I’ve recently realized how powerful having a set schedule is for my productivity levels. As a college student, every day of the week was different. I could wake up at different times, I had different classes, different clubs, and of course, lots of drinking. It wasn’t an issue to keep track of, but I did have serious trouble building a routine. In fact, I was never able to stick to any routine that I tried to impose on myself. I reassured myself that once I started a job, it would all get better. Now that I’m working steady hours every week, I’ve come across a different issue: motivation. When I wake up at 6am and walk back into my apartment at 6:30pm or later, it becomes difficult to actually do anything productive.

My girlfriend, Julie, and I have been trying out different methods to keep ourselves motivated, and the best one so far has been the checklist. We spend our Sunday nights working out what we hope to accomplish during the week, whether its chores, reading or working on our side projects. We also include things like working out or making dinner. I even have flossing on there (I HATE FLOSSING). As silly as it seems to write out all of these basic tasks, it’s worked really well so far! We’re keeping the apartment clean, doing our laundry, FLOSSING (occasionally), and reading some interesting books. It’s also important to remember not to take it too seriously. If we don’t feel like cleaning up the dishes one night (which really only consists of putting them in the dishwasher, but it’s still hard!), it’s not a big deal because we’ve been keeping the apartment relatively clean prior. I’m enjoying the process of learning how to optimize my life, and I’d like to make that a staple of what I write about on my blog.

How do you keep yourself productive, especially after a full day of work?