Top 10 Strategies to Design
an Extraordinary Daily Routine

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #546: Top 10 Strategies to Design an Extraordinary Daily Routine

Jeff Sanders
My ideal day begins at sunrise.

The birds you're hearing now are the exact ones I wake up to right in my backyard.

I recorded these birds recently on an early Saturday morning, just before I set out for a hike on a trail here in Nashville.

I know how my ideal day begins.

Do you?

This is the 5AM Miracle, episode number 546.

The top 10 strategies to design an extraordinary daily routine.

Good morning and welcome to the 5AM Miracle.

I am Jeff Sanders and this is the podcast dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast.

My goal is to help you bounce out of bed with enthusiasm, create powerful lifelong habits, and tackle your grandest goals with extraordinary energy.

I am a keynote speaker and corporate trainer specializing in delivering high-energy, interactive, and action-oriented presentations and workshops focused on productivity, wellness, and personal and professional growth.

If you want to learn more, head over to jeffsanders.com/speaking.

Now, in the episode this week, I'll break down how to design your own extraordinary daily routine and why the best routine is always an elusive destination none of us will ever actually reach.

Intrigued?

Well, let's go find out what I mean.

[Laughs] The best routine is always an elusive destination none of us will ever actually reach.

If there is anything I have learned about habits, goals, and fulfillments from my best days, it's that most of them actually happened by accident.

Now, sure, I'm about to teach a bunch of ideas on how to intentionally craft your ideal day, but honestly, my favorite days were never planned in advance.

Life is unpredictable, and the most profound experiences nearly always happen when I least expect them and when I never actually directly plan for them, which, all that to say, that's not an argument to avoid planning.

It's an argument to pay attention and listen and then flex when needed.

You know, plans are great, but they're only a guideline, a suggestion, or a theoretical idea on what could happen, but the best choices are always made in the moment.

In other words, this is all a discussion about a skill set.

Adapting on the fly is actually the goal.

Yes, you can learn from past experiences and map out a more intentional schedule, that's all great, but if the goal is to hit a home run with your daily routine, you'll need a little bit of experience mixed with a little bit of luck, and that's the goal of this week.

We're going to learn some of the skills we need to have the best possible opportunities to hit those home runs and to have those ideal days so that when the moment pops up, when the chance arrives, we can achieve that elusive destination.

We can actually achieve that ideal day and ideal routine that leads up to these best possibilities.

So let's get to the top 10 strategies to design an extraordinary daily routine, and we'll begin with number one, which is actually number 10, sort of.

Number one is to begin with the end in mind.

So for you, if an ideal day took place, past tense, it's already happened before, well, what exactly happened?

What did you do well?

Or even more importantly, what did you avoid?

How did you feel when it happened?

Who were you with?

What got done?

What never actually happened that could have stopped it from being ideal?

I ask all of this to lead up to the question of, is this day repeatable or is it a one-time thing?

The idea behind an ideal day is not that it's a singular occurrence.

We want to have ideal days all the time, so we're really trying to get to this repeatable, compoundable, amazing experience that can be better and better over time.

So is the ideal day of your dreams possible or just a pipe dream?

Could you achieve this ideal day soon or then, of course, achieve it often, over and over again?

When you begin with the end in mind and then work backwards, you're able to reverse engineer exactly what makes your day ideal, exactly how you tick, what your choices are, what your preferences are, how you'd like to begin your day.

Maybe it is with some birds in the backyard at sunrise, or maybe your ideal day begins with you sleeping in until 10 a.m.

I don't know.

It's your ideal day.

But the question for me always comes down to, when I imagine that ideal day from the past?

Because I've had them before, many times.

But like I said already, most of those were kind of accidental.

But I'm trying to, to the best of my ability, reverse engineer what made them so special, why those ideal days were so magical, so miraculous.

And the answer, honestly, is there were things that I did on purpose that set me up for success, that allowed that ideal day to unfold in the way that it did.

So if you begin with the end in mind and really ask these questions and answer them, really break down as a postmortem, as a real review process, what makes your ideal day ideal?

So start there.

Make a list already.

