My Daily Routine (and a full guide to design yours)

I’m a Virgo.

(Born on September 22nd.)

So, I love, love, love structure.

Like my fellow Virgos — the stereotypical perfectionists who relish logic, practicality, serenity, and structure — I can’t imagine an ideal life without something to anchor me.

To-do lists.

Systems.

Plans.

These are my intuitive vibe.

Though I made to-dos and plans for ages, I lacked the last piece to merge them; a system for my systems; a routine.

My intuition always cried for it, but an unknown force held me down. Later, I realised this “force” was a combination of fears and frustration from inaction caused by those fears. I created my first routine shortly after understanding my mental block.

That was 4 years ago.

Since then, I’ve tweaked it 400+ times.

At first, I started my days at 5 am — because… 5 am club!

But when it started feeling off, I experimented with 1 am, 2 am, and even the dawn of the witching hour; 3 am, before I landed on the sweet spot: 4:30 am.

(Yes, I get 8 hours of shuteye.)

(And yes, my bedtime is 8:30 pm because I’m a grandpa at 20 years of age. More about my unconventional routine later.)

Since adding a routine to my life, I’ve been more productive and creative.

Success comes from a succession of actions. You can’t achieve this without structure.

So be you a Virgo or not, you need a routine.

If you hate routines or hate following one, I understand. I’ve lived both lives and talked to others with similar experiences.

So welcome to the last guide you’ll need to design your ideal routine (and lifestyle) — one that makes you feel good and do good.

First, let’s uncover why most people hate routines.

Or better put, let’s uproot the fear that keeps many — like my younger self — from crafting routines.

The Mis-associations Of Routines

Chances are you felt triggered when I said you need a routine.

Yet you are still reading because you are open-minded.

I see you and I acknowledge you.

But even if you prefer spontaneity over structure, I guarantee you need a routine.

PS: You want it too.

You love order. It makes you feel responsible. Competent. Complete. But you hate what your heart yearns for because someone soiled it.

No, someTHING.

The School System.

If you’re reading this, you’ve spent at least a decade under its walls — and you probably don’t like something about it, but you can’t yet articulate it.

I’m your friend, so allow me to toss you some hints.

• The seats lined up in rows.

• The bells that dictate your life’s purpose.

• The raise of the hand to allow you (maybe) speak or take a leak. (Ooh, that rhymed.)

• And the worst end of the stick, the ugly, matching uniforms.

Do you get it yet?

No pressure if you didn’t. The next quote and point will give you the Aha. So hold on tight. I’m about to cook.

Like we have physiological needs — food, shelter, clothing, and sex — to survive, we have psychological needs to thrive. They are:

• Autonomy: the need for freedom.

• Competency: the need for control.

• Relatability: the need for recognition.

Pause. Take a moment to visualise everything you like doing.

Not what your mind wants — the pleasure gained from activities that aid your survival, comfort, and continuation of your genetic line.

I mean what you (the ‘self’ in ‘yourself’) crave — the fulfilment (kinda like the deeper, longer-lasting happiness) that comes from actualising (developing), being (presence), and transcending (helping your species develop — as I’m doing to you right now).

You like doing the thing because it matches your psychological needs.

And your favourite things fulfil more psychological needs than any other thing.

If you enjoy drawing more than running, chances are:

• You prefer to draw than run. (Autonomy)

• You draw better than you run. (Competency)

• You hang around more artists than runners. (Relatability)

Your level of autonomy is directly proportional to your level of competency. You feel more competent doing what you want than doing what someone tells you to do.

The school system is the best source of relatability for a child. Kids are paired with other kids who resemble them externally and, sometimes, internally. Yet only 1% of students make the most of school beyond 5th grade (aka Primary 5 or age 10-11 level of schooling). Why?

Schools, like books, cater to the widest potential audience. This is great for attracting high attendance and teaching the basics. But beyond that, it’s harmful.

The curriculum assigned to 99% of people doesn’t align with their desired life.

They, like I assume you do too, want to achieve success on their terms. Genuine greatness. They want to go where no one else has gone to get what no one else will get.

But they can’t.

They’re not adults yet — first physiologically, then mentally — so they fall in line.

