Morning And Evening Rituals

Rituals.

Who doesn’t love them? The fire, the blood-letting, summoning of demons…

Oh, wait, wrong email list. My bad.

Rituals Rituals

Defined

A daily ritual, simply put, is an activity or set of activities defined by you that you will not deviate from. This is commonly used to define your day or to work on the things that are most important to you. For most of us, our days are driven by distraction: your interrupting boss, a client that seems to have an “emergency” every day (side tip: fire these clients immediately), kids, school, spouses… the list goes on, but I don’t need to tell you that, right?

The point is there is always someone competing for your time. This can leave you feeling like you never have the opportunity to do “me” things or do the things that you know would ultimately improve the quality of your life.

Enter the daily ritual.

The daily ritual is time set aside, however much time you can, that absolutely, positively will not be interrupted. If God himself comes down from Heaven and demands your presence, he’ll need to have a seat, and you’ll be with him shortly.

It’s that important.

The time of day isn’t as important as having a defined time. For me, I use the early morning hours. No one likes to get up early, so my ritual time is almost guaranteed to be uninterrupted. If the evening or late at night works better for you, perfect! You can even change the time later if it’s not working for you; this isn’t an airline: there are no change fees.

Examples

Many admirable people have claimed their daily rituals are the keys to success.

Benjamin Franklin started his day at 5 am, asking himself “what good shall I do this day?”

Pablo Picasso locked himself in his studio to paint every day at 2 pm.

Mozart composed from 11 pm to 1 am every night.

Stephen King starts writing each day at 8 am sharp.

If it worked for them, it could work for us, too, right?

Objectives

There are several objectives with daily rituals:

  • Identify the most important task of the day
  • Build in time to work on that task
  • Add structure to a chaotic life

Obstacles

A lot of people think they don’t have time for rituals. “My day is already busy; how can I add something else?” Many of you have commented on that as you struggle to finish your daily reading and workout. Here’s how:

For 24 hours, write down what you are doing every 15 minutes. It’s a shitload of writing; I get it. It’s worth it.

The next day, look at those tasks and ask yourself did this task improve my life? Ruthlessly eliminate anything that doesn’t. Granted, things like a job take a large chunk of your time, and you can’t do anything about that. But what about that half-hour you spent on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok? What about Netflix?

Decide what is important to you and eliminate the rest.

You’ll feel better about it.

My Day

Here’s what my day looks like. Some days I deviate, but 90% of the time, this is it. There is no distinction between weekdays and weekends.

4:30 - 4:45 - I wake up, most of the time before my alarm goes off 15 minutes of gratitude & visualization using a Tony Robbins audio track

5:00 - 6:45 - gym/workout/stretching

6:45 - 7:30 - coffee, write in my journal, read my ten pages for the day, meditate, review my tasks for the day

7:30 - 8:30 - creative work. This is when I’m most creative, so I do things I want to do here. No client work allowed. Side projects or personal projects only (like writing 45 daily emails for this challenge)

8:30 - 12:30 - client or income-generating activities

12:30 - 1:00 - 20-minute nap

1:00 - 4:30 - client or income-generating activities

4:30 - 6:00 - dinner + cleanup + 1 episode of a tv show

6:00 - 8:00 - hobbies, leisure, projects: i.e., whatever I want

8:00 - 8:30 - review the day’s progress, set tasks for tomorrow

8:30 - all electronics off, stare into the abyss, self-degradation over my inability to spend 30 minutes without electronics

9:00 - bedtime

Ok, so that’s pretty regimented… but yours doesn’t have to be. Start small and make adjustments as you go.

Ben Franklin’s Day

I’ve been reading Ben Franklin’s Autobiography. In it, I found his daily ritual plan and thought it worth sharing here:
5:00 - Rise, wash, and address

6:00 - Powerful Goodness! (exclamation point his)

7:00 - Contrive the day’s Question: What good business shall I do this day?

Resolution of the day

Prosecute the present, study, and breakfast

8:00 - Work

12:00 - Read, or overlook my accounts and dine

2:00 - Work

6:00 Put things in their order.

Question: What good have I done today?

7:00 - Supper

8:00 - Music or diversion or conversation

9:00 - Examination of the day

10:00 - Sleep

Today’s Tasks

Don’t forget to complete today’s tasks for the challenge.

  • Drink 1 gallon of water
  • Workout for 45 minutes
  • Read ten pages from your book
  • Stick to your meal plan

Once completed, head to the tracking site and mark them as completed to track your progress for the challenge. Tomorrow we’ll introduce meditation and bust some mega-myths about why you can’t do it.