I do a lot of lists on this podcast.

But for this first one, the goal here is to figure out what those criteria are, those characteristics that speak to you.

We'll start there and then use that as a framework for all these other ideas we're now going to break down.

Okay, so now that you've begun with the end in mind, let's go to number two, which is to optimize what this podcast is all about, which actually is not productivity.

It's not a 5 a.m. miracle.

The core of this is a health-first approach to your goals.

So I'm guessing your ideal day involves you feeling fantastic.

It's unlikely your ideal day is going to include a hangover or an illness or a lot of stress.

When I talk about a health-first approach, I am talking about an intentionality that most of us don't take seriously.

I know this because I know myself.

So when I have a really great, healthy day, I know that day happened on purpose.

It wasn't an accident.

Left to my own devices, I will make poor choices.

This is just how it operates.

When given the opportunity to make a good choice or a bad one, I'm just going to be lazy.

Now, yes, I get caffeinated and I do a lot of awesome things sometimes, but at the end of the day, if you ask me, "Do I want ice cream or a kale salad?"

I know the answer.

I know which one tastes better.

But that's kind of the point, to take a health-first approach and to ask yourself, "How do I get to that ideal day from the perspective of being able to experience it fully?"

This is one of the things, or I guess one of the shifts that I've made recently in my life, is asking the question, "How can I be more present?

How can I be more alive and awake and in the moment with what's happening?"

One of those strategies, yes, is actually meditation, which is a health-first approach strategy I have done my very best to avoid for 40 years.

It's one that I have just recently tapped into in a new way that this one feels different.

This recent resurgence of meditative practices, this one feels like it's going to stick around for a long time.

I'll discuss more of that in an episode in the future.

But for now, let's really lean on this idea that for you to have your best day, your best week, your best next season of your life, it is extraordinarily likely that that season will involve you feeling great.

So if at present you don't, if you're sick, if you're injured, if you're stressed out, if you've got a physical ailment that is holding you back from being your best self, we need to start there.

We desperately need to begin there to set you up for your possible best day that could and will happen once we kind of nail down these nuts and bolts.

A good example of this is about three months ago or so, I went to the gym with a lot of vigor.

I was feeling really good.

I wanted to push myself really hard, and I did, and the workout felt fantastic.

A couple of days later, I began to realize I had pushed too hard.

I had really overworked some muscles in my back and caused an extraordinary issue that in the past I've experienced this, and it usually fades within a few days, maybe a week at most.

And this one stuck around for two solid months.

And it's hard to express exactly how much frustration I have when my health fails me because I know firsthand how it stops me from doing everything I want to do.

I can't be my best self.

I can't bring my full everything about me to anything I'm doing if there's a big part of me that's holding me back.

And pain gets your attention.

Pain is impossible to ignore.

Now, not all health problems are that acutely painful, but that's a great example of something that you know when this problem goes away, which fortunately mine has, all of a sudden I'm me again.

I get to be my best self again.

I get to go engage in the next activity in a way that I just literally physically couldn't do.

And that kind of a ball and chain you can let go of, that's freedom.

It's freedom to go pursue your next big goals and have your best routines and feel fantastic.

But all of that is predicated on the assumption that you do actually feel fantastic and that's possible for you in this season, right here and now.

So if you don't take your health seriously, if that's not currently literally number one on your list, I'm gonna challenge you to make that number one.

No, for this week, it's literally number two, but the planning stages is number one, fine.

But after you've planned out what this is, let's make sure the first thing on your plan is this health first approach.

I feel like that's gonna give you the best leg up.

I know it for me.

I know that when I'm healthy, that's my ticket out.

That's the answer. (upbeat music) All right, strategy number three is to achieve this extraordinary ideal day and this daily routine that we can repeat over and over is to make it repeatable.

Whatever your ideal day includes, we wanna build it so you can repeat it.

I have experienced many days that I thought, in hindsight, went pretty well.

And to the point I made earlier, when I go back and do that post-mortem, do that review process and ask myself, well, why did those days go so well?

It's fairly obvious that I included core things that I love to do, things I'm good at, things that bring me joy and fulfillment.

