Ask HN: What are your daily (or weekly) routines? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are your daily (or weekly) routines?

87 pointsdaryllxd52 comments

Just recently discovered meditation and fasting, and while I've only been doing them for a few weeks, they've had a big effect on me. I'd like to see what other helpful routines are there. How do you go about your days?

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I expect this thread to fill up with many people saying the same thing (meditate, good food, etc) - largely because (generally) it all works.

So I'll just throw in 2 things that make a massive difference (along with the meditation, eating well, etc) to me.

Sleeping - especially now I'm a little older, sleeping ~7.5 ish hours a day is pretty important. Far more so if I've been drinking, far more so if I'm stressed. Anything less and I'm not operating at full capacity, if I oversleep I end up tired again (ironically).

Exercise - I gym almost every day, usually every morning before work Monday - Friday (and twice a week in the evening I do a martial arts class). I've been doing this a long time. I've also noticed that in my super busy periods I'm really good at telling myself "I don't have time for the gym." Sadly and noticeably I become progressively less productive when I stop the exercise. It's definitely my number one thing to balance mind / body / productivity.

6.30 Awoken by children

Roil in Chaos

23.30 Fall into dreamless sleep

At weekends I do not get a coffee break.

This. All the other comments are from people who clearly don't have kids.

I am parent with two girls. Starting from age of 5 I trained them to do almost all daily routes by themselves, I only cook food, and I have time for meditation, sport activities, hobbies, reading HN, etc. I believe it will help them to grow as much more organized persons.

Agreed. Our girls are turning 5 soon and they eat breakfast, cleanup, and dress themselves in the morning. It's a big help.

Once your kids all go to school, they also have a schedule, and routines are quite feasible.

Yes, like that. However, in the last couple of months, I managed to move my kid's schedule from waking up at 4:30 AM, to more humane 6-7. I am very proud of this achievement.

You should be. My kids went from 7am to consistently getting up at 5:30am. What I'd give to get them back to 7am.

I plan on implementing a fix my friends discovered as soon as my two kids are old enough to be out of the cribs. They bought smartphone controlled lightbulbs for their kids’ rooms and told them they weren’t allowed to come out until the light changed from red to green. It worked like a charm!

Could you tie this to responsibility? Like "Every day I wake up and you didn't do anything dangerous or naughty, the green light will come on sooner." Just that a life stuck waiting for the light to come on would kind of suck. I guess if you make their rooms fun...

They were very up front about what time it would turn on (they had big clocks in the room). They made sure to tie it to the time. And yes, they had plenty of books and toys :)

do you have a link to these lights by any chance?

Sorry, no. I don’t know exactly what brand he bought, but there are several that come up after a search on amazon that look vaguely familiar.

My ( sometimes ) daily routine ... wait for it ... is having a glass of wine while browsing the Internet for an hour, just before I go to bed.

This turns off :

1. Ability to blame myself for not being productive after work

2. Ability to constantly worry about stuff that needs to be done

No other daily routine imposed by myself has stuck for years, except this one. Everything else I consider not a routine, but responsibilities - wake up, go to the gym, go to work, go to the supermarket, household work, etc ...

Weekdays:

     5:30 AM -  6:30 AM - Wake up, get ready, drive to work
     6:30 AM -  3:00 PM - Work
     3:30 PM -  6:30 PM - Go to coffee shop, study for job interviews / work on side projects
     6:30 PM -  8:00 PM - Hang out with wife, kids, and eat dinner
     8:00 PM - 10:00 PM - Continue studying, then bedtime

Weekends:

     8:00 AM - 12:00 PM - Study for job interviews / work on side projects
    12:00 PM -  4:00 PM - Eat lunch and go for walk with wife
     4:00 PM -  7:00 PM - Study
     7:00 PM - 10:00 PM - Hang out with wife and kids

If you can't tell from the schedule, trying to advance my career takes up more time than the career itself...

Don't you get tired after work to go to studies straight away? And no exercise?

Daily routine during the work week:

Wake up ~05:30.

Eat breakfast at home while catching up on HN and Apple News. Make lunch.

Take meds. Brush teeth. Shower.

Drive to train station. Ride train for ~45 minutes. Catch up on email and organize tasks for the day (I use Todoist for daily task tracking).

Arrive at work. Unpack laptop and get setup. Get coffee.

Coding + actual project work for ~2 hours. Daily Standup at 10am PST.

