I’ve been doing these so-called dailies for quite some time now, and I feel like I need some changes. I always had this idea in my head that I would keep refining my dailies, and with each iteration, they would get better and closer to perfect. But I’m realizing that what worked very well at one point doesn’t always work at other times.

Gemini told me to “define your season”, meaning, understand how things are right now. A single set of dailies isn’t always going to work because change is inevitable. I don’t think I should see redefining them as a negative thing. That being said, here is where I’m at.

My Current Season

I have been somewhat inconsistent with my routines and dailies of late. I’m going through my first career transition, a new uncle post, pre-double uncle post, and last but not least, a mid-life crisis. For the past two weeks, I’ve been at GS, and I am still getting accustomed to it. I also got rejected by Google recently because of a bad interview, so it’s an interesting time in my life.

I actually gave up my dailies over the past few weeks because everything seemed pointless, and I didn’t know how I should move forward. I feel more confused in life than ever. At times, it feels like there are too many threads running in my head, and I just need a few years off to figure things out. But at my pace, I’ll be dead before I figure out what I want to do with my life. So yeah, that’s the current season.

Why have a system in the first place?

I realized that, at least in the beginning, what motivated me was the inspiration to be disciplined. The idea that I don’t have to be the piece of shit that I think I am, that just consistently doing some defined things could change that, seemed enticing. I would watch videos of people saying discipline is everything and how it will change your life. I am a sucker for quotes, but most of the time I come across concepts, like them for a moment, and completely forget about them.

This phase about discipline was different, though. Many sources were telling me that in order to be truly successful or great, you need discipline. It was common to think, “If I do X, I’ll be successful,” and it always felt like I was one change away from success.

Success is a product of daily habits, not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.

So, I’m not going to get successful or become great without having good habits. It felt like an AHA moment. If I do this, I’ll eventually be successful. Ajay had a similar system he was doing with his friend, so I thought I should build one to make myself more disciplined.

But what even is discipline?

I really liked Mike Tyson’s definition:

Discipline is doing what you hate to do, but doing it like you love it.

I was enticed by the idea that you naturally hate doing hard things, but you have to do them anyway, like you love them. So it started off as a way to force discipline. Discipline is one of my core values, and having a system to incorporate it definitely helps.

It consisted of all the habits I wanted to persist and made up a significant part of my day. It was ambitious in the beginning, and it worked. One thing to note was the social contract. If I failed, there was shame and a monetary penalty. The problem was that over time, on harder days, it felt like hell. It became a chore, and I had no time for anything creative or restorative. I started dreading the dailies, procrastinating until the end of the day, and forcing myself to do them at night, sometimes compromising on sleep.

I eventually realized this was a bad move and made a sleep routine a part of the dailies, which also failed because it was too rigid and I needed flexibility. It slowly went from doing it for discipline to just doing it for the sake of completion. Even though it instilled discipline, it felt exhausting.

My Current Dailies: Pros and Cons

1. The Morning Routine

The primary target is to hit a wake-up slot (8:15 AM to 8:45 AM). The routine is: hydration (so I don’t start the day dehydrated), water the plants (to ensure I get sunlight in my eyes), and wash/moisturize my face. After that, I look at my goals, jot down points to remember, write at least one line of thought, and meditate.

Pros

• A consistent wake-up time stabilizes everything and allows for planning.
• The flexible 30m window leaves room for change.
• Stacking hydration with waking up was a good call.
• The plants were getting watered consistently (a small W).
• Looking at points to remember forced me to align with important things daily.
• Completing the routine felt like a genuinely good start to the day.

Cons

• My actual wake-up time varied highly due to inconsistent sleep times.
• Having a constant wake-up time but no fixed sleep time cut my sleep short on many days.
• I overwatered the plants (:<).
• The routine felt really long; even though it was a few simple steps, it felt like multiple stages.
• On days I woke up late, I’d just drink water and wash my face.
• Sometimes the routine would get split throughout the day.
• Most days I would forget to look at my goals until much later.
• I couldn’t successfully stack meditation onto the morning routine, most days it happened in the afternoon or at night.
• Skipping the morning routine made me feel like my day hadn’t officially started.

2. Night Time Routine

Pros

• It was simple, just wash my face and do skin care. Very low friction, and I rarely missed it.

3. Meditation

Started with 10m a day, currently at 15m. Meditation has always been challenging. There was a phase where it came naturally, and a phase where it just wasn’t working. Some days it was highly beneficial; other days it made me question why I was even attempting it. It’s hard to state the exact benefits, but despite the challenge, I was consistent in the attempt. Whether or not I was effective at it, I’m not sure, but I certainly think meditating has made me a better person.