These are common things that are off the top of my mind.

Like I just know what they are because I know what I love.

But the real question is not, do I know what brings me joy?

It's how do I guarantee I can bake that into my schedule so that it's actually a repeatable process?

One of the biggest challenges of life is that we feel this desire to achieve every goal and not just the things we want to do, but the things we feel that we have an obligation to achieve, the responsibilities of life, right?

Those elements that we view as non-negotiables.

And my challenge to you is to negotiate those, is to question them.

How many of the things that you assume are must-dos are actually must-dos?

I'll give a good example of this.

Recently, in my task manager, Nozbe, I added a color-coding system.

I've discussed this before in the podcast, but this is a good example for this conversation.

When I look at a task in my task manager, I create a subset of categories, a way to really visually see how important is this task.

And I have now four categories that I've broken down.

Red, which is the most important, those things are due today.

Orange are things that are important, but not actually due right now.

Blue are the things that are important, but definitely can be postponed for a while or forever.

And the last category are my purple reminders, usually for other people.

So with these categories in mind, I can visually see the red items, which are the ones that are due today, the ones that need to happen.

However, I've had this process for a long time, these categories for a long time, and I've caught myself on so many different occasions mislabeling my tasks.

In other words, I will add the color red to a lot of them or possibly all of them, but then come to realize, no, no, no, no, that's not the correct labeling.

Not everything on this list is due today.

Not everything on this list ever has to get done.

And so my challenge to you is to take a really hard look at your task list, your calendar, your goals, and really get serious about what things need to happen and what things really don't.

Because the fun part here is that we can see the things that don't have to happen, and you can drop them from your schedule.

You can delete them, free up that time, have more availability.

You can then have the flexibility to schedule more of the things you love, which means this repeatable ideal day, this daily routine that you want to have over and over again, the repetition is now possible because there's now time on your calendar to fill it with these things that work so well for you.

So the goal here, without question, is a repeatable routine.

That's what a routine is.

You do it over and over.

Well, it has to be designed well, of course, but it has to have space.

If there's not space for it, it's just going to feel like this obnoxious other thing you have to go through.

The goal here is not a long to-do list.

It's just to have a few things that matter the most, that have enough time you can get through them, and keep your sanity if possible.

That's the real goal.

Okay, so number three was make it repeatable.

Number four is now to leverage your strengths.

So our goal here is to focus on habits that accentuate your best qualities and that naturally produce the best results.

You don't, you're not going to have an ideal day doing things you hate, and you're not going to have an ideal day doing things you're bad at because we don't tend to like doing things we're bad at.

Our goal is to leverage things we're good at, that we enjoy, that are fulfilling, and that will naturally produce better results.

So an extraordinary routine is going to be based on you doing things that of course are necessary for life, those obligations that are real, but also those things that bring about your best results and your best possible experience.

So here I'm asking the question, let's say a 5 a.m. miracle for me tomorrow morning.

If I'm going to design an ideal daily routine that leverages my strengths, what does that mean in practicality?

It means that I'm going to schedule, usually for me, a morning workout that leverages something I'm good at and that I enjoy.

So going for a hike is a great example, or a trail run, or possibly going to the gym to lift weights.

I tend to focus on exercise and physical fitness as part of that routine, and I do things I'm good at.

What I'm not doing in those routines, I'm not going to swim, I'm not going to cycle, I'm not going to do gymnastics, I'm not good at those things.

I don't like them very much because I'm not good at them.

That's it.

It's that simple.

We leverage and schedule the things we're good at and that we enjoy and that produce the results that allow us to say, "This was an extraordinary day.

This was a day that I loved, that brought about the best in me because I was doing things I'm good at."

It really can be that simple.

All right, number five on our list this week to have an extraordinary daily routine is to flow downstream.

In other words, don't try to reinvent the wheel.

You know yourself, and you know what doesn't work for you.

Once again, if early mornings are not your thing, don't try to force it.

Our goal here is to be you and nothing more.

I say this as an example of my past behavior where I have tried desperately to swim upstream.