Visit therapist every Wednesday morning.

Meetings/more work for ~90 minutes. Lunch around noon.

Meetings and more development work in the afternoon after lunch.

Leave work ~17:30. ~45 minute ride home on the train where I listen to music and/or podcasts or read to decompress.

Come home. Eat dinner with spouse and kid.

~20:00 get kid to bed, read stories for ~45 minutes.

Spend time with spouse.

Bedtime ~22:30.

Weekends:

Usually a bit more flexible, aside from Saturdays where I take my kid to ice skating class at 12:15.

I usually wake up around 06:00 on weekend days to make breakfast and watch cartoons with my kid while I let my spouse sleep in.

I spend my free time playing piano/guitar and reading.

Here's my Silicon Valley routine. Wake up around 1 pm. with slight hangover. Put as much coffee beans into a Mr. Coffee grinder as I can and make a stiff cup of coffee with a 1 cup filter cone. Drink coffee and check the stock market. Take a dump, shave just the cheeks on my face, trim my neck beard, and shower.

Roll a joint with as much weed as I can fit into a single zig-zag paper. Leave for work right before rush hour and smoke out going down 237.

Get to work about 4 pm and have an espresso. Read E-mail until I come down a little. Get in the zone and write code until about 7 or 8 pm. Get some dinner at for example, La Milpa. Come back to work and do some testing. Leave about 12 midnight and stop at a dive bar for some beers.

Get home around 2 am, and watch Family Guy and American Dad reruns on Adult Swim until about 5 am. Repeat.

Are you only eating one meal a day or is there snacking intermittently throughout this routine?

For last few months I have been able to come up with sort of a Morning routine which is:

- Making bed

- Drink a glass of water

- Mindful Teeth brushing.

- Prayers and Reciting one page of Quran with explanation.

- Cardio on Airwalk and a couple of dumbbell based workouts.

- Breathing

- Meditation

- Journaling

I use Trello for Month/Week/Day tasks. I also do night journaling where I reflect my thoughts of things happened or what I am going to do.

PS: For those who need some daily dose of motivation, do subscribe to "Be Inspired" Youtube Channel, they rock.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaKZDEMDdQc8t6GzFj1_TDw

What is Mindful Teeth brushing?

Just being aware of what you are doing:

https://www.headspace.com/blog/2015/10/01/brush-brush-brush-...

I recently wrote out my morning routine as part of an exercise, it involves the following and takes about 45 min.

1. Wake, Toilet, 200 ml Water 2. Yoga (sun salutations x2) + listen to tech news podcast (10 min) 3. Water 200 ml, Brush Teeth, Quick Shower (8 min) 4. Get Dressed (10 min) 5. Water 200 ml 6. Journaling (5 min) 7. Look at Todo list & Calendar (5 min) 8. Start first work time block

In the evening, I have a shut down ritual that starts at about 9:30pm where I reset back to a neutral state:

1. Take computer back to desktop (close apps + use OneTab to save any tabbed chrome sessions I might need to reference again later) 2. Clear desk of unnecessary junk, put stuff back where it belongs. 3. Shower (Shampoo + Condition Hair, Wash Body + Face) 4. Light candle 5. Turn off bright lights 5. Meditate (15 - 30 min) 6. Extinguish candle 7. Go to bed

Big fan of meditation and fasting, but my other routines as well include:

Pre-planning what I will eat for an entire week so I don't have to think about it daily

Daily exercise stretch with the routine pre planned.

I love pre planning a routine on a weekly basis that I feel will maximize my time, and I love the feeling of nailing that routine

I wan't to try fasting, what material do you recommend to get into it?

It’s pretty simple: you don’t eat.

Or drink...if you want to triple the effectiveness of a fast, not drinking will do this.

Oh, never read about this..

The Complete guide to fasting is by far the best book I've read on the subject:

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Fasting-Intermittent-A...

I do the usual...

Meditate (yes)

Read my spiritual texts (ACIM, buddhism)

Gym (powerlifting)

Running (gotsta)

Eat well (MFP)

...and for me, one of the biggest differences has been only drinking every other month (modulation is easier when it's 100%, defined, temporal) and not eating after 6pm.

Those two free my mind, but also allow for... other flows.

This varies in order and quantity from day to day. I'd get bored if it didn't. Usually get in 6-9 hours of skateboarding a week while constrained by climate. Usually get around 6 - 8 hours of sleep.

