{"id":314,"date":"2020-06-20T16:47:16","date_gmt":"2020-06-20T16:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danwritescode.com\/?p=314"},"modified":"2020-06-23T12:55:15","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T12:55:15","slug":"daily-habits-for-patience-discipline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danwritescode.com\/daily-habits-for-patience-discipline\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Daily Habits I Use to Improve My Patience, Discipline and Knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In February 2020 I left the startup I worked on non stop for the former 2 years. It was a hectic time when I had to fill multiple roles, and thus my personal (and professional) discipline has suffered. I learned a lot and I promised myself not to part with my core values anymore regardless what professional adventures I will have in the future. In order to keep my promise I devised a set of habits that will help me stay true to my core self: a disciplined, patient person with precise knowledge of my field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to have an issue with holding on to habits but now I use Tick Tick<\/a> both to track habits and to help me keep a good time management. It’s a great todo list up, on steroids, I love it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here they are: the 7 habits I build my patience and discipline upon:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Wake up every day at 6 am<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This brings order in my daily routine as all days start at the same time, regardless when I go to sleep. I wake up at 6 and that’s the first task of the day – done. From then on, it’s quiet and I have around 2 hours to do other things without being bothered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I connect this practice with my goal of being disciplined. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Exercise \/ stretch every day<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mens sana in corpore sano.
This takes 30-45 minutes per day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do some HIIT or stretching in off days. Not only for keeping in shape but I use exercising as a reset mechanism half-way into the day. It is most efficient especially after I already did the hardest tasks of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I use the Freeletics<\/a> app because it works for me and it’s super efficient. It keeps me in good enough shape without having to schedule and build the routine all by myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Meditate<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I meditate about 5 minutes per day. Nothing fancy so far, I just exercise clearing my mind and dismiss distractions and perturbations during this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is another reset mechanism and also useful to train my patience. I just take 5 minutes to not think about anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This habit is strongly connected with training my patience and the experience it brings allows me to focus a lot better during my deep work sessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Learn Something New Every Day<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I study a minimum of 30 minutes every day, although I try to go for 1.5-2 hour most days (at the time when I write this).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I usually start around 6:30 after I verify my emails. I target hot topics in the industry. My current focus in the MERN stack and its architecture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This habit works well for both patience and discipline because. The time invested to complete each topic is usually 20-30 hours, thus through this consistent effort I reach each goal with small incremental steps. Yes, it requires both patience and discipline to achieve before moving on to a new topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I currently use Udemy courses<\/a> to learn what is on my list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Read a Book \/ Listen to an audiobook<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I always loved to read, but during the time I spent with my previous startup I had periods when I neglected this habit about 50% of the time. I am brining back this habit by allocating a minimum of 15 minutes per day to this activity. I usually do a bit more, in off days I stretch it as much as I feel like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I focus on books about productivity and business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading is definitely not an activity that brings instant gratification so you can consider this habit to be in the “improving my patience” camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Write A Bit Every Day<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I like to write for 10-15 minutes minimum each day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing trains me to be a better communicator. Bit by bit I aim to be a better communicator and be able to explain with more clarity and ease complicated topics even to untrained people. It’s a skill I aim to master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I use this time to write on this blog. I focus on productivity, algo challenges, and javascript topics. For now at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing daily goes into the training my discipline camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. Set Up Tomorrow’s Schedule<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I take 5 minutes each evening to go through the next day, arrange tasks in order and set them priorities. I rarely finish all tasks as I tend to slightly overplan (still). I prefer this than to be left without nothing to do. Undone tasks get passed to the next day, but priority tasks are almost always done within the designated day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One great thing about this habit is that I actually get excited about the next day, which helps me wake up with a lot of enthusiasm every day at 6am. (see habit #1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This habit falls in the discipline category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BONUS – A Clean Inbox. My Weekly Habit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"nothing<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As a bonus, my secret to not being overwhelmed anymore by the avalanche of unfinished tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each Sunday\/Monday morning I take time to get my inbox to 0. I answer important emails, archive \/ filter all the unnecessary ones and delete\/ unsubscribe from whatever I will never actually read or what I do not find important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is important to me because when my inbox is full I have a stress in the back of my mind that something is not finished. Since I implemented this habit I am honestly a lot happier and a lot more efficient in my work due to the lack of stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There you have them. The 7 daily habits and the 1 weekly habits that I tuned for myself to help me be more patient, structured, disciplined and consistent in everything that I do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These habits work for me but won’t necessarily work for you just as good. I suggest if you want to adopt some habits that make you grow to first analyze which are your goals and find a way to break them down in habits that don’t need to take more than 10-20 minutes of your time. Some people split them into something as little as 2 minutes. The point here is that you can still keep your consistency of a habit if it only takes 2 minutes. And if you are in the mood you can allocate more time to it, the better it is. Allocating at least 2 minutes (or 10) will assure you will do it – because there’s no excuse not to do something that takes so little time and is important to you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having these habits in my life has a tremendous effect on my general mood and the way I see my days. That is because even if I have a shitty day, at the end of it I still woke up early, learned something, read something, did some sports, wrote a bit and scheduled the next day. Everyday has some clear wins and something to celebrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you enjoyed this read, leave a comment, tell me about your habits, or what you plan to add to your daily routine! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In February 2020 I left the startup I worked on non stop for the former 2 years. It was a hectic time when I had to fill multiple roles, and thus my personal (and professional) discipline has suffered. I learned a lot and I promised myself not to part with my core values anymore regardless what professional adventures I will have in the future. In order to keep my promise I devised a set of habits that will help me stay true to my core self: a disciplined, patient person with precise knowledge of my field. I used to have <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danwritescode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danwritescode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danwritescode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danwritescode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danwritescode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/danwritescode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danwritescode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danwritescode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danwritescode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danwritescode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}