My Precious Daily Ritual

Ever since I set the goal of creating a life I don’t need a vacation from I was playing with the idea of creating my own empowerment ritual. I knew that small, iterative tweaks in my day-to-day life will make a huge difference.

I even had guidelines around sleep, exercising, the most productive time of the day, or my ✨Golden hours ✨, etc. I never managed to keep the ritual going for longer than a couple of weeks.

Until now. I wish to share with you how I created my “most precious”: a sustainable, healthy, joy-infused daily routine that allows me to have, be and do it all.

I’ve been running in this manner for about 8 weeks. By this point, it’s a habit. Breaking it takes more effort than keeping it. So I am keeping it as long as I can. 

Why is this daily schedule my most precious creation?

In times of constant change, this daily ritual is one thing that’s stable. It’s the one thing that keeps me physically and mentally fit and assures me that I have time for myself, my family, and my work.

It’s based on reduction, not on addition. I am big Marie Kondo fan. What doesn’t spark joy needs to go.

The gem, the diamond of the schedule are the early morning ✨Golden hours✨ I’ve crafted and sculptured and I protect as my most precious.

I charge my batteries during these 2 hours:

• Me time 
• Deep work
• Excercise
• Center myself, make my plan of the day
• Physical exercise 
• Have an interrupted shower – the parents among you will understand 😉
• Have a cold shower Wim Hof style
• Breathe deeply
• Write and read
• Answer important emails
• Prepare for coaching clients
• Meditate
• Witness the sunrise
• Stare out the window, enjoying a cup of coffee and my awakening thoughts

You would be surprised how much can be done in 2 hours a day! It has a compound effect. Things are moving, and best of all – I have time and space.

The daily schedule

05:00 – 07:00 ✨ Golden hours ✨
07:00 – 9:00 Family time
9:00 – 16:00 Work (including lunch)
16:00 – 21:00 Family time (including dinner)
21:00 – 21:30 Mindless activities
21:30 – 22:00 Going to bed with a book – sexyyy
22:00 Game over. Lights off. Sleep

Here’s how it looks in detail:

05:00 – 07:00 ✨ Golden hours ✨

I wake up shortly before 5:00 (ish). It sounds crazy impossible, doesn’t it? It felt crazy to me, now it’s a reality. Keep reading.

I do something to wake up: a couple of minutes of planking, downward-facing dog yoga pose, Wim Hof breathing, a cold shower, a 30min exercise session, a cup of coffee (sometimes all of the above).

It’s best if my desk and the whole room are clutter-free, an open notepad with today’s date and an empty To-Do list is on the table. The first thing on the To-Do list is Leisure/Me time (more on that later).

As I am waking up I add the tasks of the day without any prioritization or filtering. I park the contents of my mind on the sheet of paper. I keep adding all the things that come to mind while I wake up, brush my teeth, exercise, etc.

When the list feels complete, I chose the top 3 tasks that I want to get done this day, the highest priority ones and I power through. It might take 20min, it might take less. You know the things that don’t take much time, but make a difference – the things we overthink, and we make a big deal out of.

After I complete the top 3 tasks, I already feel productive, I’ve gathered momentum. I pick 2 more. I work in batches.

In the beginning, I had 20-30 tasks every single day, but as I methodically completed them, I now have 3-4 things a day. Sometimes I don’t do a list. I just do what I need to do. This has saved/opened up me so much (mind)space. 

7:00 – 9:00 Family time

At around 7:00 my toddler wakes up, so the productive ✨ Golden hours✨ are over. Breakfast, kid time, preparation of daycare.

9:00- 16:00 Work/job time

My partner takes the baby to daycare (thank God these exist!), so I can sit down and work. Nowadays I work from home, so there’s no extra time spent commuting.

I apply the same prioritization list for my job.

I cook my own lunch at around 11:30. It gives my mind a break and the satisfaction of working with my hands.

16:00 – 21:00 Family time/Dinner

I pick up the kid at 16:00 and we go to a playground. Or the 3 of us play. Or I video call my family or friends.

At 19:00 the latest I turn my phone off (see below).

