Context
Hey guys, my name is Eric and for the past couple of weeks, I've been adjusting to a new schedule of mine to where I've decided to wake up early and eat at designated times in order to help keep myself focused and calm during the day. What motivated me to make a schedule was the fact that I felt like my life was very disorganized in which I couldn't keep up with my tasks and goals, and furthermore, I slowly felt like I was drifting away from what I wanted to accomplish. I'm sure a lot of you guys can relate to me, so I figured I'd set up a small guide on how to improve yourselves through this basic scheduling method.
My Basic Strategy For A Successful Schedule
First off, it's important to write down the main activities that you do every day on a piece of paper, and from there, you can decide how to schedule your time. Taking a piece of paper and writing down your actions is already an accomplishing step that not a lot of people can even make it to so if you're already at this point, great job! Now, looking at your sheet of paper, cross out anything that you feel like is unnecessary in your day. Now, with whatever you have left, plan that out along with your sleeping hours between 12am of Day 1 & 12am of Day 2, or in military time, 0:00 to 23:59. And there you go! You now have a schedule
My Last Piece of Advice
So, you're at the finish line now of developing a schedule. So, what do you do with it? Well, you follow It! To be frank, I know it's a lot harder than it sounds, but at the end of the day, your willpower and optimism is what will drive you forward. My piece of advice to you is to not drastically flip your schedule, but rather slowly integrate your changes day by day. In a book I read called Atomic Habits (by James Clear I believe), he goes over this concept of the 1% rule, where every day can either head into a positive or negative direction by 1%. For a positive example, let's set it up like this:
Day 1: Make your bed
Day 2: Make your bed, take a shower
Day 3: Make your bed, take a shower, eat a breakfast
Day 4: Make your bed, take a shower, eat a breakfast, exercise for 1 hr
...
Day n: Make your bed, take a shower, eat a breakfast, exercise for 1 hr, etc.
As you can tell, every day you incorporate something new, and you slowly build yourself a new life. Now let's see the negative case:
Day 1: You drink a cup of coffee from Starbucks ($5)
Day 2: You drink a cup of coffee and eat a cheese danish ($2) from Starbucks ($7 total)
Day 3: coffee, cheese danish, chicken pesto panini ($7), so $14 total, which then causes you to be late to work
Day 4: can't buy items anymore because you ran out of money so now you're screwed if you don't have any food at your house and the paycheck from work is 2 weeks from now.
...
Day n: Maybe you lose your place and now have no where to stay if you started churning your credit cards.
In this example, obviously it's a bit drastic, but the point is that a lot of people often get caught up in bad habits which then leads them into worse situations. But this power of 1% can work either way. Start small, and then progress forward.
Conclusion
Okay, well, there you have it...a schedule strategy that you can use for yourself. Also, another good piece of advice is to focus more on your identity instead of the habit or schedule you want to build. For example, if you want to quit smoking, don't call yourself a quitter or tell people you're trying to quit, but instead say that you're not a smoker, and eventually your mind will adjust with enough willpower (also got this from Atomic Habits By who I think is James Clear). Hope this helps!