Close your eyes and visualize this: You decide to commit to learning a new skill to which you’ll dedicate one hour of your day. You get a sudden boost to work and you start your day one. On the next day, you are about to sit to work but it doesn’t feel like working now and you’ll do it afterwards. What happens next? You forget about it.

The next day, you again start making excuses that you’ll do it later and the same pattern follows for DAYS. And you end up quitting on it.

This is where the importance of making a schedule aka building a daily routine comes into place.

When you make a daily plan of how you’ll spend your entire day, committing towards your goals and actually achieving them in the long term is a cakewalk.

When you plan your day, you know what you have to do next so you’ll end up making impactful choices because if you decide to scroll on your phone rather than doing the task, then you’ll have no time to cover up the at-present task as it’s already time for the upcoming one.

The randomness that you feel after you get back from work or school and just don’t know where to start feels like days are just slipping by hands and simultaneously the possibility of you achieving your goals is dissipating.

How do you start? This evening, spare some time, take a pen and a paper, and write down how you want your day to go while giving a time block to each task. No wonder you’ll not fully follow it but it’s better than just living in the default clueless everyday behavior. Then later, after a day or two of doing this, switch to Google Calendar and do the same thing that you were doing on the paper.

For instance, your daily routine might look similar to what mine is:

• 6 am-Wake up and namaaz

• 6:30-Eat breakfast and have coffee

• 7:00-Get ready for work

• 7:30-Work

• Noon pm-To the gym

• 1:00-Namaaz

• 1:45-Hifz and tilawatul Qur’an

• 3:00-learning a new skill

It’s really simple but the profound effect it’ll have on your life is just enormous.

The pivotal point here is to plan your day the night prior. Why? When you are about to go to bed, you’re in a pretty comfortable state and have enough consciousness and decision-making. So the next day, even when you don’t feel like doing the task, you WILL still do it because you know that I’ve added this task to benefit my future self.

You might ask, do I have to plan the whole day every night? NO. Just revisit it every day and make changes only according to the extra things you have to do tomorrow. If I have to attend an event when I happen to be working, I’ll just make the change in that part.

Suggestion: You’ll get better at it with time so TRUST THE PROCESS AND KEEP SHOWING UP!

Actionable steps:

• Create a daily routine the night prior, giving time blocks to specific tasks.

• Trust and Stick with the process even when you don’t feel like it.