✍️ Desk of Amy Suto: 5 Tips to Creating a Daily Success Routine
Improve creativity and productivity without a rigid daily schedule.
In this post you’ll learn…
✨ The importance of a Daily Success Routine
✍️ How to design daily time blocks that are flexible and creativity-promoting
⚡️ Why daily prioritization is the key to “doing it all”
📖 3-Minute Story: Why You Need a Daily Success Routine
It’s rainy here in Edinburgh, but the sour weather hasn’t put a damper on my first two days here.
I’m visiting for the Edinburgh Fringe Fest — basically, the Coachella of the indie theater world — and since landing two nights ago I’ve seen an unrehearsed performer participate in an experiment where she has no idea what’s happening, only that she’s supposed to read lines and instructions off a teleprompter and it gets weirder from there.
I’ve seen a VR musical where a man straps Meta Quest headsets onto four audience members and then starts singing and dancing while they awkwardly explore a video game landscape onstage behind him.
I’ve also seen some truly good theater, the standout being a show called Weather Girl where a news personality loses her mind and regains a connection with the earth during wildfire season. Her journey to find her homeless mother comes together in a surreal and snarky show that packs an emotional punch.
I’m here during the midst of doing press and podcast interviews for my new book, The Nomad Detective: Volume I, writing these newsletters to you, and keeping up with client work and a piece I’ve recently been commissioned to write for a big publication.
So while my daily schedule looks different, my Daily Success Routine does not.
A Daily Success Routine (DSR for short!) is what I call the time management method I’ve found to be successful in staying productive without squashing your creativity or feeling trapped in a mundane routine that sucks the joy out of the spontaneity of a well-lived life.
A DSR is best managed with time blocks on your calendar that you can shuffle around and tackle how you see fit in a day.
So if you’re looking to stay productive and inspired while juggling a full workload, here are my 5 Tips for Creating an Effective Daily Success Routine (DSR):
Tip #1: Don’t Pour from an Empty Cup
The biggest rule with this schedule is that you can’t show up as your best self for yourself and others if you don’t spend time taking care of yourself.
For me, this looks like spending 30-60 minutes per day reading, 20-30 minutes journaling, and getting a 30-90 minute workout on top of my 10,000 steps each day.
However “self-care” looks like for you, make sure to have at least 1 time block per day that allocates time to rest and recharge.
Tip #2: Overestimate Work and Writing Tasks
I always overestimate how long a task will take me. This way I’ll be reasonable when I’m scheduling things, and not accidentally put too much on my plate for the day. This is key to preventing overwhelm — and keeps the Present You kind to Future You!
Here’s an example of how I time block for a day amidst the busyness of my book launch:
During the day, I’ll often move around these blocks if it feels right. You can also see some things on here (like creating my daily short-form video for my book!) are scheduled for 60 minutes when they likely will take less than 30. This is to give myself breathing room.
If your schedule is too rigid, you’ll feel bad if one task takes longer than the timeslot, or if you’re not tackling things in the “right” order you set up for yourself. Stay flexible with timeblocks and allow yourself to flow into what feels right for what you want to do at any given point during the day.
Tip #3: Prioritize Before You Add a Timeblock to Your Calendar
I have a lot of miscellaneous tasks in my to-do lists. But only the high-priority ones end up on my calendar.
Small stuff gets added onto my calendar if there is free space — and even then I name those blocks “Low-Priority To-Do List” and try and churn through as many as I can in an hour or so.
By forcing yourself to make time for high-priority to-do item on your calendar in the form of time blocks, you have to be intentional and realistic about what goes on there. This means you have to prune your list and prioritize — before adding it to your day.
I sometimes struggle with prioritization and focus, which is why I love this method.
Tip #4: Complete 1 “High Impact” Task Per Day
“High Impact” tasks are big chunks of deep work that move the needle for you and your dreams.
This could look like…
Writing 4,000 words of your book
Pitching yourself to podcasts to market your book
Studying another author’s work and breaking down what works and what doesn’t
You’ll always be in alignment with your dreams if you do one thing each day to move the needle.
Tip #5: Make Time for Learning, Researching, and Good Inputs
As a fiction author and book ghostwriter, my work requires me to have a steady stream of good inputs to make sure my outputs are just as good.
This means I’m a picky consumer: I ditch books or TV shows if they’re not worth my time. Good stuff only!
No matter what work you do, it’s important you curate these good inputs. Your inner world is a garden, and the seeds you plant come from what you read, watch, and listen to.
Happy writing!
More posts of mine I think you’ll love…
✨ 2 Things I’ve Read and Loved This Week…
The Serpent and the Wings of Night (Crowns of Nyaxia, #1) by Carissa Broadbent earned 3/5 stars from me over on Goodreads. “Loved” might be a bit strong for my feelings on this book, but I did enjoy the twists and turns and the “trials” aspect of the story. I’m always a sucker for romantasy/fantasy stories where the heroine is an underdog warrior who has been secretly spending her whole life training to fight a bunch of near-immortals. Good stuff.
I’m 100 pages into A Shadow in the Ember (Flesh & Fire #1) by Jennifer L. Armentrout and I’m impressed. This is the prequel series to her other series I really love (Blood and Ash) and so far I think there are some good twists and I can’t fully say that I know where this book is going — I love being surprised as a reader!
✍️ 1 Journal Prompt
Imagine each part of your normal day has a color. What color is your morning? Your afternoon? Your evening? How do those colors blend together, and what do they make you feel? What colors would you rather each part of your day be?
Feel free to share anything that came up for you in the comments:
💻 New Blog Posts on AmySuto.com
Working Remotely in Krakow, Poland (Digital Nomad Travel Guide)
Working Remotely in Istanbul, Turkey (Digital Nomad Travel Guide)
🎥 Video of the Week: 4 Productivity Hacks for Writers
In this week’s video, I break down the 4 productivity hacks that can help you reach your writing goals!
I promise you that you’ll hate #4, but it might end up being a life-changing tip — it certainly made me reevaluate everything I knew to be true after making the change.
📸 Photo of the Week: Saying Goodbye to Krakow, Poland
I left Krakow a few days ago, and while I’m not nostalgic for the city (it was time to move on!) I did really enjoy the peaceful month we had there.
Follow me on Substack Notes, Instagram, and Twitter/X for more!
Sending creativity and good writing vibes your way,
-Amy
p.s. I create my newsletter voiceovers and my podcast episodes using the tool Wondercraft AI, a text-to-speech tool that speaks in YOUR voice. 🎙 Use my code SUTO50 or this link to get started on Wondercraft! (paid/affiliate link)