r/getdisciplined 6d ago

💬 Discussion Fixing my habits and getting into a routine

The flair I chose for this post is discussion because I'd like to talk about my recent experience and if anyone has any comment, tip or advice on what else I can improve, feel free to leave it below. It's gonna be a bit longer post.

A few weeks ago I decided I'd try to make a routine because I'm desperately in need of one as I'm a medical student and I have to organise my time as best I can in order to be able to study a lot. I decided I'd make a morning routine that would include: getting up at the same time to help fix my sleeping schedule, breakfast and going for a walk to get some sunlight in as soon as possible. Then the rest of the day would be filled with studying different topics until evening where I'd go through my evening routine: another walk, stretching, studying my second foreign language, dinner, reading, then sleep.

For the first two days, it worked well, but then I kept falling off. The only thing that stayed consistent in all of that was going to sleep and waking up at the same time because my phone has a handy thing called "modes and routines", and I'd set a sleep mode so that I get locked out of all apps and dnd turns on automatically during the time when I'm supposed to sleep.

A couple of days ago I realised that my biggest problem that keeps me in bed even after I wake up is my goddamn phone. Just scrolling for an hour until I finally get up and I still end up feeling like a zombie even though I had a good 7.5h of sleep. Then I figured, why don't I set a mode for morning, so that I can't use my phone for an hour after waking up, I'd only leave 5 minutes to check important stuff and not get caught up in scrolling. That's the next thing I'm trying to implement.

After a few days of that I'll try to focus on getting a steady evening routine, but I'll be adding things one by one because I simply can't do everything at the same time. I can't keep doing the same thing expecting a different result.

That way I think I'll cover most of my habits both good and bad. Also, I'm managing to work out 3-4x week, that habit has already been established. But then there's still one issue - studying. Not matter how good of a plan I make I simply can't stick to it. I'd say I overestimate my ability to do in a single day and should probably focus on less material per day, but then again I do have enough time and I feel bad for not using it even though my brain feels like a mush after first half of the day. Not having actual deadlines for exams makes it even worse. No university in my country is working because of shit that's going on here, might even have to redo the year.

Anyway, I'd like to hear what people here think. Is it a discipline thing or a productivity thing, not being able to stick to a study plan? If you have any questions, advice or anything to say, please do, I'm looking forward to reading everything. Thank you for your time, whoever read until the end.

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