Like most people, I’m busy. We all have full schedules, endless to-dos, and never enough time in the day. Tired of feeling like there was always something I was forgetting and trying to split my attention constantly, I established a minimalist routine.
What is that?
It’s a way of living that deters physical and mental clutter.
Most people know about minimalist skin care routines and make-up routines: using a few effective products to get the job done.
In a minimalist routine you focus on effectiveness by allowing yourself to focus on one thing at a time.
Applying this principle to day-to-day tasks helps you take care of more in less time, and usually boosts your effectiveness in each task.
It’s not multitasking. Compounding research shows multitasking isn’t an efficient way to operate. The brain isn’t designed to focus on two things at once. With that said there are some ways you can combine tasks to get more done, or at least create more enriching experiences, more on that in a bit.
In essence it works like this: there’s a time of day to do everything and few tasks can be done concurrently. Let me explain.
HOW TO CREATE A MINIMALIST DAILY ROUTINE
STEP ONE: THINK IN SECTIONS
First, If you don’t already, think about your day as sections punctuated by regular daily occurrences. Try to define them in times, but they don’t necessarily all have to be the same increments of time.
Here’s an example of my Monday-Friday timeline:
0500-0630 (1.5 hr) Wake up- this is when I do yoga and get some writing done.
0630-0830 (2 hr) Breakfast time- Get breakfast going, get my son situated, start a load of laundry if needed, eat, sip my coffee while I play with my son, clean up the dishes.
0830-1100 (2.5 hr) Morning activities- morning walk with my son, run, or run errands
1100-1300 Lunch and other.
1300-1500 Work time while my son naps
1500-1700 Work-out (if I haven’t already), playtime
1700-1900 Dinner
1900-2030 Family time, prep for tomorrow
2030-2200 Husband time, self care (bath, reading, creative projects), work must-dos
2200 Bedtime
If you’re single and work full time, yours may look like this:
0600-0730 (1.5 hr) Wake-up, yoga, get dressed, breakfast
0730-0800 (30 min) Commute
0800-0900 (1 hr) emails, check in on team
0900-1130 (2 hr 30 min ) High priority tasks, meetings
1130-1230 (1 hr) Lunch
1230-1430 (2 hr) Finish high priority tasks, day’s low priority tasks, meetings
1430-1600 (1 hr 30 min) Make rounds to team for check ins and discuss projects
1600-1700 (1 hr) Emails and prep for tomorrow
1700-1800 (1 hr) Work out
1800-1900 (1 hr) Errands, commute, chores
1900-2030 (1 hr 30 min) Dinner, dishes, shower
2030-2200 (1 hr 30 min) Self care, relax
2200 Bedtime
(This was pretty much my routine when I was single and in the Air Force.)
Of course days will flex, but on the whole if you think of your day in sections you’ll get into the habit of accomplishing the same things daily, stop the guilt of divided focus, and divide your time among work, home, and social responsibilities.
STEP TWO: NEEDS VS. WANTS
Second, start the day with a list of what needs to get done, and what you would like to get done. Keep your need to do list limited to a reasonable number of tasks, perhaps one or two if they’re big ones. Don’t overwhelm yourself before you begin by thinking you can do a four hour project in one hour.
It helps to think of tasks in terms of time it’ll take to complete them (hence the beauty of breaking large projects into smaller bursts).
**Pro tip: break down a large project and scheduled mini-deadlines to keep yourself on track.**
I like to prep the night before, so I know if I need to get started on something at 5 am (I need to identify three tasks to ensure I don’t squander my early wake-up with mindless social media scrolling). I also can visualize how my day will go, especially if I need to consider tricky logistics.
STEP THREE: LIVE, DO, FLEX
Third, go about your day. Within each section of time, work on your pre-identified tasks or take the time to truly relax and spend time with family. If you have some extra time throughout the day go ahead and take on shorter tasks, regardless of their priority. This helps because:
1. You’ll get a mental boost from checking something else off the to-do list.
2. Big tasks are big for a reason, they require focus. In the span of 15 minutes you’ll spend time getting focused, then chip away a little bit, then likely get frustrated for not getting more done. Do yourself a favor and knock out something quick.
