Scott and I did a podcast on the Rule of St. Benedict. This is a governing document for monasteries, and might seem an odd choice for a "Great Books" podcast. I think it’s important historically, if not for its literary merits, because monasteries civilized and educated Europe. But it’s also important because of the notion that you need a rule.
Think of a typical gig-worker’s day. Wake up, stumble downstairs, feed your caffeine addiction, screw around on the internet, learn what the daily outrage is, decide to do some work for one of your jobs, eat lunch, have more coffee, do some more gig work, check out instagram, gig work, eat, netflix, work until 2am, fall asleep, and repeat. Unstructured and ad-hoc. This is no way to live. Mishima complains in Sun and Steel about how he was a creature of the night before he discovered the rule of weightlifting. Perhaps you are similar? Living an unstructured bug life?
Try adopting a rule. You could borrow from Benedict if you like. The monks would pray seven times a day and in the middle of the night. The texts are mostly from the biblical prayers called psalms. This gives an immediate structure to the whole day. You know what you’re going to be doing at dawn and at midday and at evening, no matter what else is going on. You sleep at appointed hours, eat at appointed hours. Maybe you could do twice a day instead of seven times a day, but pick a structure and stick to it. You will thrive like a well-tended sheep or chicken.
You need structure! Go to bed, wake up, have specific things that you do at specific times. If you are secular, perhaps you wouldn’t read the psalms. On the other hand, so many of them are complaint psalms that I think they could be usefully prayed by atheists. If you don’t want to adopt a religious rule, fine, but adopt some rule. You’ll be happier.
(Consider what would happen to animals if we made them live on the random schedule many of us adopt!)