Why Does Everyone Hate Routine?

 

I’ve heard it a million times…

“I’m just trying to get out of the day-to-day routine.”

Believe it or not, the routine is not the enemy.

The idea of doing things the same way has gotten an unwarranted negative stigma, especially if the way things are being done is efficient and effective.

There is precision in repetition.

There is a reason a basketball player shoots 50 free-throws in practice, a reason the assembly line revolutionized the auto industry, and a reason establishing a routine in your daily life will prove beneficial.

Routines get a bad reputation because people tend to get stuck in them. If routines are consistently updated, and flexibility and innovation are top priorities, that issue no longer exists.

Everything from managing your work time to organizing the sequence of events you go through to get ready in the morning can benefit from consistency. Routines matter.

So here are three things to consider when looking to set a productive routine:

 

1. The better you can be at establishing a process, documenting the process, and following the steps each time, the more efficient you will become.
2. The better you are at setting non-interrupted work times with specific outcomes in mind, the more focused and results-oriented you will become.
3. And the better you get at planning your spontaneity, the more enjoyable it will be knowing that all your other tasks and timelines are right where they need to be.

---

As you push yourself to build an effective routine, keep in mind the famous words of Aristotle:

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

The Perfect Handshake

I’ve been teaching it all wrong…

The Snapchat Effect

The world is full of people using Snapchat.

While this may be efficient for communication, what it does to our attention span is scary.

The amount of information being thrown at us by the day, hour, and minute has led us to placing such a high value on efficiency that skimming information has basically become hard-wired into our DNA.

But there is an issue with this.

The higher we value efficiency, the less we seem to value information, and as Gordon Gekko says,

“The most valuable commodity I know of is information.”

I’m not coming down on the idea of being efficient. I’m simply stating that it is extremely difficult to learn anything new or retain knowledge if we only read or listen to a quarter of the information while only paying half attention.

The next time you read a book, watch a TED Talk, click on an article, peruse your e-mail, or attend an event, here is a quick list of tips:

1. Give it your full attention. If you need to set it down and come back to it later, fine, but at least you aren’t doing it halfway.
2. Reflect on what you’ve just read, seen, or experienced. Let it sink in. In this way, you will better be able to remember it at relevant times in the future.
3. Don’t procrastinate. If you get an e-mail, read it fully, answer it fully, and move on. When things pile up, you’ll need to catch up, and this will suck your time and attention.

So continue to use Snapchat. I don’t mind at all. But also commit to dedicating time and attention when necessary, and if you’ve gotten to this sentence without skimming the post, you’re on the right track.