Seven Habits of an Effective Evening Routine

How will you feel at the end of the day? And what would others think if I started making these perfect days last for weeks and months? What will your career, social relationships, and physical appearance be like a year from now, when you've lived 365 perfect days?

The French poet Paul Valéry says, “The best way to achieve your dreams is to get up early.” So let's wake up and make our dreams come true.

Here's how to enjoy that perfect day into the next by changing up what you do tonight. Here are seven habits for an effective evening routine:

1. Processing.
2. Planning.
3. Setup.
4. Self-development.
5. Your physical environment.
6. Relax.
7. Drink water.

7 Habits for an effective evening routine

1. Processing

Processing is about summarizing your day. What were your Most Important Tasks (MITs) for that day? If you didn't know, this is the first obstacle to your perfect day. Without clearly defined goals, your energy will be spent on many activities to find meaning in them.

Think of a magnifying glass in the sun. If you focus the light on a small enough point, most things will catch fire. Therefore, if you focus your energy on a small enough point, your work and life will start to burn positively. As you identify your 1 to 3 most important tasks, ask yourself the following three questions:

What happened well?"

• "What didn't go well?"
• "Are there any obstacles I need to address?".

Reviewing your projects is a way to not think about them at night. For a deeper process, close your eyes and pretend you've recorded the entire day. and take your mental recording and review it entirely in your imagination in a little while; five minutes is enough. Doing this type of meditative practice will give you the end you want for the day.

During those five minutes, you'll remember the tasks you forgot to do, such as a forgotten phone call, an apology you should have given, or an email you should have written. So memorize these thoughts. Writing down your unfinished tasks will allow you to finish the day without worrying about forgetting to do something or feeling uninterested in your responsibilities.

Other treatment ideas include journaling, reviewing your values, or taking a quiet walk. Whatever treatment method you choose, be sure to review your entire day so that disturbing thoughts don't keep you up at night.

2. Planning

Plan for the next day. This is done by writing down 1 to 3 important tasks that you must do the next day, and your most important tasks are your activities of the highest value. It will help you a lot to define your most important tasks in your work, family, and life in general.

Most of the time, your most important task is the job that you do alone. If the job is done well, it will make a real difference. Note that you will have both personal and work-related tasks. Therefore, it is important to maintain a balance in both areas of life. If one party is suffering, it will affect the other.

After you have identified your most important tasks, you will also need to review any possible tasks, meetings, or blockages that you will have to plan for related to your most important tasks. Write a list or set strategic reminders for your tasks, and make sure your meetings are on your calendar.

The important thing is to have a plan. There is not enough time to do everything you want to do. There are always so many books to read, places to visit, projects to do, and tasks to do. And when you begin to realize that you will never finish all your work, you have two options:

• Working nonstop to get everything done.
• Determine your priorities and most important tasks.

The second option is preferable.

3. Setting

prepare for the next day. Your body is like a machine that uses rest, food, and water to generate energy. Every day, your body needs that energy to survive, think well, do well, and feel happy. In order to be most productive, you must conserve your mental and emotional energy and expend it only on your most important tasks.

Mental and emotional energy levels are highest at the start of the day after a good night's sleep.

Every choice you make consumes a portion of your energy. As your energy dwindles, each decision will become more difficult. Eventually, your overworked brain will look for shortcuts. There are two types of shortcuts: Either the brain chooses to act impulsively rather than thinking about the consequences, or it avoids making the final decision.

Often, avoiding choices leads to bigger problems in the long run. Mental fatigue affects you more negatively than physical fatigue. This is because you don't realize you're tired, and limited mental energy explains why we tend to fail at making decisions at the end of the day. After 12 hours or more, the energy levels in your willpower reservoir are empty, and both the important and non-important decisions made that day are used up.

You cannot make decision after decision without paying the price. However, there is a trick to conserving your energy: make fewer decisions. The fewer decisions you have to make, the less emotional and mental energy you expend.

This energy can be channeled into your most important tasks. An example of decision-making can be seen in businessman Steve Jobs unique choice of clothing. Every morning, he wore a black T-shirt and jeans. He invested this time in creating and successfully marketing products for his company, Apple.

Other cases of keeping time can be seen with CEOs of major organizations. Most CEOs have gatekeepers, usually office managers or personal assistants, who will deal with distractions and demands that may distract them from their work.

