Master Your Day
Establishing a God Centered Routine
“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love …” – Marcus Aurelius
You’re a busy man in a busy society. Things won’t be calming down anytime soon and your daily to-do list keeps piling up. You struggle to find good starting and stopping points throughout the day and are seeing that you have less and less time for prayer and contemplation in service to God. What do you do to make sense of the whirlwind that is your life and how are you supposed to center it with God?
In this article, we will go over how to retake the reins of your life, teaching you to not only take control of your day to day activities, but to maintain it and to maintain it well. Now let’s get crakin’.
Your Life Plan
Crafting the life you want is important to your daily schedule. I came across this concept on the Art of Manliness Website. “Each man should take an active role in shaping his future. He Must gain entry into the Guild of Greatness.” A life plan is the blueprint for your life, that of course will change with time. It helps identify your roles and goals as a man, identifies your reality and how you can sculpt your own with time, perseverance and old fashioned grit. You can take a look at the article HERE.
In order to create the best possible Daily Routine, it is critical that you take some time out of your week and craft your life plan. This is the best way to get from “going through the motions” to motion making. You can add the goals from your life plan and integrate them into the morning, evening or free time of your daily routine!
You can view Catholic Manhood’s life plan HERE.
The Two Critical Points of Your Day
Life gets gritty. Life is often unpredictable, but there are 2 points in your day that you can almost completely control. Those two times are Morning and Night. Here’s Why;
Starting with a morning and evening routine will help quell the chaos that is the middle of the day, an often unpredictable part due to work duties and familial responsibilities. This is also where your life plan reaches peak importance.
It makes certain that the important behaviors and actions are fostered first and last thing of the day. For Example, I wake up every morning and the first thing I do is recite the Our Father Prayer, hop into my tennis shoes and do a morning workout. If I didn’t make time and take the initiative to exercise at this point in the morning, it simply would not get done. A good book for character maintenance is important to me as well, so I make time to read it before I head off to bed.
Setting these two anchors of your day keeps you from losing your sanity and reduces the fatigue of decision making. You can lose a lot of time figuring out what you are going to do with your free time if you don’t take the time to plan it out.
God Centered is the Goal
So what do I mean here about a God centered day? Let’s go back in time to 516 AD when St. Benedict of Nursia wrote his rules for monastic living. How can we better our day with “Ora Et Labora”? HERE’S the premium link from Amazon and HERE’s a way more cost effective version that I personally own.
St. Benedict held to the principle of unceasing prayer. This can be amplified by the Liturgy of The Hours. The LoH encompasses canonical hours throughout the day to dedicate time and praise to God. Some of those hours are; (9 total)
Morning Prayer (Lauds)
Mid-Morning Prayer (Terce)
Midday Prayer (Sext)
Afternoon Prayer (None)
Evening Prayer (Vespers)
Night Prayer (Compline)
Clergy have an obligation to pray the LoH, but it is not obligatory for laymen. However, it is strongly encouraged for the same reason I am writing this article. To center one’s day around God, break up your day and pray unceasingly. (I did not specify the exact times above because I have revised the times in the daily routine spreadsheet I created to fit a common man’s daily schedule, which is available later on in the article)
Knowing these 6 hours is the best way to structure your daily routine to the most important aspect of your life. God. With these hours, I have shaped a daily routine for any man willing to get his life back on track to what matters most.
HERE is a copy of Catholic Manhood’s God Centered Daily Routine. This sheet has been made for you to make a copy of and sculpt your very own daily routine, with God Centered Guard Rails.
You will notice that the hours of 5:45 Am, 9:30 AM, 12 PM, 3 PM, 6 PM, and 9:30 PM are all labeled Prayer times. Again, these times and prayers are flexible somewhat and what kind of prayer you decide is up to you of course.
For me, I use the Book of Christian Prayer which follows the Liturgy of the Hours and keeps your prayer on a calendar for each time of the day. It utilizes psalms, canticles and scripture readings for a well rounded prayer time. But you can always substitute a few of those times for things like daily readings, the rosary, Bible Study, or contemplative personal prayer.
Notice also that the middle of my day is listed as a “work item”. I try to keep this time of day flexible while maintaining a tight morning and evening schedule, because it is what I know I can control.
Make Your Routine Immovable
You cannot make your morning and night routine as flexible as the middle of your day. If you do so, sticking to it will prove impossible, habits will not be formed and you will find yourself in the same predicament that you were in before you started this whole process. Although your scheduled time is interchangeable, make it specific and strictly stick to it. Wake up at the same time every day, get into a groove. You need to make a point to know exactly the activities you will perform during your routine and how much time to dedicate to the task.
The Daily Routine Sheet is designed in 15 minute intervals. HERE Leadership coach Jason Womack describes why you should break up your day into different 15-minute blocks.
Study The Routines of Legendary Men
In his diary and letters from the time, Teddy Roosevelt explained that he would spend “no more than a quarter of the typical day studying,” Newport writes, which typically amounted to only a couple of hours. Despite spending significantly less time on his classwork than his fellow students, he still managed to achieve honors in five of his seven first-year classes.
Dinner was the focal-point and highlight of Winston Churchill’s day. Table talk, dominated by Churchill, was as important as the meal. Sometimes, depending on the company, drinks and cigars extended the event well past midnight. The guests retired, Churchill returned to his study for another hour or so of work.
“Think in the morning. Act at noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.” – William Blake
“A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Long term success is a direct result of what you achieve everyday. Goals provide your daily routine.” – Rick Pitino (Go Cards)
Read books on famous men and try to incorporate their habits into your own routine.
Put your plan into action, take hold of your life and willfully soak up every moment. Your Daily Routine is the first step.
Catholic Manhood would like to leave you off with a quote from Marcus Aurelius – “When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love …”
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam