Do you eat the same thing for breakfast every day? Work out at the same time every day? Have standing plans for Sunday afternoons? If so, do you consider your patterns to be a healthy routine or a rut?

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately. One of my New Year’s resolutions this year was to do a better job at keeping our apartment clean. My mom suggested that I visit the Fly Lady website for motivation and organizational tips. (I highly recommend it, by the way!) One of the first things that the Fly Lady system asks you to do is develop routines for your morning, after work (or afternoon for SAHMs), and bedtime. I created my routines and implemented them faithfully for about 6 weeks. I was doing a great job! Then I had crisis after crisis at work, and I got derailed from my system. I’ve been doing an OK job at cleaning, but my progress has definitely stalled.

I’ve noticed the same thing with the Six Week Body Makeover. The program advises you to try different food combinations for meals and snacks, and when you find that something works well for you, to repeat it and stick with it rather than keep coming up with new meals.

I’ve also seen daily routines recommended by other programs and resources. This leads me to the conclusion that daily routines are a valuable personal development tool. I’ve decided to test this thesis with another 21-day makeover. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to use morning, after work, and bedtime routines. (I do have some post-work engagements coming up–tomorrow night, for instance–but on those days, I’ll just do both the after work and bedtime routines whenever I get home.) My goal is to determine whether the routines improve my productivity and time management.

Morning Routine:
Exercise (will vary–walk, run, or body sculpting)
Make breakfast and pack lunch
Unload dishwasher and wipe down kitchen counters
Shower and get ready for work

After Work/Afternoon Routine:
Meditate (at least 10 minutes)
Write tomorrow’s blog post
Work on a creative writing project for at least 30 minutes
Laundry
Straighten living room
Make dinner

Bedtime Routine:
Decide what to wear tomorrow (on workdays)
Straighten bathroom
Wash face
Brush & floss

What are your thoughts on daily routines? Do you have any? What are they?

When you hear the words “goal setting” do you think, “Now that sounds like a good time”? How about strengthening your self-discipline–sound entertaining? Increasing your productivity? No? I agree. I think the biggest problem with personal development is that it’s absolutely no fun.

The basic principles of personal development are pretty simple, but most people (myself included) don’t successfully apply them. Why? Well, let’s look at self-discipline as an example. How would you go about strengthening your self-discipline? You’d start by doing something that you kind of don’t want to do (like get up an hour earlier). Once you’d successfully done that for a while, you’d take it up a notch and create a bigger challenge for yourself. You’d continue increasing the challenge until you reached the point where you had the self-discipline to do pretty much anything you set your mind to do. We’d all love to get there, but the process sounds so arduous and… well, un-fun.

So how can we fix this? How can we make personal development enjoyable? I’ve got a few ideas:

• Learn about YOU. If you’re anything at all like me, you love personality quizzes and career tests. There’s just something so rewarding about taking the Myers-Briggs and finding out that you’re an INFJ (any other INFJs out there?) and that’s why you’re such a freakin’ perfectionist. The insights you gain from these fun quizzes and tests could point you in a new direction if you’re struggling to find your purpose. Don’t spend too much time on them, but they’re definitely a fun addition to your personal development arsenal.
• Get a buddy. Find a friend who has a similar goal and work together. For example, two of my wonderful, fabulous online friends share my goal of being a writer. One of them suggested that we start a joint project that will allow us to write in a fun and supportive environment. I won’t want to let them down, so I’ll be sure to do my share of the writing. I’ll also get encouragement and critique and momentum from doing this. How could finding a buddy help you work toward your goals?
• Reward yourself. Let’s go back to the self-discipline example. My goal is to wake up at 5:00am, which requires self-discipline. I could set a reward for myself that, for every week that I successfully wake up at 5:00am, I get to spend a lazy, guilt-free two hours curled up with a book. Maybe if I make it the whole month, I get a new pair of shoes. Find a reward that motivates you and go for it!
• Don’t take yourself so seriously. Yes, personal development is important. Achieving your goals is important. Finding your purpose is important. But you know what else is also really important? Being kind to yourself. Laughing. Enjoying life. Finding the humor in your mistakes. Living in the moment.

Now, go forth and do something FUN this weekend!

Update: Day 16 is done. I didn’t wind up getting up at 5:00 am because I was up waaay past 11, but I did get up at 6 and get an hour of writing in.

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(Cross-posted at BlogHer) 

Today as I was struggling to get my writing done, answer my emails and phone calls, draft an entry for this blog, and manage my workload at the office, I really wished there were more hours in the day. There’s so much that I want and need to do, and there’s so little time. For example, I’d love to do some more writing after work, but I’m heading directly from the office to my volunteer commitment. Maybe tomorrow evening? Nope. I’ll be at a celebration dinner for a friend who just started a new job. Arrrrgh–I need more TIME!

Then it occurred to me–why not just make more?

