1. Email. I have a bad tendency of going straight to the computer as soon as I get up in the morning and then easily losing one or two hours to email and news feeds, which causes me to work in reactive mode and end the day feeling like I’m behind and that I didn’t do what I needed to do to move my business forward.
2. Long days. I’m not against working long days now and then, but I am against working for work’s sake, and on many days, I have a bad habit of not staying aware of the hours I’m putting in or paying attention to whether or not I’m even getting anything worthwhile done.
3. Ignoring natural rhythms. For a long time, I’ve considered myself an insomniac and have experimented with tons of ways for getting to sleep and staying asleep, all to no avail. In truth, I might just be a night owl trying to be an early bird or only need six hours of sleep instead of eight. By ignoring my natural sleep-wake rhythms, I’ve set things up to be a constant struggle, and it’s established a routine that doesn’t seem to work with how I’m hard-wired.

Breaking bad habits and routines is a real challenge, which in my case I knew would require a complete system reset. That’s a lot easier to do when you’re on vacation or when you make a major change in your life, like moving or starting a new job, but how do you hit the reset button when everything is the same in your environment?

A Complete Break in Routine

My system reset started accidentally. After several late nights before and during the holidays, I found myself staying up even later than usual, often until 4 or 6 AM. For the first few nights, I was frustrated by it, but after I couldn’t get back on schedule, I decided to take advantage of the time and get a little bit of work done. After a couple of days working that way, I started to see that I was actually getting more done, and I wasn’t falling into my old and established habits.

My new (and experimental) schedule looks something like this:

• Somewhere between 10 PM and 12 AM, I start working, and I work until 4 or 6 AM.
• I sleep from 6 AM until noon and then get up, eat a light breakfast/lunch, and get ready.
• I spend the entire afternoon and evening however I want, catching a 30-minute nap some time between 6 and 8 PM, and then I’m free again until it’s time to start work.

Here are a few of the positive changes I’ve noticed so far:

• I go to sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow (a nice change of pace from my regular two to four hours’ of tossing and turning).
• I eat when I’m hungry (since I have no idea when I should be eating!), which has proven to be a good way to lose weight and eat healthier.
• I’m working six to eight hours a day instead of ten or twelve, a major improvement that keeps me focused on the most important tasks that need to get done.
• I have a lot more free time to spend with family and friends or even by myself, and as an added bonus, shopping and running errands is a lot easier because of the hours I’m free.
• I’m breaking old habits. When I start my “work day,” I’m not falling into my old routine. When I say that it’s time to start working, I actually start working right then and there on the most important things, since I know that I’ll actually be tired at 6 AM and ready for some sleep!

In the end, it’s probably just tricking myself into a new routine. I don’t know that I’ll stick with this schedule in the long term, but I can say that this is the one thing I’ve tried that’s actually fixing many of the ongoing problems I’ve had until now, including insomnia and bad work habits. The real test will be seeing if this hard reset has a lasting impact on my bad habits, even when back on my old schedule.

I know major life-shifting like this isn’t possible in all cases, but if you’re having trouble breaking bad habits you’ve established for yourself, it might be time to try finding ways to disrupt your routine and give yourself a system reset.

Has there ever been a time where you’ve had a major life shift that impacted your work schedule in a positive way?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Xelcise

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Just because we don’t establish good routines doesn’t mean that habits don’t inevitably take over. They do. For most of us, I’ll bet, whether we care to admit it or not, we do the same things day after day, consciously or not. We wake up at certain times, follow certain rituals, and inch our way into the flow of the work day.

For me, when I allow bad habits to set in, it’s only a matter of time before I’m hit by the “ick factor.” I can always recognize it by the plethora of excuses that accompany it. “I have no time to work out and eat well…I can’t seem to get around to [fill in the important thing]… I would do [important thing], but before I know it, the day is just gone.”

All of a sudden, I feel disgusted with myself for taking back seat in my own life. There are things that I want to do each day, like exercise, eat right, keep a journal, spend time outside, etc. When I allow a period of time to go by without doing these things on a regular basis, I get increasingly frustrated and wonder why I don’t just do them. It occurred to me recently that it’s not because I don’t want them badly enough or that I’m too lazy to do them. It’s simply that my “bad routine” eats away at my days. I go from one activity to the next out of habit. To make room for the activities that are important to me, I must establish new habits, and the only way to do that is by disrupting (and replacing) the old ones until I eventually eliminate them.

For me, there are two critical points in my day where I could disrupt my old routine and begin replacing it with one that is more in line with the daily life I hope to inhabit, and both points have to do with the same object — my alarm.

When I set my alarm at night, it’s a good time to think, “How do I want tomorrow to go?” For a minute or two (before setting my alarm), I can think about how I hope for the day to unfold and, if it could be a perfect day, what it would look like. I almost always think of starting the day with a long walk, ideally one hour. That tells me I need to back up my wake-up time by at least an hour.

In the morning, when the alarm goes off, I need something to remind me that I’m supposed to start my “perfect day” with a long walk, instead of hitting the snooze button. My trick: Place a brightly-colored sticky note on the alarm clock that says, “New routine — start with a walk!” I know, it’s a little hokey and even elementary, but it makes me become more alert right when I’m waking up and reminds me to approach this day (just this day) with intention and purpose, to approach it deliberately.

My goal is to inch my way to a perfect day. Once I’ve established the habit of walking each morning, I will put a new brightly-colored sticky note on the table by my door where I lay my keys after returning from the walk that says, “New routine — now eat a good breakfast!” Eventually, one by one, I hope to replace all my bad habits with ones that enrich my life and make me feel like I’m living on purpose, like I mean it.