WHY IT WORKS
It doesn’t seem very novel, nor complicated, but this technique works simply because you get into the mindset of doing the predetermined activities at certain times during the day. With this technique your focus remains on the present. You also have a list of things to tackle in the allotted times, so there’s no wasted time thinking “What should I do?”
If you do this enough you’ll also limit your hesitation to tackle something you’d rather not, like working out at the end of a busy day. You’ll begin to think “Well it’s time to work-out, I do this everyday, today is no different.”
Additionally, by thinking of the day in sections you can flex more. If my son had a rough night, that means I won’t be waking up at 5 am. I know the time is better spent sleeping rather than working so I’ll wake up at 6:30 am and pick up the day with breakfast.
– I wrestled with time management a lot when my son was a newborn. I used to time block and found myself adding extra time to account for baby-care time, but that didn’t work. Granted, I managed to get deadlines met and was never late for a meeting, but I’d end up frustrated, more tired, and feeling horribly guilty for not being able to take care of everything. When I began thinking of my day in sections (I was already used to working within routines) I felt more at ease in flexing, and I think Adrian was happier to have my full attention.
– If our morning of errands goes long, as it usually does, it’ll eat into the generous lunchtime section, which is fine (From trail and error I planned it that way).
– When I want to socialize or partake in an afternoon play date, I’ll use the morning to knock out big tasks early in the day.
OTHER WAYS TO STAY ON TOP OF THINGS
– I wake up early to work and have some quiet time to myself. This has helped tremendously, especially on days when we’re out of the house all day and I can’t get in front of my computer. As mentioned earlier, I found the early wake up is most productive when I identified 2-3 tasks to work on.
– Working from home has been difficult at times: my son wants to play when I need to work, but by bookending work time with play time he gets less frustrated with me. I’ve hit a pattern of son, work, son, work, son. Chores and errands actually keep him engaged and happy so it’s been easy to work those obstacles into the day.
– Weekly, I try to limit my errands to one big day (food shopping, library, post office, BX) and one quick day (local shops for handful of groceries). This makes one day mostly an errand day, but overall saves time from chronic commuting, line waiting etc.
– Monday through Friday we eat the same breakfast: oatmeal or toast, apple, hard boil eggs. Sometimes I’ll make a quiche or we’ll eat leftover strata from the weekend, but for the most part it’s the same items. It might sound boring, but we know exactly how long it takes to make everything. My husband and I are in sync when it comes to preparing the food, coffee, and getting our son fed. The weekends are for egg sandwiches, eggs rancheros, and french toast.
– We don’t actually spend 2 hours eating lunch. This happens to be the time Adrian gets a little restless and I might decide to take him for a midday stroll or he’s super content playing and I sneak in some extra work. I’ve made the block extra flexible to accommodate the daily surprises that govern parenthood.
– Ditto for dinner. Additionally I enjoy cooking, use it as a stress-reliever, and will sometimes spend an hour making a weekday meal. Adrian enjoys cooking alongside me so it’s also bonding time.
– Knock out the big items first. I live by the mentality of work hard play hard and have adapted it further into: take care of all the difficult stuff first so you can relax sooner. I love days when I’ve gotten my writing done, checked off all my work to-dos, and had a work-out all by lunchtime
– Unless I’m actively chatting with someone, my phone stays out of reach. When I have pockets of time, I’ll check my messages and emails, but I try not to be reactive to my phone dings and vibrations. I especially try to keep the phone away during playtime. I’m in front of the computer screen enough during the day, Adrian doesn’t need to see his mama scrolling a social media feed when she should be helping him stack blocks.
YOUR TURN
Maximize your time with a minimalist routine. Get started with these steps:
1. Decide what regular daily occurrences you can use to benchmark your day.
2. What can you get done in each of those sections of time?
3. What three things do you have to do today? What three things would you like to do?
4. If you’re having trouble focusing on one task: Stop, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and remind yourself that everything can wait, right now you need to accomplish this.
5. Turn off the notifications on your phone.
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