By Chelsea Babin

Your daily routine doesn’t need to be too complicated. In fact, the more steps you add to it, the less likely you are to stick to it. But these 8 daily habits have are proven to make you a more successful professional and person. So, what should you do? If you add at least 1 of these 8 things to your daily routine you’ll be well on your way to becoming a super successful professional!

1. Read a Book: Do you want to boost your intelligence and increase your brainpower? Do you want to feel more relaxed and reinforce your self-discipline at the same time? Reading a book should be part of your daily routine! You don’t need to read more than a chapter or even a page every day but this practice can really improve your work performance and help you become an incredibly successful individual both professionally and personally.

2. Find a Positive Daily Mantra: Some people feel a bit goofy saying “today is going to be the best day ever!” to themselves each morning but positive thinking helps manage stress and finding your own positive daily mantra can help keep you motivated even during hectic days. Yours can be an inspirational quote, a question that helps you understand your daily priorities, or something that motivates you to get to work as soon as possible. Whatever the case, positive daily mantras have helped a lot of people become super successful and they may help you too!

3. Make a To-Do List: Some people are very apprehensive about making daily to-do lists but they really work! If you have a hard time breaking down large projects into smaller, daily, actionable tasks then a to-do list is the right solution that will drive you to success.

4. Find a Mentor or Accountability Partner: If you want to have a successful career you’ll need to set goals. A mentor can help you decide which goals to set and help you achieve them while an accountability partner can help you stay on track. You don’t necessarily need to speak with both each day, but checking in with one or the other on a regular—at least weekly—basis can really help you reach the pinnacle of success that you’re striving for.

5. Theme Your Workdays: If you have a job with a lot of moving parts or where you’re required to wear many hats it may be difficult for you to figure out what to focus on each day. The easiest way to fix that is to theme your workdays! Take some time on Friday or Monday morning to plan the week ahead and give each day a theme like “products” or “client relationships” or simply “project a” or “project b”.

6. Take Frequent Breaks: You have a ton of work to do and only so much time to do it so breaks may not seem like something you should prioritize but you’re wrong! Taking frequent breaks has been proven to increase focus and productivity and reduce the chance of burn out. Whether you prefer to take a ten-minute break every hour or a few twenty-minute breaks when you can fit them into your schedule, make sure you take frequent breaks throughout your workday if you want to be more successful.

7. Small Self-evaluations: Write down what you’re most proud of accomplishing today. Write down what you struggled with most at work today. If you do these mini self-evaluations on a daily or weekly basis you’ll have an easier time tracking your progress, focusing on your wins, and finding places where you can improve. This will put your career performance on the fast track to success in no time!

8. Dedicate Your Morning to Your Priorities: A lot of us start our days on social media, scrolling through our email, or focusing on other people’s priorities rather than our own. If you want to set yourself up for success you need to focus on a productive, proactive thing that benefits yourself, your to-do list, or your career first thing in the morning and leave other people’s priorities for later in the day.

Success is hard to define but, chances are, you have an image in your head of what success looks like for you. If you want to be incredibly successful both personally and professionally you should add one or more of these 8 things to your daily or weekly routine!