With fewer distractions to make decisions, they can focus their energy on their most important task, which is to run and grow their organization. So what if you don't want to wear the same outfit every day and you don't have a personal assistant yet? How can you save your mental and emotional energy? The solution is easy. Make many of your smaller decisions the night before. To do this, you can:

• Prepare your lunch or fine-tune your lunch plans.
• Prepare healthy snacks.
• Arrange your wardrobe, including:
  • work clothes.
  • exercise clothes.
• Your supplies, such as:
  • your watch.
  • a pen.
  • Business cards.
  • sunglasses.
• Organizing your work tools and preparing them for the next day.
• Set the coffee maker to a specific time.

In addition to saving mental energy, you can also save time by grouping all of these tasks together. For example, it will be easy to prepare all your Sunday snacks or choose this week's outfit in one go.

4. Self-development

Look at your most important tasks. Is there any training you can get to do it right? Will learning fast typing help you be more efficient in your work? Perhaps taking an online course on communication will improve your ability to present your ideas.

Perhaps you are a bit of an insomniac, and you need to learn the techniques to fall asleep quickly and get sound sleep. This is so that you can be focused and clear-minded during the day.

Whatever ability you want to improve, set aside 15 minutes of your evening routine to improve that ability. The time you spend making yourself more efficient at your important tasks will be compensated exponentially by increased skill and efficiency.

5. Your physical environment

Look at your room. What kind of person would live in this kind of environment? Artist, nature lover, or stylish person? And what kind of person do you strive to be? As the saying goes, "Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world."

Create the kind of environment in which a person takes care of themselves. Arrange your room now to become a clean environment that makes way for better sleep. And if your bedroom or living room doesn't express who you are, use your personal growth time to change that.

6. Relax

You've tackled your day, planned the most important tasks for the next day, prepared the little things that will keep you energized, taken the self-development steps, and created a comfortable physical environment. After doing the five things mentioned above, you will find yourself in a relaxed state. So enjoy this time and don't think about work. A perfect evening gets you to bed early enough to get a full rest the next day.

If you get up for work at 6 a.m., you should go to bed no later than 11 p.m. to get the minimum 7 hours of sleep your body needs for peak performance (ideally, you need to get 8–9 hours).

This may sound like an old man's condition to some people, but you will be very focused and productive if you get the right amount of rest, and you will feel good too.

6.1. Turn off all electronic devices

TVs, computers, tablets, and anything else with an attractive, glowing screen can keep you up all night. To get into the habit, you may need to set an alarm on your phone to remind yourself of the electronic curfew. 10 p.m. is a good time to stick to this rule. You should also consider setting your mobile phone to Do Not Disturb mode.

6.2. Comfortable lighting

Turn off all bright overhead lights and use shaded lights to light your home. This allows your body to release the hormones that start the sleep cycle. Candles can also be a relaxing and romantic way to sleep.

And if your job or side activity requires you to work later in the evening, download F.lux, a free program that changes your computer's color spectrum to mimic sunlight patterns in your area.

6.3. Soothing activities such as hot drinks, oil, baths, or incense

On high-stress days, an additional relaxation practice you can include in your evening routine is a warm Epsom salts bath to draw out stress-related toxins from your body. Drinking decaffeinated beverages such as chamomile, valerian, or lavender, while not scientifically proven to have calming powers, is used as a nighttime ritual for many. There are also essential oils and incense that have sleep-inducing properties.

7. Drink water

The final step to your very effective evening ritual is to drink 16 ounces, that is, 500 ml, of water right before bed, then put a 20-ounce water bottle, that is, 600 ml, next to the bed.

Here's why: 16 ounces at bedtime will hydrate you and act as a natural stimulant, making you get up to go to the bathroom the next morning. The 20-ounce container by your bed will serve as motivation to drink water first thing in the morning. The benefits of waking up to drink water are many:

7.1. Cell regeneration

drinking water first thing in the morning increases the rate of production of new blood cells. More red blood cells will carry more oxygen to your brain; This allows for greater alertness and focus.

7.2. keeps you healthy

Water flushes out toxins from the body, balances the lymphatic system, and lymph nodes help you fight infections.

7.3. Colon purification

Drinking water on an empty stomach cleanses the colon, which facilitates the absorption of nutrients.

In conclusion

These seven habits will prepare you for the perfect day. These are the days when you efficiently accomplish everything that is really important so that you can enjoy your life. The ultimate goal for everyone is to live a long, happy, and healthy life.

Processing your day, planning and preparing for the next day, making time for personal growth, creating a pleasant physical environment, relaxing, and drinking water will help you achieve your goals.