3-Bullet Summary
You’ll benefit more from reading the article the whole way through. But, if you’re pressed for time, here’s a condensed version of The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect Daily Routine for Students:
- Too many students are stuck following a daily routine that doesn’t work for them. They feel drained and desire to procrastinate constantly, because their lives aren’t designed properly.
- To combat this, a daily routine for students is beneficial. Practicing a few core habits every day can drive immense progress towards the ultimate goal of achieving top grades.
- There are 3 key stages to the perfect daily routine for students:
The Daily Cycle of Doom
You’re groggy, disoriented, and tired — but you’ve only just woken up.
With a sigh, you drag yourself out of bed and stumble into the bathroom. You glance at your reflection in the mirror. Tired eyes tell the story of late-night study sessions and social media binges.
Another grind awaits; the daily race against time has started once again.
The commute is a blur of missed buses, traffic jams, and frantic dashes to make it to class on time.
Once there, the classes seem never-ending: a monotonous drone of information from teachers that don’t care. You scribble notes half-heartedly, wondering if there’s a better way to navigate the jungle you’re lost in.
The day continues with a mountain of assignments, extracurricular activities, and social obligations. It’s a relentless cycle of tasks, each one sucking your attention dry like a leech.
As evening falls, you finally return home, physically and mentally drained. The thought of studying is about as appealing as a trip to the dentist.
You know, deep down, that now’s the time to knuckle down and get ahead of tomorrow’s schedule.
But, you want to scroll through social media and procrastinate.
If only every day wasn’t such a battle…
Introduction
Few students consider the importance of the daily grind.
Most of us kind of just drift. We go to the classes we’re set and complete assignments when they need to be completed. It’s almost like we’re on autopilot.
In my sixth form days, I felt this exact way. I’d literally attend my classes, study in my pockets of free time, play video games at home, and sleep. I had no real fire burning inside of me — no vigour underpinning my actions.
Simply put, I was just a normal guy doing stuff that everyone else did.
But, after reading one book, my life changed forever.
In the summer after sixth form, I read The 4-Hour Work Week. (Which is one of The 7 Essential Books for Students Who Want Top Grades. Highly recommended.)
To cut a long story short, the author introduced me to a concept called lifestyle design. Ferris explained that you can do things on a daily basis that move you towards desired endpoints.
So simple, but so true.
After I read the book, I looked at my life and thought, “Is my daily routine serving me, or am I just doing what others want me to do?” The answer was quite straightforward, actually: I was on autopilot!
So, I had to take action. I needed a daily routine for students — one that would serve my core purpose at the time: to get the best grades I possibly could.
I rigorously redesigned my whole week, from morning to night, adding in the things that would improve my life, whilst culling those which took me off course.
After following this daily routine for students for close to 3 years now, I can safely say that it works a treat. Every day, now, moves me towards my goals, whilst also allowing me to develop multiple areas of my life. Moreover, it’s halved the amount of time I spend studying, because the time I do dedicate to it is much higher quality.
In this guide, I’ll be sharing with you this very routine. However, unlike most routines out there, I’m going to keep this one really simple and customisable.
I’ll give you a blueprint of only the most important things you should be focusing on in your mornings, afternoons and evenings if you want to be the best student possible, and leave plenty of free space for you to use for whatever else you want. (You can’t say I don’t love you, right?)
The daily cycle of doom ends now. Let’s start living our lives purposefully and dive into The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect Daily Routine for Students!
"To enjoy life, you don't need fancy nonsense, but you do need to control your time"
The 3 Key Stages
Your day consists of 4 big blocks:
- The morning (7:00am–12:00pm)
- Midday (12:00pm–5:00pm)
- The evening (5:00pm–10:00pm)
- The night (10:00pm–7:00am)
The night is off limits. That’s when we’re sleeping, and sleep is a non-negotiable for students who want good grades.
This leaves us with what I call the 3 key stages: the morning, midday and the evening.
