No more “perfect days”

Since October I’ve been using one of my favorite apps, Productive, every day to track my goals. These range from taking a daily vitamin and making my bed to remembering to take out the trash for pickup and watering my house plants so they won’t die. At the end of a long day seeing another “perfect day” was a little boost as I collapsed into bed. But, over time, I realized that these were shallow victories because it wasn’t actually a challenge.

In other words, I made these goals easy to achieve so I could see immediate results in my environment AND on the tracker which tells you how many perfect days you’ve achieved.

And while that worked to get me back into good habits and routines, it’s time to change things up and stop having perfect days.

First, I’m rewrote most of my habits and I’ve learned that editing or removing a habit from Productive counts as an “imperfect day” with only some of your tasks done. Trust me, that annoyed me more than I’d like to admit and I may have submitted a support request to regain my perfect streak.

I’d like to share what is going into my new habit list, and start with the personal tasks, because I often feel that articles about routine are light on the details. You do not have to adopt these in whole or part, they are mine.

Productive allows you to arrange your habits in order

Daily Morning order: 

• Make my bed within 30 min of waking up (Monday to Friday) 
• Take daily vitamin
• Eat breakfast within 60 min of waking up
• Make a cup of tea with collagen

These are replacing tasks like “make bed” which, I’ll be honest, I have done 5 seconds before climbing under the covers for the day and counted it. I am usually shifting the dogs outside to use the bathroom, checking my calendar and email for important notices and shut the door to my room for most of the day. Instead I want to take a few minutes to make the bed so my evening routine is smoother. The exception to this habit is the weekends when I wash my bedding.

While I’m getting dressed or making the bed I also take my daily vitamin which I keep on the dresser so I don’t forget it.

Usually I consider breakfast to be my first meal of the day but I operate much better when I eat relatively quickly within waking up. Over the last 6 months I’ve phased out coffee and found that a cup of tea is just perfect for me.

And that’s it for now! Just 4 things in the morning but with more emphasis on the when and how it gets done.

While there is an option for “afternoon tasks” I have found that I do not check in on these to dos during my day and end up completing them at night. I also color coded the tasks so morning = red, evening = blue and yellow = random. 

Daily Evening order:

• Take out trash if 75% full
• Take out recycling 50% full
• Check mailbox
• Wash all dishes and pans (Monday to Friday)
• Brush teeth for full 3 minutes
• Double cleanse face + moisturize
• Journal for 10 minutes

Here the trash tasks are pretty simple, I tend to wait until the trash needs to be power lifted out of the can because I’m busy and it’s a whole 100 steps to the outdoor trash cans. This forces me to consider, daily, if I need to take out the trash and recycling. These habits are good to establish now before the flies and ants return as they do every summer and love finding the smallest crumb of food.

While I’m going outside to take out the trash I will also check the mailbox and toss all the junk mail that ends up in my house.

Another new task is to completely wash all the dirty dishes and pans before bed. Not hiding them in the sink for later. Washing can also mean loading up the dishwasher and switching it on. Again, giving myself a little grace on the weekends when I’m usually batch cooking for the week ahead.

My daily habit to brush and floss is changing to brush for a full 3 minutes, usually the length of a single song. I’m definitely guilty of staying up too late and doing a cursory brush before bed because I’m too tired to stand. So my new standard is 3 minutes.

I started to double cleanse my face last January and it definitely helps my skin. I just need to do it regularly!

Finally, I’m changing my goal of journaling to include a time because there have definitely been a few one liner journal entries. While that works for some people, I had to revisit my reasons of why I wanted to keep a daily journal and realize that I need more time. I’m also not a morning journaler. When I try it’s basically a half page of “I want to go back to sleep” or a list of things to do that day. I’d rather be reflective on the day I’ve finished than imagining what I could be doing. Personal preference 🙂

Occasional tasks:

I love that I can set tasks and habits that occur just once or twice a week! These are not tasks that need a lot of mental energy but I also don’t want to forget them.

• Wash sheets and pillowcases (Saturday)
• Wash comforters (Sunday)
• Take trash bins to the curb (Tuesday)
• Water house plants (Tuesday and Friday)
• Update Goodreads (Sunday)
• Novel Update (Tuesday)
• Clean Fridge (Saturday)

Most of these are pretty self-explanatory! The timing might take a little tweaking, in my experience. For example, I put the trash bins out the night before pickup because the trash company comes early. When I clean out the fridge on Saturday I have space for groceries and batch cooking over the weekend. And I’m usually home on Sundays which means I can swap out the laundry throughout the day and get all my linens cleaned.

Tasks I do not track

There are plenty of things I do on a regular basis that I don’t have in the app, such as feeding my dogs and bathing 😉 I also track meditation and my workouts in different systems so doing them here would be redundant.

While all of this is what I’ve found works for me, setting these routines is a challenge. It means no more easily perfect days but a stretch. I was talking with a friend recently who assumed that since systems are my business I am also the most structured and organized person in the world. Nope! Working within Productive to set new, challenging tasks to complete, often with deadlines, has been amazing.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments! Which of my tasks do you think is crazy? What would you add if this were your daily routine?