What I mean by that, of course, metaphorically here, is that I'm trying to do things that I just want to force into existence, that I'm trying so hard to make a new goal work, make it click, and make it my future, but I know the whole time this is not it.

I am trying too hard.

If you're trying that hard to achieve something to the point of just physical exhaustion, mental fatigue, it just isn't working, isn't working, isn't working, you've got to ask the question, "Is this the right goal?

Is this the right strategy?"

From my experience, flowing downstream or going with the flow or just finding that easier path, that tends to be the one that has a heck of a lot less stress and better results, and then you have more freedom to be creative and find better strategies for those trickier goals you want to achieve.

For example, if your routine has some difficulty in it with waking up early or trying to squeeze in things at certain time frames that are tricky, you find yourself in a position where it's just never quite working the way you've been trying.

Well, let's not try that way anymore.

Try a new strategy.

Move something from the morning to the evening.

Take something you thought was necessary and just get rid of it.

Get creative here.

Find a solution that allows you to say, "This is going to be effortless.

This is going to allow me to just smoothly flow into my day without having to work so dang hard."

I know for me that hard work is in context.

So if the structure, the boundaries, the systems are in place for me to do great work and I choose to just up the ante to work harder, well, then the results just get better.

But if you're bashing your head against the wall and you're not going to get anywhere, it's just going to give you a headache, and that's not the goal.

Now, number six to have your extraordinary routine is to pick your core habits and ignore the rest for now.

In other words, don't try to do it all.

Generally, you're going to feel more fulfilled doing a few things well than a hundred things quickly and possibly poorly.

So we want to choose a short list of what brings you the most joy and success, and then we can do the rest later or possibly never at all.

I have a great example of this that really makes me feel kind of dumb without telling it, but years ago when I first launched my online business and I was a full-time entrepreneur, I got really into health and fitness.

This is just after I had run tons of marathons and ultra marathons, and I wanted to really optimize my morning routine, and so I got really into yoga, meditation, journaling.

I'm making smoothies and juices and trying any and every possible healthy habit I could find.

And once again, now, I'm a full-time entrepreneur, so my time is my own, and I chose to spend a lot of it, a lot, hours and hours a day, on these healthy habits in lieu of doing my job.

Let's just be very clear about this.

My workday got really small because most of my time was spent on these healthy habits.

It was not profitable.

It was a bad choice in a business sense, but it was also a bad choice in my health sense because I wasn't doing a few things well.

I was trying to do it all.

I was literally trying to have a five- and six-hour morning routine.

That's not a joke.

My morning routines were very, very long, and I realized fairly quickly, a few months into this, just how pointless this was.

It wasn't working.

It wasn't going the direction I wanted.

Yes, of course, I needed more time to build my business at the time, but also, it wasn't the right call for my health.

It's not sustainable to do 100,000 things a day, but also, doing that many things over time can actually be counterproductive.

Yes, there is such a thing as being too healthy or too good at this or having too many ideas, too much in the routine.

The goal here is an optimized list, not too few, not too many.

There is an ideal.

It's like a Goldilocks scenario here.

Not too hot, not too cold, just right.

For that to be true, we've got to find our core habits, those core things where you say, "That's my thing right there.

"The rest, I can ignore that."

Back to the example before, when I said that I love to run the trails, but I don't like cycling or swimming.

I'm never going to be a triathlete.

That's just so clear to me.

It's been clear to me for a long time.

I'm not going to do a triathlon.

I just don't care about two-thirds of the activities enough.

It's never going to happen, which is fine because the thing that I love, I know, and the things that I don't love, I'm fine to ignore.

Your core habits will define your day.

They're going to define your routine, define your experience.

Your mission is to get very clear on your core, know what they are, and double down on them to amplify them, and that's where the results will come from.

It's not going to come from doing 13, 15, 25 habits a day.

That's just exhausting.

I'm tired of just talking about that many things because I know in the past I've done that.

It's not sustainable.

It's not helpful.

It will backfire.

Find your core habits and amplify those.

The seventh strategy is to focus like a pro.

I love focus.

You've heard that on this podcast for years and years now.