  Wake up at around 06:30
  Shower, etc..
  Travel to the Uni
  Attend class
  1 hour misc. break of work or piano
  Attend class
  A few hours of either school work, dev work, barista work, or I'll have coffee with someone. Maybe piano in here too.
  Skateboarding for 1-3 hours
  Travel home and make some food, shower, sleep.

Mornings on weekdays and weekends Make my bed Meditation for twenty one minutes Exercise for 15 mins Smoothie Coffee and hacker news. Get ready to work.

Evenings on weekdays Have some snacks (usually nuts) Meditation for 21 minutes. PBS news for about an hour while having dinner Maybe some more YouTube for about an hour. Reading and relaxing before bed.

Weekend If the weather is good make it a point to either run or hike If it's bad just walk in the city

My basic Tokyo routine as a lead programmer role in a big mobile game in Japan.

I wake up around 6:30 eat breakfast. Leave around 7:15 Take train at 7:30 (crowded train, reading Hacker News, tech news, game news and study Japanese) Arrive around 8:30 at work, and I make a coffee. Don’t start work just yet so I watch Collider Movies news. 9:00 start work (prepare for meetings, light programming or planning new layout for new event or features) 10:10 we have System morning meeting. (Today’s task announcement, other relative news for today or shared meeting announcement) 10:30 Team morning meeting (Announcement from planners about progress of new event layouts, basic sales announcement for yesterday and other announcement regarding the project) 10:40 work starts again (work from now on also consist of answering junior developers questions and problems when called upon, also checking progress of what all programmers are doing) 13:30 Lunch for an hour 14:30 return to work 18:00 Work finished 18:10 Take train home (Study Japanese or programming) 19:00 Spend time with family and newborn 23:00 Time for myself 24:00 Go to bed

DuoLingo (Polish) Codecademy - (Ruby & CSS) Intermittent fasting (I'm not too strict but I try to avoid eating until 12 noon earliest) Work?

Relaxation: golf, video games, cooking, visiting co-workers families every weekend

Work Routines: Lunch with the team, afternoon snack, making tea

Home: doing dishes, walking the dogs

Most of these offer meditative or stress release time that releves a different stress that builds up daily or weekly. For instance, I get very anxious when the house is a mess, and doing the dishes offers me quiet time to think to myself, and clean up the house.

I haven't thought about this much, but personally, I try to organize my daily activities into the following categories and perform all of them every day of my own life.

Relaxation: - Television - Video games - Tennis - Gym

Spiritualism: - Visit my church - Read a good book - Meditate

Work: - Studying - Desktop customization - Breakfast - Morning tea - Lunch - Afternoon snacks - Afternoon tea - Dinner - Desert - Snacks

I am very fond of these things.

My schedule is derived from my priorities.

Health - if I'm not healthy, I'm no good to anyone.

Family/Friends - wife first, children second, friends third.

Career/Work/Finances.

Wake up at around 5 every morning.

I wake up around 4:30 - 5 most mornings. That's the time my wife wakes up

As the dev lead, I have to juggle being in the office and interacting with the rest of the team and other departments with actual development. I work from home on Tuesdays and Thursday's.

My wife leaves home at 5:00 and my son wakes up at 6:30. That's the prime time for me to have uninterrupted quiet time.

Monday,Wednesday,Friday

5:00 - 6:30, study, go through my RSS feed, maybe spend some time working on proof of concepts that aren't job related to learn a new technology.

6:30 make sure my son is up, get ready for work.

7:15 - 8:30. Commute to work, listen to podcasts.

8:30 - 6:00 Work

6:00 - 7:15 Commute, call my wife, listen to podcasts.

7:15 - 9:00. Spend time with my wife and son (if he feels like it - typical teenager)

9:00 sleep

Tuesday/Thursday

5:00 - 6:30, study, go through my RSS feed, maybe spend some time working on proof of concepts that aren't job related to learn a new technology.

6:30 - 5:00 Work

5:00 - 6:30 Workout and catch up on TV, watch a PluralSight course, or listen to a podcast. We converted a bedroom to a home gym with weights, a treadmill and an elliptical.

My wife has outside hobbies including going to a fitness classes that are usually on these days. So if I want to work, study, or workout longer these days. I can - especially with no commute.

Saturday/Sunday

No set schedule, but I do workout another 90 minutes both days and might study some depending on what's going on with the family. But after working out, family first.