There are a few ways to go about this magical feat:

1. Wake up earlier (if you’re a morning person) or go to bed later (if you’re a night owl). You’ll be adding an extra hour of time to the period when you feel your most bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Early birds may find themselves going to bed a little bit earlier. That’s OK–early birds aren’t at most productive at night any way. Likewise, night owls might find themselves sleeping in. Also fine.
2. Eliminate distractions. You know the hour you spent playing Spider Solitaire yesterday? Remove the game from your computer. Your marathon blog-reading sessions (I mean, you HAVE to catch up on all your e-friends)? Trim them to no more than 30 minutes. Your nightly ritual of watching three Law & Order SVU reruns in a row (my personal addiction)? Allow yourself one episode, tops.
3. Work smarter. Let’s say that I’m in the middle of editing a document for work. I’m rolling right along when my blackberry goes off–new email. I stop what I’m doing and reply. Now where was I? Hmm… I’ll just reread the last paragraph I was working on and– Phone rings. I answer it and spend 15 minutes discussing an unrelated topic. OK, now back to my document. This is THE WORST way to work. Women are excellent multitaskers–it’s one of our natural advantages, but don’t multitask yourself into non-productivity. Do one thing at a time. ONE. Give it your complete, undivided attention. You will find that you work much quicker and more efficiently than when your brain is bouncing around like a ping pong ball.
4. Plan ahead. Cook a week’s worth of lunches and/or dinners on Sunday afternoon. This will save you AT LEAST an hour a day. Organize your errand-running so that you aren’t driving back and forth across town. Make daily and weekly prioritized to-do lists. It’s amazing the difference that planning and organization can make in your life.
5. Learn to say no. If you find every night of your week filled with social commitments, activities/events for your kids, volunteer obligations, etc., then you need to learn how to say no. It’s tempting to try and do everything for everyone who asks (especially your kids), but the truth is, you just can’t do it all. Be selective.

Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to start waking up at 5:00am every day (yes–even on the weekends). I already wake up at 6-6:30, so it’s not like it’s that huge of a difference. This would allow me to get an extra hour of writing done in the morning. The only time that I will sleep past 5:00 is when I’ve been up later than 11:00pm (I know that I need at least 6 hours in order to be functional).

What can you do to create some extra time?

* Day 15 was a success!

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… into the future. And one of the most counter-productive things we can do is waste the precious time we have. How many hours a day do you spend watching TV? How about surfing the internet? Are you wasting your time reading celebrity gossip, or are you reading quality content that could change your life? Wandering through a shopping mall? What could you be doing with that time to move you closer to achieving your goals?

Let’s take me for example. I already know what I want to do with my life. I want to write novels. My hope is to get to the point where I can make a living solely by writing. I’ve mostly written (about 2/3 finished) THREE novels now so I know I’m capable of doing it, it’s just a matter of, well–doing it.

Knowing what my goal is, if you were able to look at a journal of how I spent a day, you’d expect to see a lot of time dedicated to writing, wouldn’t you? Well, you’d be wrong. What I’m about to share with you is really embarassing (and I hope, eye-opening). Here’s a journal of how I spent yesterday:

6:20am: Woke up. I had planned to get up and run, but decided to go after work. (I didn’t.)
6:20-6:35am: Did hair and makeup.
6:35-6:45am: Made breakfast and packed lunch.
6:45-7:10am: Ate breakfast and read the news online.
7:10-7:15am: Dressed for work.
7:15-7:35am: Drove to work
7:35am-3:00pm: Work. (I had to leave early to take our cat to the vet.)
3:00-3:20pm: Drove home.
3:20-3:50pm: Tried to get cat into cat carrier. Failed miserably. Cancelled vet appointment.
3:50-6:30pm: Caught up on blog reading, answered email, etc.
6:30-7:00pm: Cooked and ate dinner.
7:00-10:00pm: Watched TV while playing Spider Solitaire (I know, how depressing is that?).
10:00pm: Went to bed.

Wow. There’s approximately SIX HOURS I could have used for writing (or exercising or anything else that was remotely productive). I’m allowing surfing the web and watching TV to literally STEAL MY DREAMS. That’s not what I want, so why am I living my life this way?

A big part of the answer is fear. If I don’t ever finish a novel, I can’t fail, can I? If I never put myself out there and try to get a book published, then I can always hold on to my dream of being a novelist. By filling up my days with mindless entertainment and claiming that I “don’t have time” to write, I get to stay in a safe, failure-proof zone.

“I don’t have time” is a dreadful, poisonous phrase. Yes, we do. We DO have time for our dreams. Of course, many of you have responsibilities I don’t have to deal with–children or multiple jobs or caring for a parent. And honestly, I don’t know how you keep it together from day to day, let alone find time to pursue your goals. But I guarantee that if you sat down and wrote a detailed log of how you spend your day, you’d find some small amount of time–maybe 10 minutes here and 5 minutes there–that you could reclaim.

What are your major time-wasters? Let’s make a promise to each other that we’ll spend ONE HOUR a day working on something related to one of our life goals. Just one hour. If you honestly can’t find one hour, try 30 minutes. I promise that it will be time well spent.

This article was featured in the Personal Stories of Change Carnival and the Balance Your Life Carnival–stop by and check out the other great articles!

(Cross-posted at BlogHer)