They graduate, get an unfulfilling job, retire at 65, and soon lay in the centre of their deathbed, wondering what the meaning of their life even was.

See, while the school system is the best source of relatability (for kids under 11), it provides little autonomy and the accompanying competency (for kids over 11).

Studies show American teenagers hate school 70% of the time (tiny autonomy and competency) — and during the other 30%, they aren’t even in the classroom (abundant relatability).

You don’t hate routines.

You hate school’s routine. And since routines remind you of that negative experience, you hate them too.

Like money, a routine isn’t evil. It’s not good either. It just is.

The association you attach to it gives it a definition.

It also applies to life. Life has no meaning until you uncover your purpose.

Or maybe you’re part of the 1% who liked the school routine but still hate routines. I bet it’s because you copied a millionaire’s routine, expecting to become a millionaire in 30 days, only to get disappointed and blame routines.

Or you spent many years crafting the perfect routine but gave up because you never found it and believe you never will.

I’ll show you how to create your ideal routine in a bit, but we must first agree on one thing:

You want and need a routine.

It structures your day, but a self-generated one doesn’t imprison you — like the school routine. Rather, it liberates you. It blocks your most valuable assets — time, energy, and attention — to tasks that get you closer to your goals. Without one, your days have no direction, no results, and no way to alter course.

You must create your own walls.

After all, an open oven bakes no bread.

With a routine, time works for you. Without one, you work for time.

I believe in you to make the right choice.

When you’re ready, let me show you how to build your ideal routine and show you mine shortly after.

How To Build Your Routine

Step 1: Paint Your Vision

Without a goal, you have no direction.

Without direction, your life has no meaning.

Without meaning, your life is pretty much over.

Most people die when they’re 27 and are buried when they’re 72 because they don’t have goals. Scratch that. Man is a goal-loving creature, and it’s impossible to exist without a goal. The miserable masses have goals, but they didn’t pick them. Their parents, schools, or the government assigned one to them. For this reason, they are miserable.

Mama knows what’s best for you to survive.

But only you know what’s best for you to thrive.

To enjoy your life, you need a big, self-generated goal. One that makes your fingers twitch, heart race, and mind ache.

You’ll also want to have a goal for every area of your life (so you don’t end up 1/4th of your potential).

• Mind — Consume, Contemplate, Communicate

• Body — Eat, Exercise, Ease

• Spirit — Source (God), Self, Society

• Business — Produce, Promote, Pilot

Some prompts to get your mental wheel spinning:

1. What do I want to achieve before I die?

2. What does my ideal day look like? (To the minutes)

3. What is my ideal job?

4. What do I want to look like?

5. What is my ideal environment?

6. Who do I want as my ideal spouse/partner?

   • What are their values?

   • What are their curiosities?

   • What are their capacities?

   • How do they make me better? (And vice versa.)

   • Do they genuinely root for me?

7. Kids? How many do I want? What values do I want to instil in them until they’re ready to create their own path?

To clarify things further, you need a hierarchy of goals — again, for all aspects of life.

• 1-lifetime goals

• 1-decade goals

• 1-year goals

• 1-quarter goals

• 1-month goals

• 1-week goals

• 1-day goals

• 1-moment goals

Sometimes uncovering what you want is hard.

Uncovering what we don’t want, however, is easy because our brains spot negatives faster. Good things are nice, but bad things can kill you, so the brain prioritises the bad.

So if you don’t know what you want (from imagination), list what you don’t want (from observation) and invert it to find what you want.

It’ll take time to fill this, but you’ll enjoy each second while you’re at it.

Write and paste these somewhere you’ll always see — a mirror, a wall, a vision board, or on your phone’s lock screen. This will be your permanent repellant for low motivation.

Step 2: Identify your actions

With the worthy ideal in mind, you need a stack of actions to materialise your goals.

You can decipher this with a Google search or study what your heroes did to become, well, your heroes.

But don’t hunt for tactics. Look for the principles.

You want to carve your own path and not become a washed-up version of someone else, right? To do this, you must discover the principles, play with them until you understand them, and create your own way of living. This is purposeful living; radical independence; complete autonomy.

