I picked up Austin Kleon’s book Keep Going over the weekend. It’s a manual for staying creative in the face of success and failure. His first recommendation is a daily practice, a set of habits that you can maintain no matter what.
Here are what my current daily practices look like:
- Getting up early (generally before 5am)
- Meditating on God’s goodness and my blessings while visualizing the things I would like to accomplish for the day
- Praying and reading my Bible
- Sending prayers to my wife and anyone on prayer calendar for the day
- Writing for 15-30 minutes before I eat breakfast
- Listening to motivational audio programs during commutes and other free time
- Planning lessons or grading student work
- Exercising 6 out of 7 days a week (running / basketball)
- Eating dinner with my wife and daughter around the dinner table
- Eating chocolate (not all of these habits are great!)
- Giving my daughter a bath and helping her get ready for bed
- Evaluating the day’s progress and planning the following day in my Journal
- Posting my #3Gratitudes to Instagram
- Sharing prayers and praises from the day with my wife and then praying with her before we go to bed
I try to build routine into my courses as well. Every single time we meet, I make sure that we:
- Begin with a gratitude practice to put us in a more thankful/appreciative state of mind
- A daily recitation, a passage that students stand and read in unison with me
- A writing exercise that generally comes out of the recitation
- A benediction where they stand and hear the class’s big takeaway as well what’s in store for the next meeting
I think daily habits are scriptural. Jesus commands his disciples to pray for “daily bread” and Psalmist commends meditating on God’s law “day and night.” Listing these practices lets me know how blessed I am. If I made significantly more or less money, I would still practice the same habits. There are things I want to add and shore up, but God has been faithful in giving me the motivation and energy to instill the above lists already.