I try not to.. but trying not to have routine tends to end in a rather haphazard but repeatable pattern anyway.

Some days i wake up and go straight to work at ~7.30, at my desk for 8.10. Some days ill lie around watch tv and relax in the morning till 9 and get to desk ~9.45.

Meaning to use more of my ‘lazy’ mornings to go swimming but never end up doing it.

Leave work between 5 and 6. Cook for my partner who tends to work later. Watch TV till 10, sleep.

On paper, looks terrible now, need to do more with my time.

My weekday routine:

- My alarm goes off at 7am. I ignore it and sleep for another 30 minutes. I do this because it helps me have dreams I can recall, and my biological clock wakes me up reliably anyway.

- Drink some water or cranberry juice and check email, HN, etc.

- Shower and brush teeth at the same time.

- Have a Rockstar Pure Zero energy drink. These have absolutely no effect on me at this point, but it's a ritual I enjoy. People who know me find this absurd, but it's considered normal to pay much more than I do for a coffee or sugar-filled frapuccino from Starbucks every morning.

- Drive to train station and take train to work.

- The first ~4 hours of work are what I consider my "office hours", which means that it's a time where I am going to work casually on light tasks with the expectation that I'm going to be interrupted by meetings and helping people. I do this for a couple reasons: One reason is that I don't think it's good for people to work hard for more than 4 hours a day, and the other is that I need to block off a period of the day where I can concentrate on an important task. After my office hours, it's unlikely that I'm going to be needed for anything, so I will either work from home for the rest of the day or be slow to reply to low-priority issues.

- Get home around 5:30pm. Either eat at Waba Grill or go to the grocery store to get ingredients to make dinner at home. I hardly keep anything in my fridge and pantry because I'm likely to pig out. Plus it gives me an opportunity to be around people.

- Work out in my home gym. I have my Xbox set up in front of my treadmill, so I'll play Halo Reach multiplayer while walking between 3 and 4 MPH. No, I've never fallen and hurt myself; I have an excellent inner ear. For strength, I mostly rely on my Total Gym and my pull-up bar. Pull-ups are amazing, by the way. If I could take one piece of gym equipment with me anywhere I go, it would be a pull-up bar.

- If it's a Tuesday, my neighbor and I hang out on my porch and chat about life and the state of the world over beer or whisky.

- Work on personal projects. I do this way too much, and it takes a toll on my health. Sitting down for long periods of time sucks.

- Go to bed between 10:30p, but realistically I'll fall asleep around 11:30p because I listen to lectures on YouTube to wind down.

My weekends too often get consumed by coding personal projects. Again, this is a mixed bag because I would be thrilled to create a project that ends up being successful, but it also means long periods of time where I'm not getting outside. If I'm not coding anything, then I'm definitely out in the wilderness.

> - My alarm goes off at 7am. I ignore it and sleep for another 30 minutes.

That's terrible, you're ruining your sleep circle and losing 30 min of real sleep.

This doesn't seem to cause any obvious problems with my health or mental state, although I'm open to hearing how this could be damaging in the long-term.

I don’t know what the parent poster is talking about, but look into Sleep Cycle (app). I find that it makes it a lot easier for me to wake up in the mornings.

Maintain some relationships with relatives. Mentoring a nephew, talking with an aunt that's got health problems, etc.

I listen to music. A while ago, I would turn on some symphony piece and air-conducting along. Greatly helps with anxiety attack at night.

wake up and keep doing as many pomodoros as possible. workout, cook, eat and try to do some other non screen activity.

7:30 -> alarm ring

7:45 -> wake up

7:45 - 8:00 -> breakfast

8:00 -> bike

8:10 - 9:35 -> gym

9:35 -> bike

9:45 - 19 -> work

19 -> bike

19 - 21 -> free time (work/side project/ sport/stuff)

21 - 22 -> eat

22 - 23 -> prepare to go to bed

23:00 -> sleep

HN turned reddit. See other FP Ask HN as well. Very shallow and general questions.

By fasting I assume it is intermediate fasting?

Intermittent probably.

Prayer and meditation. I got my meditation timer set for 12.5 minutes and bump it up every couple weeks. I've noticed huge changes in how I work and the quality of my interactions with others. Recommend it to anyone.

How much do you spend each day now? And what is the bump rate? I have one set at 10 mins every day and mostly it is to do body observation meditation.

How do you meditate?

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