I used to struggle with overeating before sleep. I couldn’t prevent going to sleep with a full stomach. With this schedule, my whole day moved 2 hours earlier. Now I have lunch at 11:30-ish. I have dinner before 20:00. There are 2 more hours before I go to bed, perfectly enough for the food to settle down.

This is the most unpleasant time of the day. The kid is tired and cranky. He protests loudly as I brush his teeth and take him to bed. In the end, he gives up and falls asleep. Mommy vs baby 1:0!

21:00 – 21:30 Mindless activities

I am almost at the end of my battery charge for the day. This is the time for all the mindless activities needed to keep life going: laundry, cleaning the kitchen, food prep for the next day, tidy up the house, and whatever mess the little hurricane has created.

21:30 – 22:00 Going to bed with a book – sexyyy

The day is almost over. I hop in bed with a book. That’s the latest addition to my schedule and I love it.

22:00 Game over. Lights off. Sleep

I sleep 7 hours. It’s perfectly enough and various experiments have shown this is my optimal sleep duration. I don’t sacrifice sleep and I try not to oversleep.

If for some reason, I go to bed a bit later, I wake up a little later as well. I do the same on weekends. It’s a habit now, I wake up latest 5:30 am even without an alarm.

What helped me create the schedule?

The signs

Have you noticed how the Universe gives us tips on what to do next?!

The 5:00 am start of the day and the Wim Hof method had started popping up like popcorn around me. It was impossible to ignore the signs anymore. People I like and admire were sharing how marvelous it was.

Waking up at 5:00am started to feel more and more possible. It started to look more of a reality than a:

Are you crazy?!
It’s un-human to wake up at 5:00am and have an ice cold shower.
Who does that?!

My friend does it, this other person I like does it. Why don’t I try it?

Accountability buddy

Once I started establishing the habit of waking at 5:00 I had a lot of hits and misses. No matter the result, I was sending a message to a friend with my proud achievement: 5:05, 4:50, 5:30, 6:30, etc. I did this until it became a habit, and not something special or extraordinary.

Gentle Alarm

I bought a cheap, smartwatch with a gentle alarm function. It silently vibrates and wakes me up without waking the rest of the family. I sneak out of the room and the day begins.

Clear Priorities

I have my top 3-5 Life priorities on post-it notes on the window for me to see every day. They are my guiding principles. They help me switch context, and not feel guilty for not doing enough or saying No.

The list is dynamic. I’ve consciously and methodically removed the non-essential items. Here is how it looks now:

• Me time/keep FIT
• Family
• Job

Leisure/Me time is a must

Very often I felt like a hamster, running and running and doing and doing. I felt depleted – why was I doing all of this?! I used to run out of battery and lose motivation: see The Love of the Start, the Dread of Following Through.

For me, life is about savoring, about having small moments of joy, satisfaction, of juiciness. They fuel the other, not-so-inspiring moments, they spill over to the rest of the day, so the day flows smoothly, lightly, and easily.

‘Me time’ is the lubricant of the day.

I don’t have to go on a WE retreat or a long vacation. I can have my Me time every day, even if it’s for 10-20minutes. Sitting on the sofa, drinking coffee, and staring at the sky is sometimes enough. 

So I gave myself permission to have (at least) one leisure/fun activity every single day without feeling guilty or lazy. It can be meditation, dolce far niente, doing my nails, reading a book, a small walk alone, an uninterrupted shower (the parents among you will understand me), taking a bath, a quiet, delicious lunch on the terrace, whatever I feel doing at the moment, etc.

Not only do I allow myself Me time, but I also made Leisure a must. It’s number 1 on my list. If I do one thing that day, it should be my Leisure time.

Wim Hof cold showers

I gradually conditioned my body to the cold shower. It took a few weeks. Now I love it, I haven’t missed a day. It gives me a boost of aliveness like nothing else can.

It makes my body feel strong, it centers and grounds me. It gives me a little dose of adrenalin every single day.

I also do the Wim Hof breathing (11min a day). I skip days, and I’m not yet fully convinced of its effects. But when I do it, it feels great, and it is a lovely prelude to meditation.

My sweet addiction – Coffee

Caffeine has long-lasting effects. Research shows that it can affect you up to 12 hours after consumption. I decided to take only once coffee a day early in the morning to help me with waking up.

I don’t drink coffee after lunchtime. The quality of night sleep is supposed to improve.

