new each day. It doesn’t even have to be programming related either!
17:30ish
Whenever I feel like I’m satisfied with my work for that day or feel like I need to refresh because my mind feels like slush, I go downstairs to the gym in my office building.
I only started exercising at the end of last year. I thought exercise was for people who wanted to lose weight or become all muscle-y. Turns out some people exercise to think more clearly and feel great in general. I had tried yoga and other stuff in the past, but I just got bored of it. What worked for me though, is doing cardio exercises. I do something that gets my heart pumping at around 150 bpm for about 45 min. I do 30 min on the elliptical at a high resistance, followed by 15 min on the treadmill or the rowing machine. By the time I’m done, I’m drenched in sweat and I feel amazing. Anything that’s been stressing me out is completely blasted away. I think it’s key to do something that’s high intensity to get that effect. If there is no gym near you, running is a great alternative. That’s what I’ve started doing on the weekends, and now I get antsy when I don’t get exercise.
Seriously, I didn’t exercise regularly for the past 24 years of my life, and I feel like I’ve been invited to a secret club of people who feel great all the time.
One thing that has stopped me from exercising in the past is that it’s a huge time sink. If I exercised for 45 min every day, and if you include showering etc., that’s 7 hours every week that I could have been doing something else. But one thing that I realized is that it’s not the amount of time you work on something. It’s what you get done. So even though I have fewer hours to do things during the day, I sleep way better, I feel great in the morning, and I feel great after working out to do more stuff afterwards. Before I started hitting the gym, I would feel completely zombied out after work, and all I could do was eat dinner and loaf around before going to bed.
18:30ish
Wrap up any work if I wasn’t at a good stopping point, and go get a nice dinner.
20:30ish
More personal time. I do mostly the same things that I do in the morning before work. I try to make it less computer-y if possible though, since it’s really hard for me to get to sleep at a decent time if I start working on a fun side-project. Reading is a great alternative. Before I started exercising this period of time would have consisted of loafing around, checking Twitter, etc. because I didn’t have enough energy left at the end of the day.
22:00ish
Netflix, sigh. I wish I didn’t do this but it’s a guilty pleasure. This post is about my daily routine, not some ideal daily routine, so even the “bad” stuff needs to be included. Anyway, I just finished watching House of Cards and started watching Jessica Jones. Oh well, at least I have f.lux on my iPad and the next version of iOS will have it built in.
22:30ish
Good night! I go to sleep looking forward to my yummy breakfast and reading more of the book or working more on my side-project. My goal every day is to feel that I don’t want the day to end, but that I can’t wait for the next day either.
Weekends
My alarm is always set for the same time, even on weekends. Weekends are like any other day, except you get the entire day to yourself. Isn’t that amazing? Recently, I’ve started running to my favorite breakfast spot on Saturdays to get pastries and nice cup of hot tea.
Recap
- Lose the snooze button.
- Eat a delicous breakfast. Make it something you look forward to every day.
- Replace some coffee / tea urges with a glass of water.
- Reduce context switching by doing things in batches, like checking email only in the mornings and being done with meetings by early afternoon or whatever works best for you.
- Make morning time your time. Wake up for yourself.
- Exercise! I know everyone says this, but you have to try it if you were like me two months ago and for the past 24 years. Exercise to feel good. The time you “waste” is worth it because it gives you more energy and focus during the rest of the day. It’s not how much time you have; it’s what you accomplish during that time.
- Try to set up your day so that you don’t want today to end, but you can’t wait for tomorrow. Keeping this in mind helps me maximize happiness each day.
Thanks for reading, and I really hope you enjoyed this post! My daily routine is something that I’m constantly trying to improve. If you’re curious about how it’s changed, here’s a post from last year about a similar topic. Let me know in the comments or @ayanonagon if you have any questions, comments, delicious breakfast ideas, tips on getting out of bed, or anything that you’ve started doing that’s made you more productive and all around happier. ✨