I have read many times that successful people often have very stringent routines. The book Daily Routines is literally just a list of different habits of famous artists and creatives. You can go to the accompanying blog to get an idea.
The most important constant is that there is a routine at all; even if there aren’t many similarities across routines (some work in the morning, some in the evening, and so on).
I’ve always struggled to create a routine for myself. For instance, I exercise about 70% of days. But the time I exercise is hardly the same from day to day. Breakfast? Who knows? Lunch? Could be anywhere from 11am to 4pm. And so on.
This writing — every day when I have my coffee, I write a short blog post — is an(other) attempt at creating a rhythm for myself.
For for the most part where I’ve landed is the idea of a daily checklist; I have a few things that I want to do every day, and I hit the x on each one as I do them. And as I go about my day, I’m thinking about getting those things done. I use Strides to do that (which is, for instance, how I know I work out about 70% of days).
The checklist helps keep me on track, but I still want to get that rhythm down.