I think most of the comments cover very crucial points! Discipline, consistency, workout, eat and sleep at set times - to quote the top few. Of course, I don’t want to repeat what is already said.

What I can do is to give my opinion on how to achieve those, or at least part of those, in a more hacky/lazy/unstructured way. It ended up being a long post. For it to be worth it, if you wonder about my credibility : I am a researcher with some keywords involving computer science, neuroscience, decision making etc. Not that it means something directly, but for you to know that I am a decently functioning professional who is happy with my engagements day-to-day and fairly productive.

Please don’t forget to refer to the P.S below if you wonder what my credibility is. The message is don’t target perfection. Target consistency. The key is to minimize internal conflicts arising due to trying to be disciplined.

- Wake up at the same/similar time everyday, with a possibly soothing alarm tone rather than a blasting one (more on this in the last point related to sleep). Hard rule, minimize snoozing, maximum once. Few things help - keeping your sports shoes, morning shorts/change of boxers, fresh socks by bed side

Morning

- Get on to the street, walk around for at least 10 minutes. No particular goal, doesn’t matter if you just make circles around a couple of blocks.

Core productive day time : [I am not going to specify every activity, but mention some general rules] see below. Overall, have a target - 6pm, 7pm, 7:30, gym class time, meeting a friend time whatever works.

Evening : Here are the key things.

- When ever you ‘core productive day time ends’ , think of dinner (on days when there is no social engagement). The key is eat as early as you can 6:30, 7, 8 max.

- The idea is to maximize the gap between eating and going to bed

- After eating, if you have watching habits, great, have a deadline like 10pm.

- standard stuff - have an hour before you actually sleep, for non-watching stuff - tv or computer doesn’t matter. Laundry? Folding clothes? Arranging home? Dishes? Oh yeah, post dinner 10 minute walk. Basically something mechanical, menial.

- About sleeping, trick: start reading in bed, 30 mins before when you want to sleep. Play crossword, puzzle if you want with low light on phone. Again standard stuff, please no scrolling.

- key: Alarm : When things work well, when you can be confident that say in 30mins of lying in bed I fall asleep (while puzzling or reading), have an alarm ‘after’ 6 hours or 7.5 hours or 9hrs from that time ‘instead of’ AT a certain time. E.g I lay on bed at 10, typically I expect to fall asleep by 10:30, my alarm would be at 6AM or 7:30 AM instead of 6:30 or 7:30 AM.

Core productive day time :

- Delay food intake until 10/11, drink water. Depending on your coffee habits, may be have a good one, but one.

- Also, I discourage working out during this time. In general, your brain could be at maximum efficiency during this morning time. So try to do productive mental work between waking up and 1 or 2 PM.

- About working it self, if you follow pomodoro timers or ToDos etc. good for you. If not, a manageable way is to make mental checkpoints.

- Let me open a notepad for this XXX plan and then I will have my coffee.

- Let me code this small feature then I will have cereals…

- For coders I discourage checking emails, but if that’s part of your job, that could be a task.

Remember, I am not framing as some kind of task / reward system. That’s the point, minimize logic/rationale/theory - just simple mental checkpoints - that is to give much needed breaks without having to be strict about timings.

Also at the beginning of the day, schedule (again, if you use tools, great, else, “mental” schedule) all the admin/housekeeping/chores to post 1 or 2 pm - email replies, online shopping, paying bills

Say you are done with chores, step out for a coffee, even sit some where, and do what? Depends - do nothing. Or mentally go through what you’d like to do for the rest of the day.

Come back home, get back to work, again, when you start, have a “mental” checkpoint - so and so task and then I will have a tea, or an apple. Then resume.

Depending on your dinner plans, cooking? Then mini tasks between steps. I put milk on stove on low and finish a small task. Ordering - the same, between tasks. Another task until the order comes.

P.S:

I do most of these, but let me tell you upfront I don’t run some super successful business but I don’t see how it would differ if I were to drop my multiple engagements and focus on one business. Feel free to disagree there. In short, I can tell you that I lead a happy day almost everyday doing my research work, catching up with family/friends on phone calls, coding on 1,2 side projects, step out for coffee, spend the evenings with my partner from dinner until going to bed.