It's one of my favorite things to focus on, is focus itself.

In the context of this conversation, our goal is to identify your distractions that hold you back from your best routine and let them go.

In other words, we're going to go double down on those things we just discussed, your core habits, choose those habits and those goals, and get to them.

Focus is nothing more than execution without off-ramps.

Our goal is to stay centered until the task is done.

When you think about your best days, I know for me, it means generally speaking I've gone deep into something.

I've allowed myself the opportunity to spend quality time with one or two things, not, once again, trying to check 25, 35, 50 boxes in the day.

It's just not going to work.

Your best days, your best routines, your best experiences are simple and they're clear, and you've given your full attention to them.

That's where the joy is.

That's the fulfillment factor.

It comes from focus.

A lot of Fs right there.

It's really good alliteration.

Anyway, focus is the thing.

The question for you is then, are you focusing in your life, or are you distracted?

Are you letting 100,000 things a day happen because you're not paying attention enough?

For me, that's the case.

When I catch myself doing too many things, it's because I lost sight of what mattered.

I forgot to stay centered.

I was getting on these off-ramps too often.

I need to get back on the road.

That's going to look like a very simple and very common and familiar path for you.

When you've been down before, and you know it, you just got to get back to it.

Then when you do, once again, we're going to flow downstream.

Now it's effortless, it's easy, it's happening.

Your routine is going to be based around this idea of clarity because you know what to focus on, and you give your whole self to those few things.

Now speaking of focus, number eight is to crunch and release.

This is a concept that I've really gravitated towards and just adopted fully in the last few years.

It is something that speaks to routines in a very clear way because crunch and release is basically rhythm.

It is the idea that we have these moments of the day or these few hours in the day where we are going to crunch, in other words, work and focus and dig into the thing we're doing, and then release.

We take a break or go for a walk, or we take a nap, right?

That rhythm of going back and forth between the crunch and release, that's the rhythm of the day.

That's the rhythm of your life.

There are seasons where we dig in and seasons where we back off.

There are hours of the day we are totally focused, and then hours where, well, whatever, I'm kind of spaced out.

But that's important.

We need both of those things.

Just last night in the gym, I had this realization that this is the same concept here where I'll spend a few minutes on a certain activity, lifting weights and being very focused, and at the end of the workout, I go to the sauna or steam room, and I have the release.

I'm just chilling.

I'm hanging out.

It's a really nice juxtaposition between intense focus and activities that's really the thing I'm there for, but then I'm also there for the release at the end when I can relax.

This rhythm of your day, this rhythm of your routine is critical for you to really tap into that best sense of yourself.

So the goal of a phenomenal day is not to be busy the entire time.

We choose an activity.

We do it, and then we rest.

We crunch and release.

We focus, and then we clear our mind.

That's the intention.

This kind of rhythm is the one that is sustainable and healthy and fulfilling.

That's what we're going for.

It's not nonstop box checking and chaos.

That's definitely not it, but it's also not the opposite.

We're not going to space out and be gone forever.

There's going to be time for both of these things, and they're both good.

They're both healthy.

So your goal is to figure out how to really marry those two together, the yin and the yang of your day.

Now, the ninth strategy this week is to put your routine in writing.

Whatever your goals are, write them down.

Whatever your ideal day may include, put it in writing so you can improve it later and then revisit this ideal day later on and make it even better because it's on paper.

I tend to rant a lot on this show about this concept.

This comes originally from David Allen's Getting Things Done book, where he talks a lot about clearing your mind.

There is a big focus in the GTD structure and framework to get things out of your head and onto paper.

At the time that I read the book, this was probably 15 years ago now, I knew the idea was important, but I didn't get it yet.

I hadn't seen it yet in practice.

And in practice, I can tell you this is a game changer.

And I just discussed the sauna and steam room earlier.

Every single time I go to the gym, I usually have the sauna/steam room at the end of the session, as long as the gym didn't close it down on me because of bad weather, which does happen.

But anyway, I digress.

When I'm in the sauna and steam room, I always bring a waterproof notebook and pen.

Every single time.

Because I get ideas there, and I don't want to miss them.

