Creating a Routine to Help You Beast Your Week

t's no easy task to become the best version of yourself in and outside the workplace. You need motivation, energy, and the right set of habits to maximize your output. Here's how you can create a routine to help you churn out more high-quality work as you seek to beast your week.  The recipe to success begins with discipline. You can have all the drive, creativity, and passion in the world, but you're wasting your energy if you don't have the necessary focus behind these attributes. And to gain this focus, you gotta form a routine of daily habits if you wanna beast your week.

Form Successful Daily Habits to Crush It

Wake up early

To perform day in and day out, you need to stop hitting the snooze button and get out of bed. The earlier you wake up, the better you'll be as you'll get a head start on your day. This move sets the tone for the rest of your day. We're not saying you need to wake up at 3:45 a.m. like Apple CEO Tim Cook, but waking up before 7 a.m. can go a long way.

Develop good sleeping patterns  

The key to crushing it is to feel good. And to feel good, you need to get enough sleep. Many of us make the mistake of staying up later than we should, and we feel it the next day. Being tired affects our performance, our creativity, and ultimately, the impact we have at our jobs. Get eight hours of sleep at night, and your body, work, and the boss will all thank you.  

‍Write your goals down  

When you head to work, you need to have some idea of what you're going to do. Things may emerge, but you should still keep in mind the tasks you plan to tackle that day. Write down three priority tasks that you plan on doing that day. It will give you a sense of direction, and it will also provide you with energy in the form of motivation. Plus, neuroscience shows that you have a better chance of remembering these tasks if you write them.  

‍Create an exercise routine  

It's easy to find yourself exhausted when you wake up, or even after a long day of work. However, it's good to balance mental work with physical exertion. Find a workout that works or you, and stick to it for at least three days a week. Remember, working out can be fun. You can likely find everything from hot yoga to boxing lessons and intramural sports at a gym near you.  

Patterns to Maximize your Productivity

Control your calendar.

Are you only using your calendar to schedule meetings? If you do, there will be plenty of open blocks of time on your calendar, which your co-workers may see as being “free time.” We recommend you fill up those blocks with tasks you want to complete because doing so will give your day more structure. Prioritize more pressing tasks, schedule them accordingly, and you will increase your productivity.

Learn how to say ''NO''  

You have a busy life, and chances are there's always a pile of work staring you down. It's important to be a team player and help out co-workers if you've got some free time. However, there are times when you need to focus on what you're doing, and you need every minute in your day to make that pile smaller. Learn how to say the word "no" in a professional way when this happens. You can mention that you're busy or that the task at hand is a priority for you at the moment. If your boss asks you for something, you can answer by asking them what current task you should leave for later if they'd like you to work on something else.  

‍Let fires burn  

Sometimes it's essential to let some fires burn, just ask LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and entrepreneur Chris Yeh. In their book Blitzscaling, they talk about the importance of prioritizing. In other words, you should solve the most pressing issues now, and leave the smaller ones in the backburner for the time being. Let those small fires burn, and take care of them later.  

‍Listen to music for focus  

The office can be a distracting place, but it doesn't have to be. You can concentrate by listening to music, ideally tunes with no lyrics. Nevertheless, not every style of music works for every person. This website provides "scientifically optimized music to help you focus." They curate music playlists for you based on your brain type. The organization pushes you to reach your full potential with the right songs for your personality.

Avoid Distractions and You'll Go Farther

Limit your smartphone use

This one is a no-brainer, but it's tough to follow through with it. Throughout the workday, you should turn off smartphone notifications and put your device on "do not disturb." Constantly getting pinged only serves as a distraction, pulling you away from the task at hand. Multitasking doesn't really help. You'll be able to do more work, and more high-quality work, when all your focus is on one thing, then another, and so on.

Limit your social media use  

Facebook, the Gram, tweeting… they're all distractions (unless you're a social media manager). We've all gone down the rabbit hole of going on one of these sites to see what your friends are up to. You start with your best friend's status, and next thing you know you're reading gluten-free cheesecake recipes and looking at your third cousin's weekend pictures from Myrtle Beach. Try using social media for only 15 minutes a day to spike your productivity.  

‍Learn to delegate  

There's plenty of work to go around, so don't think you need to do it all. Get to know your co-workers and find out their strengths. When your plate is overflowing, you can pass on tasks to someone who is competent at a particular craft. Similarly, be willing to take on someone else's load if your day is lighter and they're drowning in the pile.  

‍Schedule time to procrastinate  

You're not always going to be focused and energized because you need breaks. Instead of leaving procrastination up to chance, take charge of it, and plan it out. Between each lengthy task, set up 10 minutes of planned procrastination. Check messages, clean your desk, or chit-chat with co-workers. These breaks help you refuel, which give you the necessary energy and focus on doing the next thing.  

The Takeaway

The path to success is not an easy one, but you can make life much simpler for yourself by making the right moves. You can beast your week by developing habits of discipline, building patterns to maximize your productivity, and using tools near you to avoid getting distracted. Once you implement these practices into your daily routine, you will be able to beast your week year-round.  This post was originally featured in Mogul Millennial.

We teamed up with Mogul Millennial for their new series, All About the Benjamins. Mogul Millennial is a digital media platform redefining business, startup, finance, career development, and tech for Black millennials. Through smart, savvy journalism, market-driven content, innovative products, and services, we've attracted a loyal and highly engaged readership for the community we serve.