If you want to make money, don’t pick dropshipping because it’s hot. One day it won’t be and something else will reign, but you will remain. (Another rhyme!) Principles are evergreen. Tactics are not.

If you want to make money, figure out the principles of making money.

• Find a starving crowd (Market research)

• Build a solution to their problem (Product)

• Create the terms for mutual exchange (Offer)

• Promote your solution (Market)

• Optional: Help people make a buying decision (Sales)

Then, if you want to make a living from purposeful living rather than selling your soul just to survive, create a solution to a problem you once had and sell it.

That’s it.

That’s the formula for building a business you enjoy.

You must understand yourself and your unique stack of curiosities and capacities to do this.

Understanding your human design chart, MBTI personality type, big 5 personality type, enneagram, brain type, zodiac signs, and unique portfolio of intelligence is important for this reason.

I didn’t make this section actionable because if I can tell you what to do, I can tell others and you can be replaced.

I’m not here to create another school system.

So please understand I love you when I say figure this out on your own.

I’m rooting for you from the sidelines, though :)

Step 3: Synthesise everything into a routine

Routines turn your daily actions into habits.

Create a routine that helps you hit your quarterly goals in their order of priority. But don’t spend over 6 hours in any one area. Your depth of focus typically tanks after that point and you end up doing low-quality work.

Each routine is different, but here are a few recommendations.

• 8 hours for sleep

• 2 hours for walking

• 2-4 hours for deep work

• 1 hour for learning

• 1 hour for merging your ideas (like writing, speaking, or designing)

• and some time with God

You can set this up on the Google Calendar app or simply make many daily alarms on your phone.

My Daily Routine

Please, don’t copy this.

While we look alike externally, we’re not even close internally.

Your unique combination of genes, race, perspectives, experiences, genuine curiosities and capacities, fingerprints, personality, brain type, and zodiac signs has never existed before and never will after you die.

The word “special” isn’t strong enough to describe you.

You’re a 1/0.

And I am too.

I don’t want you to copy me because if you do, you’ll never find fulfilment. Your energy will also attract other copy-pasters who’ll attract others, and then we’ll create another school system no one wants.

Create a routine that genuinely suits you. And there’s only one person who knows you best and has your interests at heart with no ulterior motives: you.

Use my routine as a model — one to emulate, not duplicate. (Rhymed again!)

04:30 - 05:00: Read the Bible, pray, drink 1L of water, and chant positive affirmations for 5 minutes (yes, I’m delusional).

05:00 - 06:30: Gratitude journaling + Brain dump + Outline writing for the day

06:30 - 07:00: Morning Walk

07:00 - 09:00: Deep Work I

09:00 - 10:00: Eat a light breakfast + shower

10:00 - 12:00: Deep Work II

12:00 - 12:30: Meditate

12:30 - 13:00: Lunch

13:00 - 16:00: Afternoon walk + Gym (Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri, Sat) OR Afternoon walk + Read (Wed, Sun)

16:00 - 18:00: Network or second deep work

18:00 - 18:30: Dinner

18:30 - 20:00: Shut down rituals (evening walk to reflect, tidy room, and shower)

20:00: Night Night

I follow this routine to the tee, except for Sundays when I work less — for creativity reasons.

I’ll share why I do these things, and in the order, in upcoming letters. This one is now too long haha.

Control Or Be Controlled

I’ve changed this routine 400+ times not because I’m confused, but because I’m evolving.

After creating my first routine, I hated my life for a long time.

It lacked meaning because I didn’t resonate with the structure I created.

It wasn’t until I tweaked it that my days had more colour.

Stick to something for a while. But swap it when you find something better — easier, faster, cheaper, or a combination.

You create the routine to help you control time, not so it controls you.

You aren’t tied to it.

• Create one.

• Stick with it for 7 days.

• Reflect on how it went.

• If it got you closer to your goals and was enjoyable, keep it. If it doesn’t match both criteria, change it.

The future of work is play.

There is no game without rules.

And there is no fun when someone else creates the rules for us.

A self-generated routine kills both birds with one sling.

I hope this helps you as much as it helped me.

Keep playing, player.

— Francis