One of the best success habits you can develop is to get into a routine. It doesn’t matter whether you work 8 hours a day or 3 hours a day— have a routine and get your work done.
Set work hours for yourself. Wake up in the morning and get something productive done right away. Focus when you’re working.
If you work from home, tell your family when your work hours are. Expect to not be bothered while you work. Remember— you’re not playing in business and it isn’t just a hobby; you’re developing a real, lasting business here and your family should respect that.
It helps to have a solid routine that stays the same every workday. The more automated and standard your routine is, the less you have to think about the little stuff.
You have a lot to think about and a lot going on every day. It takes energy to think about what you should do next every day. It’s exhausting.
When you have a routine, it becomes a whole lot less exhausting. Every day, work on content, traffic, relationship building, client and customer generation, list building, and whatever else you have going on. That’s a lot. So, get into a routine to make it easier on yourself.
Know when you’re going to start working and when you’re going to stop working. That part’s important too. Successful people do often work long, hard hours.
I think you’d be surprised, though, that many people who are at the top of their game make sure they get a full eight hours of sleep and they know when to power the computer down. They also know when to delegate tasks so they don’t have to work as hard while still being very successful.
Figure out what you want to spend your time doing every day and when you want to do it. Focus while you’re working and separate yourself from work when you’re not working.
Allow For Creativity and Pattern Interrupts
With all the talk about consistency and routines, there has to be a lot of room for creativity as well.
Successful people aren’t afraid to think outside the box and do things differently than everyone else.
Even though you’ll be turning the work off at a set time every day, you’ll never be able to turn off your creativity once you get it going— and you won’t want to.
There’s a reason people often say they get their best ideas during their commute or in the shower. Even if you aren’t actively trying to be creative, the ideas will come to you because your subconscious will have been working on those things the whole time.
I suggest you keep a notebook near you so you can write your ideas down as they come to you. You aren’t technically working during these times, but you are allowing yourself to be open to inspiration whenever it strikes.
When you allow yourself to be more creative and to collect ideas for your business, you allow yourself to be more successful. Maybe there’s a big problem you’ve been mulling over for your business but you can’t seem to crack the code. You might find that the answer comes to you in the off-hours.
Sometimes, it’s a good idea to just let yourself take a break when you’re really stressed out and can’t find the answers you need. You’ll save yourself a lot of time and energy when you pay attention to when you need a break. There’s a reason successful people often take amazing vacations— they need it and in the end it gives them the energy to become even more successful.
You also need those pattern interrupts to keep things interesting. Try things you haven’t tried before. Constantly learn from new, successful people and do things different than you’re used to.
Don’t be afraid to hire people to do the things you don’t like to do or don’t have the time to do. Don’t be afraid to find new tools to automate where it makes sense. You might be surprised as to how much more you can earn if you don’t try to do every little thing yourself the longhand way.