Designing Your Daily Routine

Time to design a sustainable daily routine from your essential practices.

The Sustainable Routine Principle

A sustainable routine has these characteristics:

Few enough elements to do. If your routine has 15 items, you won’t do it. If it has 5 items, you might. Fewer is more sustainable.

Tied to existing structure. Practices attached to things you already do are easier to maintain. “After I shower, I do X” integrates better than “At 7:23am, I do X.”

Distributed through the day. Not everything in the morning. Spread practices across morning, daytime, and evening.

Flexible enough for real life. A rigid routine breaks when life doesn’t cooperate. A flexible routine adapts.

Honest about constraints. If you have 30 minutes in the morning, don’t design a 60-minute routine. Work with what’s available.

Building Your Routine

Based on your essential practices, design a daily routine.

Morning Block (typically 15-30 min total)

These happen first thing, before the day starts:

• Warm water first thing (1 min)
• Morning light (5-10 min)
• Attention Process if needed (2-3 min)
• Three gratitudes on paper (2-3 min)
• Any other morning essentials you identified

What specifically will you do each morning? In what order?

Daytime Block (distributed through day)

These happen during the day:

• One mindful meal (cooked, warm, settled state, fire-check first — meal already happening, just eat it right)
• Movement at half-capacity (15-30 min, scheduled or opportunistic)
• Body Check-In (1-2 min when you think of it)

What specifically will you do during the day? When?

Evening Block (before bed)

These happen as day ends:

• Screens off 30-60 min before bed
• Consistent bed time
• Any evening practices you identified

What specifically will you do each evening?

Ongoing (as needed)

These aren’t scheduled - they’re used when appropriate:

• Crisis protocols (when crisis occurs)
• Multiplication Process (when thoughts loop)
• Confront Process (when you need presence)
• Being-with practice (when discomfort arises)
• Writing gratitudes (when activated — far to close until the state shifts)

Today’s Practice

Open a notes file or grab paper. Write out your personal daily routine with these specifics.

Morning. Your wake time. Then each morning practice in the order you’ll do them — name the practice and roughly how many minutes it takes. End with the total morning time needed.

Daytime. When movement will happen (tied to a trigger like “after the lunch walk” or a fixed time). When the mindful meal will happen — usually your largest meal. Any other daytime practices and when.

Evening. What time screens go off. What time you’ll be in bed. Any evening practices and when.

Be specific. Be realistic. Write what you will actually do, not what you’d like to. If you won’t do a 30-minute morning routine, design a 10-minute one. Underpromise and keep the promise.

Keep this document somewhere you can find it — you’ll test and adjust it over the coming days.