Seven daily productivity habits to win the day

How you start your day matters.

You probably know this and maybe rolling your eyes at how obvious it was.

I probably would if I were you.

Yet, we can’t deny that knowing the ‘obvious’ doesn’t necessarily translate into creating better habits.

We may often find ourselves asking ‘how can I be productive every day?’ or ‘what are the best productivity habits to try?’

I know I do.

A few years ago, I was enamoured by the idea of creating productive morning routines.

I read about great and successful people who had standardised daily systems, from waking up at 4 or 5am, to exercising for an hour. Things that sounded good but things that I couldn’t seem to apply to my life.

I don’t know about you but the idea of waking up at 4 am and not going back to sleep a few hours later seemed pretty daunting.

In fact, I once came across an article where the lady mentioned that she wakes up at about 2.30am.

Yep! I was as shocked as you.

Reading her article further, I noticed that she would usually get to bed between 8pm and 9pm. But this post is not about morning routines or evening routines, for that matter (since the way you end the day can also affect how you begin the next day).

This post is about those activities we want to do each day and creating a means for us to do them.

The great thing about these wins is that they don’t have to happen at only one time in the day, more so, they are often small things that can make a big difference to your day and set you up for better productivity and a more intentional life.

I came across this idea in a free book I got on my iBooks (see, free books can hold great ideas, have you checked out my free devotionals yet?) called Get More Done in Less Time by Beau Norton.

Honestly, this book was a game-changer for me!

It also had other productivity tips around morning and evening routines but the idea of daily wins was novel for me and something I was really interested to try.

I have been following the principles of seven daily wins ever since (I use 8 daily wins in some months). I will also be sharing a copy of my monthly daily wins’ checklist, to give you a practical idea of how it works.

 

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How to create your daily productivity habits to win the day

Here are four tips to help you create awesome productivity habits so you can ‘win’ the day. These habits work best when they become part of your daily routines and you remain consistent.

 

Know your daily wins

The first step to creating this framework is to determine what things you need to do each day to ‘win’ the day.

This simply means finding out the things that are most important to you and creating a daily routine around them. This is particular to each of us, while my daily productivity wins may mostly be applicable to you, do feel free to tweak as necessary.

 

Create a checklist

After you have selected the 7-8 things you believe will help you ‘win’ each day, then you can create a checklist around it.

At first, I had considered printing out a calendar and just ticking each day I completed my seven wins, like the Jerry Seinfeld idea of not ‘breaking the chain’.

But I quickly realised this would not work.

For one thing, these were seven daily wins not one (no pun intended), and I also knew that every day would not be perfect. ?

There would be days where I would do some of these activities and not others. I knew I needed a way to itemise each activity.

This led me to creating the checklist which I still use. If you need ideas on how to start, I will share more examples of the daily productivity habits that help me win the day.

 

Do a monthly recap of your progress

There’s this saying that you ‘cannot change what you do not measure‘.

How true and wise this is.

An important part of my productivity checklist is to have a section where I record how I did during the month and also provide comments on what I did well and what I need to improve on. This sort of feedback is helpful and instructive for future months.

 

Repeat the process

The whole point of this system is to follow through consistently.

It’s about routinizing these daily productivity habits so they become a part of your day.

I have now been doing this, every month, for over 13months and it has literally changed my life (I feel like I say that a lot but it is true. Lol)

Being consistent with this process and having a visual way to track your progress means that in no time you would have formed these habits, further cementing the opportunity of having a great day, no matter what.

My Seven daily wins

1. Prayer – For me, prayer is the most important way to win the day. It is a necessity, not in the doctrinal sense but because I continually need the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit. I am hopeless without him. M checklist was a way to intentionally inculcate prayer  into my day rather than having sporadic days of intentional prayers and other days of ‘drive-by’ prayers. This is usually for 15-20 mins each day.

2. Daily devotions – the second thing I do every day is to spend time meditating on God’s word. I try to read a devotional every day. I often select from the thousands of devotionals available on Youversion. Though there are days where I am led to read through a particular chapter or book of the Bible. The most important thing is that I spend time in the word.

3. Active prayers – You may be wondering why I have a second slot for prayers. I do love praying but there was something else I didn’t always want to do – exercise. So I put these two together. Active prayers simply mean that I’m moving around while praying. I usually take a prayer walk. Definitely a win-win. While it’s a relatively mild exercise, it’s still better than nothing.  I usually do this for about 15-20 mins per day.

4. Journaling – Ah! You probably know how much I love journaling. I used to be a sceptic until my much-needed conversion. I have now been journaling for over 2years. Having this on my checklist further reinforces my need to journal.

5. Reading – Another activity I love. I know I have shared a bit about how I read over 100 books in a year (will hopefully do a full post on it soon), so having this as a daily win, helped me foster my reading habit. If you’re also trying to read more then you should include this. I have to read for at least an hour each day, to get a tick for that day.

6. Learning – ‘If you’re not learning, you’re dying.’ Said by someone, who may be me. But seriously, life is so much better when we are learning something each day. I will confess that this has been the hardest one to follow but I have refused to remove it knowing how important it is to my growth and development.

You get to choose what you want to learn but I will suggest that you start off with an area of interest or something you have always wanted to learn. This will help you build momentum and of course, help you stick with it when the going gets tough.

7. Healthy meal – In a previous post, I shared how God called me out on my unhealthy eating habits and my journey to changing my interaction with food. One of the daily wins is to have at least one healthy meal each day. This is certainly a win but I must confess that it took a few months of seeing the mostly empty checklist boxes (where a tick should have been) to do better. I’m happy to report that I now have consistent 25-28 days of eating a healthy meal. Progress!

Conclusion – create your daily productivity habits

I am so happy that I get to share these concepts with you. I know how much they have changed my life and I can’t wait to learn how you do.

But most importantly, remember that this process is about creating what works for you. Don’t make a list of things you think you should be doing but things you want to be doing to live a happier and more intentional life.

I believe these daily productivity habits can help you boost your productivity and happiness.

All the best, sis and do share your thoughts in the comments.