Each of these stages can be optimised. By this, I mean that there are certain essential behaviours and habits that should be allocated to them to get them working in our favour. In the following 3 sections, we’re going to cover what these essential habits and behaviours are, and how you can practically integrate them into your daily student routine.
The Perfect Morning Routine for Students
Because there’s already an article in the Strong Students’ library about The Perfect Morning Routine for Students, I won’t be going into a significant amount of detail in this article.
However, because this is an ultimate guide to the optimal daily routine for students, I’ll still walk you through what you should be doing.
- Step 1) Light exposure — when you wake up, go outside for 10 minutes and look towards (but not directly at) the sun whilst simultaneously doing step 2.
- Step 2) Hydrate — consume 2 glasses of water (480ml) to hydrate properly.
- Step 3) Cold shower — in the morning, you want to get warm. Because cold exposure promotes vasoconstriction1, meaning it narrows your blood vessels, it shocks your body into warming up. Plus, cold exposure releases a whole bunch of awesome chemicals, like dopamine and adrenaline2, which boost motivation and alertness. (If you really don’t want to do a cold shower, then the alternative is to exercise, like walking or skipping rope. However, in my opinion, cold showers are just more practical, because most of us shower in the morning anyway.)
- Step 4) Don’t eat anything for 1–2 hours after waking — this step is optional. However, if you’re a student who tends to ‘crash’ in the morning after they eat, then just push your breakfast back a little bit. This will really enhance your ability to focus, and greatly enhance your performance for step 5.
- Step 5) Deep work — the previous 4 steps take a maximum of 30 minutes. Now, spend as much of the rest of the morning you can on performing deep work. This simply means working on hard tasks in a focused state. If you’ve got morning classes/lectures, then these will be your morning deep work hours. But, if your morning is free, then sit down for 1–3 hours and just knock out the hard stuff: assignments, studying/revision, practice papers, etc. This habit alone will put you in the fastlane to student success.
This morning routine is super effective. It’s uncomplicated, will boost your grades (especially step 5) and centred around principles that will get your system firing.
Right, morning done. Onto…
The Perfect Afternoon Routine for Students
The afternoon is by far the hardest part of the day to structure because it frequently changes.
If you’re at secondary school (high school, for my Americans out there), this won’t really apply to you, because you have a rigid timetable. You probably have 2–3 classes after 12:00pm, a lunch break and specific home time.
However, if you’re at sixth form/UK college or university/US college, then your afternoons likely vary quite a lot. Some days you have nothing, other days you have 3 classes taking you to 6:00pm. As such, getting into a military routine is borderline impossible.
That’s why, instead of giving you steps, I’m instead going to provide you with a set of 3 basic principles to follow. These principles don’t need to be followed in a set order, and can be completed whenever you get the time. Therefore, regardless of whether you’re in secondary/high school or university/college, working on a weekday or weekend, you’ll have a blueprint to structure your afternoon around.
Principle 1) Exercise
In my opinion, the best thing a student can do at some point in the afternoon is to exercise. This is because…
- It produces mood-boosting endorphins — exercise causes your body to release endorphins, which are chemicals that improve your mood and energy levels3.
- It improves your mental sharpness — research has shown that exercise is one of the best things you can do for your brain, and, therefore, it’s associated with better grades4.
- It promotes better digestion — exercise gets the blood moving around your body and around the muscles of your digestive tract, encouraging them to work more efficiently5. As a result, it really helps to prevent any lunch-time bloating/indigestion.
But which exercise should you do?
In all honesty, any exercise is better than none. Whether it’s a game of football once class is over, or an afterschool run, you’ll be reaping major benefits.
That said, there are two types of exercise that I believe are most beneficial for students: resistance training and walking.
If you want to learn about what resistance training is, then check out my beginner’s guide to it. In short, though, it’s lifting weights to challenge your muscles and trigger them to grow.
Therefore, resistance training has the unique benefit of positively changing your body composition. For students, who are often young and self-conscious, this is a massive benefit. Simply doing it 2–4 times per week will encourage your body to get bigger, leaner and stronger, thereby helping you to build confidence.
