Coffee Conversations and Getting Organized

It's Saturday morning and I've been up for a couple of hours. I woke up around 4:30 and was still awake 30 minutes later so I decided to get up and get the day started. I've read a couple of blogs I follow, had a light breakfast, finished a game of Scrabble on a phone app (I won), and am indulging in my morning coffee.

I decided to go with one of the recipes in my Christmas Coffee Concoctions notebook -- Thai Coffee. As I read through the simple ingredients I thought that I'd have to substitute heavy cream and stevia for the sweetened condensed milk, but Hannah (and Daniel) were all over that and included a can in the gift bag of spices!
It's simple and tasty--coffee with a little cardamom and a little sweetened condensed milk. It has a flavor like a chai tea latte. And since I'm using the Christmas mug from Jenny (and Aaron) it's kind of like having Christmas in February!

--While relaxing on the beach last week, I was reading a book about Louis L'Amour and his daily writing habits.

--One of the guys in our small group is a writer/musician. Over coffee one morning, I asked about his daily routine.

--I was also asked to do some magic, but really wasn't prepared for that. Two things play into that -- I don't normally perform close-up magic and so I rarely practice it, and close-up magic takes a lot of practice.

The result of these things is that I've decided that perhaps I need a little structure in my routine.
Although I have been more intent on writing this year, I haven't set a time or daily writing goal. I need to do that. I'm going to have to evaluate just what I want to accomplish in writing so that it can have some purpose or goal. I also need to set aside a time to read. I've been doing a little more reading and am enjoying it. I need to be more purposeful about setting aside time to read and to write.

I also want to work on some close-up magic regularly. I felt bad about not being prepared to perform a few effects for friends, but hate to perform badly worse than I hate to let people down. I tend to think of myself as a stand-up magician -- meaning small stage performance with no large props. However, when people hear "magician" -- they just want to see a trick. If I'm going to be around people, I need to be prepared for that. (Or I could avoid being around people.)

I also want to work on my Spanish. I have a "listen and learn" course on my phone and have transferred it to my Google drive so that it is also available on my laptop. I want to spent a little time listening (and learning) on a regular basis as well as using some flash cards to increase my vocabulary.

When you throw in exercising, motorcycle riding, and household chores it sounds like an awful lot of stuff -- too much to do without being organized. I think I'll work on a weekly schedule with some things done on a daily basis and others done less frequently.

Since I'm not a very organized guy, I'm asking for your help.
How do you get things done?
How structured is your routine? Daily? Weekly?
Do you use lists?
What inspires you to do what you do?

Help a brother out, would you?

John <><