Wake up early. Get some sunlight early in the morning. Eat a good breakfast. Walk around, instead of slouching on your chair. Don’t snack too much. Cook and eat healthy. Exercise. Read. Work Hard.
Be greteful or pray or meditate or stay mindful, depending on what you believe in.
I still find these advice ringing in my ears.
Growing up in a military family in Bangladesh, discipline was key. My loving parents tried their best to bring me up as a disciplined man of value.
Today, I wish I could say that I resonate strongly with the advice above. I don’t.
Instead, I remember them because growing up these were the bane of my existence. I ignored them, opting instead to game, play football, or even worse, scroll mindlessly on my phone.
After some significant life changes in the past 2 years, these timeless advice are coming back to me. Having incorporated a few of these into my daily routine, I was instantly overwhelmed with regret.
No, not because they changed my life for the worse, but because they have drastically improved my life for the better.
Only if I listened to their advice, instead of putting my blindfolds on.
Oh well, better late than never, I guess.
In this blog post, I will discuss how I incorporated timeless advice from my parents into my daily routine, to make my days more focused, productive and mindful.
There are 3 concepts or principles I want to outline, before listing our a literal timeline of how I plan on going about my day.
Anchor Moments — Specific, regular events or activities that provide structure and stability to a routine
Intentional Mindfulness — Purposefully paying attention to the present moment and having an intention behind every action or activity
Working in Focus Blocks — Dedicate specific work blocks dedicated towards meetings, low-focus execution tasks or deep-focus longer horizon tasks
I have found anchor moments key to having a day that you can be proud of.
These can be anything:
Eating out vs cooking
Going to the gym vs binge-watching a TV show
Eating fast food vs healthy food
Leaving your phone in your bedroom vs keeping it in personal all the time
The point is: these pivotal moments can act as anchors that will either catapult your day to success, or put you on a downward spiral of lazy mindless activities.
By being intentional about these anchor moments, mindfully deciding what to do next, and working in focus blocks to differentiate between the different priorities of work, I plan on having a mindful, intentional and productive day.
For a practicing Muslim such as myself, there’s nothing better than my daily prayers that can act as good anchor moments throughout the day.
As Muslims, we are asked to pray 5 times a day during designated times from sunrise to after sunset.
Not only do prayers act as anchor moments, they are also great times for reflections, being grateful, and getting a broader perspective. It can almost recharge the rest of your day, when done with intention.
Start the day with morning prayer (or Fajr)
Spend 30-45 minutes reading a book
Go out for a walk or to the mosque for some reflection
90-minutes of deep work towards programming, writing or creating content
Start work day as an engineering manager at Yelp
Front load all team and other stakeholder meetings
Spend 30-45 minutes on low focus Yelp work
Pray Duhr prayer
Go to the gym
Take more Yelp meetings
Do some higher-level planning deep work (when no meetings)
No meetings, only focus Yelp work
Spend high quality focus time on impactful priority Yelp work
Pray Asr prayer
Cooking or eating healthy
Spending time with friends and family
Pray Maghrib prayer
Turn all the screens off
Pray Isha prayer
Start sleep preparations
Okay folks, that’s all for today.
If you have read it so far, thank you for your time. I hope you found it valuable.
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