The other exercise I recommend is walking. It’s low impact, has major cardiovascular benefits (e.g., for every 2,000 steps you take per day, your risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death decreases by 10%6, and, frankly is just great for your mental health.
Trust me when I say that getting in 8,000–10,000 steps per day will change your life. You’ll have more energy, a clearer mind, and build a habit that protects your heart in the long run.
To integrate exercise into your afternoon, I recommend just blocking out between 30 minutes to 2 hours for it per day.
If you want to resistance train or do other exercise modalities that take a while to do, then give yourself more time to do them, perhaps an hour or 2 after your last class, or in a 1–2-hour window on an afternoon on which you have no classes/lectures.
Equally, though, you can get a lot done in <1 hour. Don’t think that exercise is this elaborate thing that takes a whole day to do effectively. A 20-minute walk, for example, will easily rack you up at least 2,000 steps, and you’ll reap all the benefits that walking has to offer.
In short, just find the gaps in your afternoon, and exercise for however long you feasibly can. On free days or days that finish quite early, 2 hours is perfectly doable; on busier days, just try to find a spare 30 minutes.
Principle 2) Deep Work
In the morning, you will have performed deep work from anywhere between 1 and 3 hours. Recall that deep work simply means focused work that moves you towards your goals.
If you’re in secondary/high school, then this basically means in-person classes and studying you do at home for exams and assignments. If you’re in sixth form/UK college or university/US college, then this also means in-person classes and studying you do at home, but with a greater emphasis on the latter, as you have more free time and coursework to complete outside of class.
Regardless, one of the most beneficial things you can do in the afternoon is to rack up more hours of deep work. Most students tend to be at their highest level of productivity at this stage of the day, because they’ve eaten a couple of meals, hydrated and fully woken up. Therefore, spending anywhere from 2 to 4 hours in the afternoon knocking out important tasks will do wonders for your grades.
This deep work could be classes and lectures (as long as you actually focus in them and get work done), time spent studying or revising in your free time, or simply a few hours dedicated to grinding out homework/assignments.
Again, what you choose to do isn’t fixed. Do what needs doing, and divert your full energy and attention to it for however long you wish.
Personally, when my days are completely free (weekends, free days from university, holidays, etc.) I work for about 2–3 hours in the morning. Then, I eat breakfast, go for a short walk, and spend another 1–2 hours working after the walk. This means that by 2pm, I’ve racked up 3–5 hours of high-quality, deep work, and have the rest of the afternoon to do whatever I want (which is usually exercise, tutoring or reading).
In contrast, when my days are loaded with classes and I’m at university, I have to be more flexible. I’ll still get my 2–3 hours of deep work done in the morning, but it might be two classes rather than two hours spent at my desk in the peace of my home. Additionally, in the afternoon, I still do deep work, but some days it might be 1 hour at university and 2 more at home, or simply 3 hours at university because I’ve got 3 lectures that day.
Despite how different my days can be, I always find the time to do deep work in the afternoon. Sometimes it’s at home, sometimes it’s at university — I just get my hours in.
I don’t know what your situation is like, but…
- If you’re in secondary/high school, your weekdays end between 3pm and 4pm, and, throughout the afternoon, you’ll have completed 2–3 hours of deep work in the form of classes. Don’t bother doing any more deep work during these afternoons. Exercise or move to principle 3 instead.
- If you’re in sixth form/UK college or university/US college, then your weekdays end sporadically. As a general rule of thumb, on days that have few afternoon classes, try to do more deep work in your free time (1–2 hours). On days with lots of afternoon classes (>2), don’t bother doing any more deep work. Exercise or move to principle 3 instead.
- On your free days, regardless of what level of study you’re at, work for 2–4 hours at home. Once you’ve done your afternoon studying, exercise and, if you have time, move to principle 3.
Principle 3) Something You Enjoy
Once you’ve exercised and performed deep work, you’ll be in one of two situations:
- At the end of the afternoon, in which case, you should transition to your evening routine.
