8 Productive Evening Routines to Help You Achieve More [infographic]

Mar 13

All of us have more and more to do each day, so making productive evening routines part of your daily habits can help you to get more done, as well as reduce stress.

As graphic designers, we all have so many deadlines to keep track of, in addition to any number of personal projects, ad hoc requests, communications, and more. Because of this, many of us feel a little overwhelmed at the sheer amount of work that needs to be completed during an average day.

I know I definitely found myself in this position.

That’s why, a couple of years ago, I forced myself to integrate a few routines into my life that have now become automatic.

I don’t mean automatic in the sense that all these things happen on their own without my needing to do anything, but rather that I no longer think about doing these productive evening routines – I just do them. They’ve become an important part of helping me tackle the day, I hope they’ll help you in the same way too.

Quick Tips to Help You Cope with Stress

Before we get into the productive evening routines, I want to take a few minutes to look at ways you can help yourself handle the stress of an average day.

There’s a good chance that you’ve found yourself reading this article because you want to fix your problems with stress in some way.

Whilst the tips below, and the routines you came here for, aren’t quick fixes, they will (from my experience) help you deal with stress when it all starts to feel like too much.

Listen to Music

For me, a great way to reduce stress is to listen to soothing music throughout the day. Some studies have found that listening to calm music without lyrics is great way to keep your mind balanced and stress-free. I find that piano music works perfectly.

Take a Quick Walk

At the end of every day, I got for a walk. For me, this is a chance to mentally check off all the worries and stresses of the day. Additionally, spending time in nature can help relieve stress.

Close Your Eyes

This is a weird one, and something you may not think will work, but it really does! When you feel like the day is getting too overwhelming, close your eyes for a few minutes. Our daily surroundings, combined with heightened levels of stress, can become very overwhelming. Simply closing your eyes removes distracting visual stimuli.

Meditate for a Few Minutes

Same as the above, closing your eyes and sitting in the quiet for a few minutes can help you to regulate your breathing and quieten down your mind. I find myself doing this one a lot. Whilst it may feel a little weird the first time, the more you do it, the more natural it will begin to feel.

Laugh

Laughter is the best medicine! When you feel a little stressed, something as simple as watching a clip of funny TV show on YouTube is enough to make you feel better. Next time you’re feeling stressed, try it!

The Productive Evening Routines

Now that you know a few ways to easily reduce your stress, it’s time to take it to the next level! By introducing these productive evening routines into your life, you can put yourself on the right track to being both more productive and less stressed!

Gather Up Your Stuff

An amazingly simple way to prepare yourself for tomorrow is by getting everything ready the night before.

If like me, you find yourself travelling a lot, it’s a good idea to get all your stuff ready the night before. This can include putting your laptop and charger in your backpack, getting travel information ready, etc.

You’ll find that your morning is MUCH less stressful when everything has been set up for success the night before.

The 5-Minute Pick Up

As you go about a regular day, things end up all over the place. Maybe your phone charger has ended up in the kitchen, or your notebook is on the floor.

When you finish work for the day, spend 5-minutes putting everything back where it all belongs. This is also called Resetting the Room, and the idea is that you’ll be much less stressed when you know where you can find all your stuff without having to hunt around.

Set Your Schedule

Not knowing what you’re doing each day can feel incredibly stressful.

I’ve found that blocking out time for tomorrow will make the day so much less stressful than just “winging” it. When you know exactly what you’ll be doing, and when, you’ll feel much more in control of your day.

Declutter Your Mind

If you follow me on LinkedIn, you’ll already know that I regularly talk about the power of journalling, and how regularly writing can make you feel much calmer and in control of your emotions.

Whilst long-form journalling isn’t for everyone, I do believe that everyone can get a benefit from it.

At night, if you find yourself having trouble getting off to sleep, that could be because your mind is still racing from your busy day. I highly recommend taking some time to declutter your mind by dumping all your thoughts, feelings, worries, and stresses into a journal at the end of the day.

To Do List

If you’ve ever written a to-do list, you know how easy it is to write down every single task, no matter how small, leaving you with a list that’s almost endless – and incredibly overwhelming.

The antidote to this including only the essential tasks.

At the end of my workday, I sit down at my desk and go through all the tasks for tomorrow and include only the essentials on my physical to-do list.

For reference, every task I need to handle each day is listed in Todoist, but on the physical list I only include the top priorities. This ensures the list doesn’t feel too overwhelming and also gives me a focus for the day.

No Tech Time

An hour before bed (and the first hour after I wake up) is a tech-free zone.

Several studies have shown that looking at screens before we go to bed has a detrimental effect on our our quality of sleep – and we all know how important sleep is for being productive.

Additionally, scrolling through social media before you go to sleep can also cause your brain to work overtime when it should be unwinding.

Do you really need to see watch all those TikTok videos before bed?

Gratitude Journal

This one doesn’t really increase productivity, but it does help to reduce stress.

In our busy lives, it can be all too easy to overlook or forget the good things in life. Keeping a gratitude journal can help you consciously focus on the things you enjoy and are thankful for, keeping them front of mind.

And even better, keeping a gratitude journal is simple! All you need is a notebook and a pen. Before bed, write down a single thing that you’re thankful for.

It can be something as simple as being thankful for books, or you can go in detail about a specific aspect of a friend. The important thing is that you find something to be thankful for every day.

Set Your Focus

We covered this in the schedule and to-do list sections, but the importance setting a focus for the day cannot be understated.

To set your focus for tomorrow:

Think about your number one goal and what you’ll do to achieve it
Think about the challenges you’ll face and how you’ll overcome them
Think about the mindset you want to tackle tomorrow with

Spending a few minutes setting your focus and thinking about all the challenges you may face trying to achieve it will mentally prepare you for the day ahead. It’s surprising how much doing this will actually improve your productivity.

You can either do this in a notebook and physically write down points for each of the above, or you can simply lay in your bed and think about what tomorrow will look like.

Whichever way you choose to do it, you’ll see almost immediate improvements in your productivity.

Conclusion

Each of these simple evening routines will help you have a more productive tomorrow, even if they may not feel like it on the surface.

It may be hard to get into any of these routines to begin with, but the key to these having an effect is sticking to them and creating habits.

For me personally, all of these routines combined takes about an hour each night to run through, and the benefits that I’ve found – to my productivity, quality of sleep, stress levels, and more – are HUGE!