What tricks do you use to break out of old routines? How do you ensure that you live each day with purpose and intent, steadily moving toward a better version of yourself?

Image from Flickr by Mediatejack

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Successful musicians, athletes, writers and entrepreneurs all have one thing in common: They practice their craft, and then they practice some more. They dedicate time for practice by creating structure in their daily lives. By establishing their own unique routines, they ensure progress is made in the most important areas of their lives on a regular basis. Success is about consistency, and there’s no better way to establish consistency than through daily routine and habit.

I’m still trying to figure out a good routine for me, but I’m fairly confident it will follow a few basic principles.

Less is More
I’m learning that elimination is becoming more and more important for my productivity. I’m subtracting things from my life and my days rather than adding more to them. Of course, this brings up one glaring fact, which is that something has to give. I cannot be everything. I cannot do all things. I’m having to reevaluate my life, my business, and my priorities and accept that, if I hope to be successful at the most important few things, I must be willing to let go of the least important lot of things. I’m having to ask the tough questions and really get down to what matters and then, most importantly of all, eliminate those things I cannot give my whole self to right now.

Slow Down
In the movie “Curly Sue,” attorney and workaholic Grey’s co-worker says, “You keep going 190 miles an hour, you’re going to hit something.” I often try to push myself to the breaking point, and when I do, I always think of that quote. The natural rhythm of life involves relatively equal amounts of activity and rest. Trying to fight that reality results in loss of balance, so I’m trying to intentionally create more space in my days by reducing my work hours, adding buffers around major time blocks, and setting hours that are realistic for my life and its demands.

Be Real
I would love to say that outside influence does not impact my life and schedule, but that would be a lie. It does, and so far I’ve been unable to find a way to successfully prevent it from happening. My mom and “next in line” sister call me in the middle of the day. My “younger” sister calls me at 10:30 at night. Friends and family text me at all hours. My family is large (I’m the oldest of six) and many times imposing, and they drive me crazy sometimes, but I’ve thought about this a lot, and I never want there to be a day when they don’t call me because we’ve grown apart from lack of involvement in each others’ lives. We are close, and I think that’s a rarity these days, and I like that they’re all a big part of my life. That’s my reality, and I have to accommodate for it. That means people will be calling in the middle of my work day, but I try to balance it with blocks of productive time (generally two 2-hour blocks of time each day that I try to keep relatively interruption-free). Does it work all the time? No, but when it doesn’t, I make up for it with a late night or weekend work session here or there. The point is, that’s my reality, and if I ignore it, I’ll never set up a routine that works for me.

A routine is a very personal thing, but it can be a powerful tool for creating lasting success in life and business. When set up deliberately, taking into account one’s life goals, it instills discipline and consistency — both of which are necessary in order to make progress.

What principles guide your routine? Do you have any firm beliefs about what works and doesn’t work when it comes to creating an effective schedule?

Image from Flickr by koyochi

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Last time around, Apple had yet another record-breaking quarter ($10.1 billion revenue, $1.78 in earnings per share), exceeding the estimates of Wall Street and observers, and beating their performance in the same period the previous year by a fair margin. They downplayed their expectations for the second quarter on that call, which is something they always tend to do, but Wall Street expects them to perform well, with $1.13 in earnings per share and $8.2 billion in revenue.

We should see at this conference call what effect Apple’s recent desktop update has had on sales figures, and also get a better idea of the toll the recession is taking on the company, which has appeared to be rather resistant to its effects. You can bet that investors will also be watching closely because of Steve Jobs’ continued absence, which is beginning to look like less and less a factor in the company’s success, since the stock (AAPL) is performing well. Some analysts are even going so far as to claim that Apple is better off without him at the helm. Be sure to check back for a follow-up on April 22 from us here at TheAppleBlog for all the details.

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For me, my routine initially acts as a boon to productivity, allowing me to work even when I feel less motivated simply because I’ve established the habit of doing so. This works very well, until the system itself becomes oppressive and counter-productive. There is a fine line between routine and drudgery.

When the oppression descends and my productivity starts to suffer, I have to find a way to change things up, and usually that means a wholesale shift across my entire workflow. I recommend this kind of extreme action because it  seems to re-energize me, and not only result in a boost in productivity, but also in more innovative and creative solutions for my projects.

My latest shift has taken me out into the community, not for a coworking solution (which I’ve tried before, and thoroughly enjoyed), but for a sort of rediscovery of the place in which I live, with my professional life along for the ride. To accomplish this, I picked up a 3G wireless internet USB stick from my cell phone provider, and an Asus Eee PC 1000HE, which boasts 9.5 hours of battery life (and actually delivers more like 7 or 8, which is still plenty).

I also got a couple of inexpensive memberships to local museums, including the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario. It’s a lot cheaper than renting office space or splitting on a coworking venue, a lot more interesting than Starbucks, and I’m free to loiter without shame for as long as I want.

I find that I can work at one location in the morning, then hop on the subway for a short commute, and work at the other for the remainder of the day. Of course, I also have the freedom to wander as much as I want, but having those memberships ensures that I have a comfortable base to operate out of for less than $200 a year that’s not my home office.

It may not be as exciting as web working while traveling to far-flung international destinations, but it is a cost-effective way of injecting some life into your routine if it starts to threaten your productivity. I only wish I lived in Chicago instead of Toronto so I could get a Shedd aquarium membership. Talk about an ideal office!

What do you do to stop your routine getting stagnant?

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