I’m still looking into ways to skip it, but it is a sweet, sweet addiction. I like the kick it gives me, the taste, and the warmness. So maybe I’ll keep it – let’s see how it fits in the whole schedule.

My other addiction – phone

I can fairly say I’m addicted to my phone. Once I turn it on, there is no going back. My mind is flooded with all kinds of notifications and brain candy. The red circle with the new messages count is so tempting! It is designed this way based on behavioral and evolution science. Yes, I am not absolutely powerless but it cost me huge amounts of willpower to deal with the addiction. So what’s to do about it?

What helped me keep my phone away is to literally keep my phone away 😉 I hide it the evening before so it’s out of sight. I delay the moment to turn off the Airplane mode as much as possible, usually past 10:00 am. There’s no emergency waiting for me at 8:00 am.

In the evenings, I make an effort to turn off any tech latest 19:00, no phone, and no laptop. The sooner I turn off my phone the better. Usually around 19:00 I sign off. It makes a huge positive difference in how I wake up the next morning.

What’s the price of it?

Ok, I got my ✨Golden hours✨, I got my Me time, family time, sleep, and my deep work. What did I have to sacrifice? Not much, really. The non-essential faded away by itself.

I have freed up all my evenings. I don’t arrange appointments after 18:00 unless there’s absolutely no other way. No more mentoring, coaching, Toastmasters in the evening. I don’t force myself to pull it together and do anything productive after 18:00.

I do meet friends, mostly one on one. I avoid meeting groups of people – they deplete me. Here the principle Less is more applies. I prefer high-quality interactions even if they’re rare to regular, shallow catching up.

I love to share the joy and quality way with my close people as opposed to just meeting for the sake of meeting, on autopilot, because of obligation, or because I don’t have anything interesting to do and I’m looking for some distraction. 

Covid19 helped in this regard. It’s an introvert’s heaven, isn’t it? 😉

I also rarely watch random YouTube videos or Netflix. There’s just no time for that.

You have to check for yourself:

What’s the price you are willing to pay?

A price I wasn’t willing to pay butCovid19 forced me was going to the gym. I also don’t remember the last time I sat in a restaurant. I just don’t enjoy it anymore having on the back of my mind a possible infection and the consequences of it.

What’s still to improve?

My daily ritual is a dynamic, living thing. It evolves with me and my Life circumstances. I feel like I’m at about 80% of what it could be. Here’s what I am optimizing next:

Winter is coming

I have no idea how I will leave the warm embrace of my duvet when the day is shorter and it’s cold. Let the bear hibernate 🐻

Wake up quicker

When I wake up at 5:00 am -ish, I still need at least half an hour to properly wake up. I am looking for a way to kick right into my high gear state. Coffee usually does it.

But I feel like there is a more natural, healthy way, an alternative that doesn’t involve me introducing caffeine into my body.

Maybe I should just let it be. What do you think?

Better prep for sleep

After I’ve done the mindless activities at 21:30, my willpower is at its lowest. I used to sometimes “reward” myself with reading/watching something on my phone on the sofa “just for a little bit”. I collapsed only to wake up at midnight, brush my teeth and go properly to bed.

Although the total hours of sleep are the same or longer, the interruption worsens the quality of the sleep and I feel tired the next morning.

This is something I have almost managed to avoid. I make my best to have my teeth brushed, and to be ready for bed and then do the reading not on the phone but actual paper book directly in bed – yummy.

Why hadn’t I done this earlier?!

What fascinates me is that I have SO MUCH TIME! Time for everything. Even with a 30 hours a week job, a 1-year old kid, even before we had the daycare, I manage to find the time for what charges my batteries.

I wonder:

What have I been doing with my time before I had a kid?
It’s a huge treasure waiting to be dug out.

It’s something to think of. 

The life circumstances are there to provide a creative challenge. My job is to use the circumstances and limits (working mom with side passion projects, and no daycare), to de-clutter my life, to pull myself out of it, to build my muscle, to come up with creative ways to create the life I want. 

No matter how busy your day is, I am 100% sure you can shape it, optimize it for joy, aliveness, vitality, and fun.

With much love, Kate

Photo by Malvestida Magazine on Unsplash

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