It is a good idea to align our lives with the rhythms of nature, both seasonally and daily.  The disciplines of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda both offer great guidelines for establishing such a practice.  From Ayurveda, we get the practice of Dinacharya, which includes a wide variety of daily self-care routines.  Following is a nice cogent article on this practice:

"Our daily activities have a profound effect on our health. A routine, practiced daily, is stronger medicine than an occasional remedy. Dinacharya establishes healthful habits through attunement of the body to the natural cycles of the day. The three doshas, vata, pitta, and kapha, each have their own periods of time within a twenty-four-hour day in which their energies predominate. By establishing a routine that "goes with the flow " of these elemental energies, we are able to more easily support the body 's natural rhythms and healing potential."  The rest of the story 

There are many of us on the path of self-cultivation.  And that path, as it were, is varied and eclectic.  One could say it is made of thousands of individual paths, all of which lead to the same destination, which is nothing more than the path itself.  There are many aspects of practice, many things to consider: diet, body awareness, energy awareness, fitness, meditation, healing, sleep, ritual, discipline...

Of these aspects of practice the one with the steepest path for many people is meditation.  At least in the beginning, meditation can be tough.  If we have spent the majority of our years on this planet not being mindful, developing the habit of mindfulness is initially not easy.  Mainly because our greatest distraction is the mind itself.  It is especially tough in the beginning.  We sit to meditate and our minds go off in a thousand different directions; anxiety, boredom, and distraction set in and we have an insatiable drive to do something else.  And while everybody's experience is slightly different, we all have something like this to overcome in the beginning.  But we can overcome.  

The key to success is determination.  To meditate well, we need to meditate regularly.  Eventually we will become accustomed to the discipline of regular practice and the distractions will weaken.  I liken monkey mind (chatter) to stray cats.  If you feed them, they will come back.  We need to learn to live with our thoughts, without indulging them.  Working with a teacher and/or with a specific discipline, at least in the beginning, is a good way to learn and institute good practices that can and will work as a countermeasure to monkey mind.

Another element of determined practice is faith.  For anything to work well, we need to believe that it can and that it will.  It helps for one to see oneself as successful, in whatever the discipline.  So to succeed in meditation, believe you will.  Further, see yourself as an accomplished meditator.  Even on the days when it doesn't go so well, see your practice as a success; because it is.  Even the most mind-chattering meditation sessions are successful, even though they may not feel that way.  The simple act of observing the chatter is a mindful act.  It is also a disciplined act.  The more you sit with yourself, as you are, without judgment, without expectation, just sitting, the more you progress on the path of contemplation.  Sometimes all you have to go on is faith, but that is more than enough.  But don't take my word for it, or anyone else's.  Try it.  Give it some time.  See what happens.

" The Absolute Being is none other than this, the universe. There exists nothing that is not Absolute Being. If any object other than the Absolute appears to exist, it is unreal like the mirage. All that is perceived, or heard, is Absolute Being and nothing else. Attaining the knowledge of the One Reality, one sees the Universe as the non-dual Being, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss-Absolute."  Adi Shankara.  The rest