- Still in the afternoon (i.e., not quite yet at dinner time) and exhausted.
For people in the second boat, here’s my advice: relax!
If you’ve genuinely worked out and worked hard, then you’ll be drained at this point. So, take some time to chill.
If I’ve done my afternoon exercise and deep work, but still have time before the first stage of my evening routine (the evening meal), my way of relaxing is reading (or the occasional social media scroll). This helps to bring me back down to baseline, and sets me up for a productive evening.
Frankly, you can do whatever you want. People online will tell you to do x or y, but if you don’t want to do x or y, then choose your own z.
But, somewhere between 5pm and 7pm, you’ll have dinner, marking the start of…
The Perfect Evening Routine for Students
The final part of the perfect daily routine for students is an evening routine. It sets you up for sleep, and also offers a few opportunities to squeeze out extra productivity.
As was the case with the morning routine section, I’ve already designed a detailed guide on The Perfect Evening Routine for Students.
But, for the sake of completeness, here’s an overview of the 5 key components of the perfect evening for students:
- Step 1) Eat a healthy dinner, ideally with others, 2–3 hours before bed
— a healthy meal with others is pretty much the perfect start to the evening. You reap all the benefits of social connection, and fuel your body with the nutrients to recover from the day. Just make sure not to eat too late, as this can impact your sleep. - Step 2) — optionally, complete 1–2 more hours of deep work. I’m a huge fan of working after school, sixth form, college and university, as well as the evenings of my free days, as this means I don’t have to bunch it all up into the afternoon, and can space it out more evenly throughout the day (e.g., 2–3 hours in the morning, 1–2 hours in the afternoon, and 1–2 hours in the evening).
- Step 3) Prepare for tomorrow — at some point in the evening, you should make whatever you’re doing tomorrow morning easier by getting organised the night before. Write out detailed to-do lists, pack your bag, make your breakfast, etc.
- Step 4) Take a warm shower or bath — to sleep effectively, we must drop our core body temperatures to slightly above 36°C (97°F)7. The best way to do this is to promote vasodilation by getting warm and encouraging our bodies to cool down. And, the most convenient method to promote vasodilation, by far, is a warm shower or bath an hour or so before bed.
- Step 5) Shut off the lights 1–2 hours before bed — darkness signals to your body to release melatonin, which essentially facilitates sleepiness. So, before bed, turn off excess lights, make sure there’s no blue light coming from your devices, and put on a pair of blue-light blocking glasses (which are <£10).
Then, the rest of the evening is up to you. Just be sure to get to bed by 10:00pm, as no matter how good your daily routine is, if you’re sleep deprived, then you’ll have less mental capacity than a drunk person8.
Final Thoughts: The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect Daily Routine for Students
I want you to read this quote:
"You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems."
What do you think it means?
I’ll wait.
…
Personally, I think that it means the everyday habits that we practice — our systems — dictate the results we get. We can set the biggest, boldest goals, but if we don’t put in place the strategies to achieve them, then we end up failing to release our full potential.
Fortunately, in this article, we’ve put in place the very systems required to move us towards our ultimate goal of being the best students possible. We covered the best daily routine for students, and learned exactly what we should be doing throughout our mornings, afternoons and evenings to motor us forwards towards top grades.
I urge you, though, to please take action. You can have the best plan on earth; if you don’t put in the work, then you’ll stay right where you are.
Be bold and start getting your days working for, rather than against you!
If you found this Ultimate Guide to the Perfect Daily Routine for Students to be valuable in any way (you got motivated, it sparked some new ideas, it gave you an action plan, etc.), it would mean the world to me if you could hit one of the buttons below and share it with any students you know who would also benefit.
It would take you just a few seconds, and maybe even change someone’s life for the better. (How nice would that be?)
Right, it’s 9:36am as of when I’ve just finished writing this article. Another 90 minutes of deep work to go.
What should you be doing, though?
⏱️⏱️⏱️
Stay strong,
Sam.
Founder, Strong Students