It's the same concept of, you know, get a brilliant idea in the shower.

Well, a sauna/steam room is pretty similar to that.

And I bring this notepad, waterproof notepad and pen, and I take notes.

Every single time.

I get ideas every single day I'm in there.

It's so powerful to be able to say, "I want to be able to capture my best thoughts.

I want to put these things in writing, improve what I have.

And my routines are a ginormous part of these thoughts that I have because I'm always finding new ways to optimize the way that I flow.

To optimize my schedule a little more.

To see an opportunity and pounce on it.

And I want to be able to do that, which I can't do if I didn't write it down."

I don't have a great memory on purpose.

I've almost trained myself to forget things.

It's kind of a backwards way of saying, I have an extreme focus on getting ideas onto paper as quickly as possible so I can forget them.

So my brain is then freed up for creative thought.

That's the lifestyle we're going for here.

A lifestyle of recording your best thoughts and then being able to optimize them, put them onto your calendar later, or your task manager, or just do the task right away.

But we need those ideas written down first.

And your routine, ideally, will be a structured, written down plan.

One you can improve on and tweak and optimize over time.

So if you're not currently in this lifestyle of writing things down when the ideas pop up, I'm telling you this is the answer.

Now, if you're in a sauna, sure, a waterproof notepad is great.

If you're not, you can use your phone.

That's fine too.

Or whatever you want to use.

I use Nozbe on my phone.

It's my go-to for all my new ideas.

And I know that because every single day I have tons of them that show up there.

And then I get to filter them.

I get to schedule them.

Or delete them if they're a dumb idea.

But I get to have them there and then filter those concepts every single day.

It's very powerful.

And all of this brings us to our final strategy, number 10 for your best, most extraordinary daily routine.

Acknowledge your current season.

Whatever your ideal day looks like today, it will look different in the future.

We all live through seasons.

And your goal is to optimize your current season.

Your habits change.

Your routines change.

You change.

So let your ideal day flow with you.

Wherever you happen to be, whatever you happen to be doing, there's a sense of evolution here.

Of growth.

Of change.

And I know firsthand that my best routine, my best habits, whatever it is I think is my best right now, it will be definitely different in just a few short weeks.

Because I'm always evolving.

I'm always getting new ideas in the sauna and elsewhere.

And I want to be able to leverage those and improve.

I don't want to have the same routine in a year.

I want to know that it's going to be better in a year.

And the only way that's possible is to live in the season I'm in now.

Yes, there's a personal growth philosophy here that's the undercurrent for all these seasons.

But every season is different.

If I happen to have a back problem like I did earlier, and I was injured for a couple of months, well, in that season, my best routine is definitely different than the one I have now.

So you want to leverage your current season to be the best that it can be.

And embrace that.

And accept that for what it is.

If you're in a tough season, you need a routine that acknowledges that.

And that allows you to be where you are.

And then take the next step forward.

And likewise, your season is also fantastic.

Well, then leverage that and get the most value from that.

It's just a matter of accepting reality so you can then get the best results based in truth, based in the realness of your life.

In other words, don't lie to yourself.

Don't spend the game trying to say that I could be 10 times better than I am.

And then you push too hard, or you just ignore all the facts that your life is challenging right now.

I say all this to say that I've been there.

I know what it's like to build systems and routines and flows of life that don't flow at all.

Because I'm lying to myself.

But what's true.

So don't do that.

Build your life in the best possible way.

Be you.

Be here.

Be here right now.

And then build your best day based on that.

And for your action step this week, of course, go design your ideal daily routine and begin with the end in mind.

If a perfect day were to occur, what does that mean?

What goals did you accomplish?

What habits did you prioritize?

What bad habits did you eliminate?

Start there and build a custom routine just for you.

Made by you.

Now, of course, be sure to subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app or become a VIP member of the 5AM Miracle community by getting the premium ad-free version with exclusive bonus episodes at 5ammiraclepremium.com.

That's all I've got for you here on the 5AM Miracle Podcast this week.

Until next time, you have the power to change your life.

And all that fun begins bright and early.

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