4. Workout

• Ideal — Gym session, Badminton, or Swimming.
• Bare Minimum — The 100/100 Rule (50 pushups + 50 squats) OR 15 mins of calisthenics skill work OR 5,000 steps.

Pros

• Demanded extreme discipline. Regularly completing this felt great.
• Adding badminton, swimming, and running made it fun and motivating, plus the socialization at the gym.

Cons

• Going to the gym demands too much time (at least 1hr 20m total).
• Finding the right slot where I didn’t have to work, wasn’t in the office, AND the gym was empty became an impossible task.
• On difficult days, I would default to 5,000 steps, which felt like cheating.
• I never really did the calisthenics or pushups/squats, which was a big miss. It feels like an unsolved puzzle.

5. Reading

• Ideal — 30 minutes.
• Bare Minimum — 10 minutes.

Pros

• Knowledge gain. A very important daily.

Cons

• The hardest daily to do. I consistently only hit the bare minimum.
• Usually done at night, so I would feel sleepy and just fall asleep.

6. Goalies

• Ideal — 60 minutes dedicated to Weekly/Quarterly Objectives.
• Bare Minimum — 15 minutes of highly focused effort.

Pros

• Very flexible with a wide variety of tasks.
• Quite meaningful since it helps me focus on my goals and make consistent progress.

Cons

• Very hard to do. On weeks where I had no time to define goals or felt “goalless”, I would just pick something random.
• I also procrastinated within the goals, picking easier or unimportant tasks over the hard, important ones.
• It felt vague overall since a “goalie” could mean anything.

What went well in general?

• Bare Minimums — Introducing bare minimums was a big win. Before this, doing a daily on a difficult day meant cutting sleep or waking up late the next day. Acknowledging that some days are harder and allowing for a bare minimum worked really well. I no longer felt bad about missing or barely completing a daily. Having to justify why I did the bare minimum kept me accountable. It gave a sense of accomplishment, and life felt more organized.
• The Social Contract — This acted as a forceful health check. If I was going through something and couldn’t do my dailies, I was forced to report “dailies not done” and give a reason. This made me share things with friends that I otherwise wouldn’t have, keeping them informed and keeping me on track.
• Gamification — Tracking the dailies across different tools was fun and motivating. The data I was collecting was impressive.
• Purpose — Goalies added purpose to the dailies, ensuring I was actually moving in the direction of my long-term goals.

What are the common problems?

• The Maker vs. Manager Schedule — If I have to do all my dailies, I need a large number of small blocks on my calendar. It turns my day into a manager’s schedule. To incorporate deep work, I moved to “weeklies” (like 10 hours of learning and 2 hours of writing). Because they weren’t daily requirements, I pushed them to the weekends when I had large 2 to 4 hour blocks. This meant zero movement on weekdays, and a crammed weekend. Since I usually chill, hang out with friends, or play badminton on weekends, it was difficult to accommodate both. So, I moved away from it.
• Vague Goals & Planning — If I don’t set my goals properly, everything becomes vague. Setting long-term goals was challenging, and it requires a lot of planning, which I often failed to do because I didn’t see planning as actual work. Establishing a consistent schedule was hard.
• Leisure Guilt — Leisure guilt is fine to an extent, but spending time with my sister or on a video call with my nephew feels good in the moment. Yet, I stress about dailies and tasks in the background, which I shouldn’t.
• Dynamic Routine — I lack a solid daily schedule because my situation is highly dynamic right now, moving back and forth between my sister’s house and my house to reduce my commute.

Proposal for New Dailies

These are now live — I keep the current list on its own page: My Dailies.

Daily	Target
Meditation	10m a day (bare min 2m)
Workout	Gym (ideal), running, badminton, swimming, calisthenics, or 7,000 steps — any one of these daily
Goalies	5 hours a week
Reading	30m a day (bare min 0m)
Night time routine	Vitamins, plan the next day’s calendar
Weekly Planning	Mandatory weekly planning for goalies and the weekly calendar
Accountability	Keeping the social contract, but removing the penalty altogether

The dailies are now very low effort, so hopefully I’ll focus on quality.

With meditation, my goal is actually to do longer sessions, but I feel like I need regular practice first. For workouts, I would like to go to the gym more often, but I think calisthenics should cover some part of it at least. Goalies are turning into a weekly target, which hopefully fixes the maker vs. manager’s schedule problem, provided I don’t procrastinate too much. Let’s see how that goes.

For reading, my goal is to read a lot more, but I have to start somewhere. 30 minutes is still an aggressive ask.

Finally, I want to focus on planning and scheduling my day more often. I feel like I lack planning overall, so hopefully, this works out.