Our days consist of blocks with different types of activities. At a bare minimum we have morning routine, work time, and after-work activities. We need to be thoughtful about those phases to have a best result out of the day.
Days have hours as building blocks. While hours are good to measure time and make appointments, they are not good to mentally structure a day. For that we better break down a day into phases each taking several hours. For many people sleeping and working will be two longest phases. What about the other phases? How to deal with them?
Phases of the day
Think about phases of the day as time blocks you dedicate to certain type of activity or certain state of mind. In each phase you concentrate at one type and don’t worry about the others. This gives mental calm and focus.
When you have same phases in the same order every day than your brain gets used to it and can trust the system that it will have a phase for each activity type. You should chain phases in a way that meets your energy levels and needs. At the end of the day everyone wants to enjoy their days, not struggle through them.
Average person probably has 4 to 6 phases in a day as each phase takes several hours.
Definitely, everyone has constraints given by the life. If you have a job then your work phase is determined by the job schedule. If you have a spouse then her or his phases of the day influence yours. If you have kids then you have to take into account their phases as well.
Ideal day
Once you realize what phases you would like to have and what phases others in your family have, it’s worth to draft your ideal day.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) days are not identical. Not every type of activity happens every day. Work doesn’t happen on weekend (if you have regular Mon-Fri job). Usually people go to gym just few times a week. Shopping groceries on farmers market happens once a week. And there are plenty of other cases.
Therefore days don’t have to be exactly the same. It’s beneficial to have similar structure of the days because over time our mind gets used to such consistency in days and likes that. So if you go to gym three times a weeks it’s beneficial to use same time slot in other days for different sport activities such as running, cycling, yoga, even simply having a walk.
If you see your days vary a lot then think about activity type which “makes your day” and plot your ideal days around it. If your morning routine is a key part to enjoyable and productive day then build ideal day around it. If workout is your key then build around it. If cooking is your key then build around it. If spending quality time with kids is the key then build around it. You get the idea.
Navigating through day with alarms
Now that you’ve plotted your ideal day structure you need a way to seamlessly navigate through the day.
To move from one phase to another there is got to be a trigger. An alarm in smartphone in my opinion is the best option. Nowadays smartphones are always in reach and you will definitely hear an alarm.
Set a nice ringtone for those alarms. Not the default one. To be a trigger pivoting you from one activity type to another, alarm should be pleasant and stand out among one-time alarms you would occasionally use.
One last thing is to embrace that many days are not ideal. Here and there some phase of the day will slip off. Don’t worry too much. Just pick up at next alarm with next phase.
Once alarms are set it will take a couple of weeks for your brain to really start using them as triggers and switch the gears. Dive into each phase as alarm goes off. I’m using this approach for quite some time now and it definitely pays off.