The Importance of Creating a Morning and Evening Routine

Many of the most successful and influential leaders in history describe themselves as having a morning routine and/or an evening routine. Those names include Barack Obama, Winston Churchill, Steve Jobs and many others.
Having a morning and evening routine like this is a great idea because it makes it a lot easier to start the day on the right foot. If you find yourself often waking up late, procrastinating by hitting snooze and then rushing out of the door with one sock on, you’ll know just how destructive this can be to your productivity later on.
Likewise, the morning is a block of time that will almost always be free from interruption, which means that you can fill it with useful tasks and activities. That way, even if the rest of your day is a bust you can rest assured that you accomplished at least those few positive things.

The importance of the evening routine is to help book end the day and also to ensure that your morning routine has the best chance of being carried out well. If you set yourself up in the evening, then you’ll make it considerably easier to follow through with your plans in the morning.
Let’s take a look at some examples of things you can add to each routine for your inspiration…

Organizing Your Household

If you want to overcome information overload and decision fatigue and make your life that little bit easier, then organizing your household is one of the very best places to start. With an organized home, you’ll find that it’s much easier to chill out and relax when you get back after a busy day and at the same time, you’ll be able to find things you need more quickly and easily.
So the only question is… where do you start?
Here are a few tips that will get you started on the right track:

Outsource and Automate
If you’re very busy, then keeping your home clean and tidy can be a lot of work on top of your usual chores and responsibilities. A simple solution then is to outsource aspects of the work and to automate it.
An example of outsourcing would of course be to hire a cleaner. If you can afford to, then this might be one of the best investments you ever make!
Alternatively, you can automate some of the more time-consuming tasks by using the right equipment and systems. A dishwasher for example can save you a lot of work doing washing up, whereas a robotic vacuum cleaner can make it easier to vacuum!

How to Get More Quiet In Your Life

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to beating information overload, is simply escaping the incessant bombardment of notifications, entertainment and stimulation. It’s no wonder we’re all so wired and tired when we spend our days writing against the clock under sterile lights fuelled by coffee and our evenings blowing things up on an even bigger screen!
Sometimes you need to inject a little quiet and some natural light into your routine and this can give you a lot more space to be calm and to be yourself.

Here are some tips to help you do that:
Half an Hour Before Bed
One very good habit to get into is to take half an hour before bed to wind down and to read a book or something. During this time, you simply make the rule that you will not use your smartphone and that you won’t look at any screens.
Now I know what you’re thinking: you don’t have time to spend half an hour without your screens. My answer is that you do – even if it means going to bed half an hour later! If you can’t manage half an hour, try for 15 minutes first. The point is that this will help you to sleep better anyway, so consider it an investment.
Reading is particularly good because it requires sustained attention – something that we’re not always so good at any more. If you don’t want to read though, then try writing a journal instead.

How to Create a More Organized Desk

If you’re trying to organize your mind to reduce decision fatigue and information overload, then you need to make sure that you organize the space around you. In many ways, our spaces are a reflection of the state of our mind – but actually the correlation works both ways and if you have a very cluttered desk or home it will make your mind more cluttered too.
And when it comes to spaces that contain a lot of information and items, your desk is one of the most pressing areas for organization. Let’s take a look at some things you can do to make your desk better organized.

Throw Things Out
This is really how you start making any space more organized – you throw out anything that isn’t 100% necessary. If it’s a decorative item, then ask yourself if it really fills you with joy. If not? Bing it! Otherwise, ask yourself when you last used it and whether you really need it.
The same goes for that drawer that’s full of stationary. Do you really need that much stationary? Could that space not be much better used for other things?