Tag Archives: routines

Giving myself a break

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I haven’t worked out in a week. Yes, I’m on holidays. Yes, I give myself some slack on holidays and don’t expect to work out as often as I usually do… but I haven’t missed 3 days in a row in years and years, and so this is very unusual for me.

That said, I’m not going to beat myself up about taking this break. I’ll get a couple workouts in over the next week, and I’ll be back on track next week when I’m home. I think a lot about habits, I like maintaining streaks, and I am usually really hard on myself when I miss two days, much less a full seven.

So what’s different now? I think it’s knowing that this break won’t change what I do going forward. I have the confidence that not only will I get back to my routine, I also won’t make this a habit on holidays either. This has been an anomaly, not a new pattern. Knowing this allows me to be kinder to myself than I normally am. I’d say that has to be one of the first real benefits of retirement that I’ve noticed. Feels good.

Body tired

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I’ve known for a while that the weakness in my healthy living lifestyle has been sleep. I just don’t get enough of it. If my sleeping patterns aren’t enough of an indicator, my Garmin watch reminds me of this regularly, (my sleep score last night was 34). it doesn’t help that I’m on holidays and sleeping on futon couches. And I know I’m not going to improve things until I get home. But today I got a reminder of how important sleep is.

I stayed with my nocturnal uncle for 4 nights and was going to bed between 4am and 6am. I headed back to my mom’s last night and although she went to bed around 11, I was still up at almost 3am. I managed to sleep past 9:30 but I was body tired today.

I headed to the gym early this afternoon and everything felt hard. I needed longer than usual rest times before sets, and I cut my workout short. I just didn’t have the energy to continue. It’s obvious that my sleeping patterns and lack of sleep are why I feel this way.

It’s the one area of my life that I really don’t manage well. I don’t sleep for long enough, and often not well enough either. This is something I have to build into my routines. I know this, I just need to start doing it… right after these holidays. It’s time to stop complaining about this and actually do something about it.

Routine Ownership

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I heard this quote by Alex Hormozi from Chris Williamson’s Modern Wisdom podcast:

“…if you cannot function without your routine, your routine owns you, you do not own it. Full stop.”

At first this hit me hard. I’m so committed to my routines that I thought he was talking directly to me… a metaphorical gut punch of insight that I needed to hear. That was my first instinct. Now I see it differently.

Basically this is true if you are obsessed with your routine, but otherwise it’s healthy. Only if your routine is costing you your wellbeing or your relationships with others would I agree that a routine owning you is an issue. Beyond the routine costing you in a very unhealthy way, you need the routine to pull you, to ‘own’ you in a way, or it wouldn’t be a routine.

We have some routines that are non-negotiable commitments. For example, if you have kids, you need to feed them. You don’t break the routine and not feed them dinner. But if the routine (or habit) is something negotiable, like meditation, or working out, or a minimum number of steps in a day, for example… Then there are always reasons to break the routine, or break the streak. If you don’t let the routine own you, it will quickly not become routine.

The routine needs to own you or it will no longer be something you regularly do. It’s that simple. If I’m headed to bed, exhausted, and I haven’t written my daily blog post, it’s easy to say, ‘I’ll just skip today.” But then it’s easier and easier to have other ‘acceptable’ excuses… And I would not have recently achieved 7 years of daily blogging. It’s not that I can’t function otherwise, it’s not an issue that the routine owns me more than I own it. In fact, this is precisely what is needed to ensure the routine continues.

I’ll end where I started just two days ago when I said about ‘Streaks and hard things’:

1. Our streaks are part of our identity. They don’t define us, we are defined by the act of keeping them.

2. Do hard things. The effort is its own reward. I don’t know anyone with a hard-to-keep streak who isn’t also doing well in other aspects of their lives, and ‘crushing it’… A life with intentional hard things begets a life where challenges are met and overcome rather than seen as barriers and limitations. 

There might be a reason to stop in the future… but until then the streak will keep streaking.

And the routines will keep routining… but they’ve got to own you a bit for this to happen.

Habit revamp

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Summer is here and I’m don’t have a morning routine anymore. I’m currently between sets at a gym I don’t usually go to, because last night I stayed with a cousin in a nearby city. I’m here 3 hours later than usual, which is perfectly ok, I really don’t need to be out of the house at 5:45 anymore… or anytime in the foreseeable future.

I don’t care about the actual time I work out, or write my daily blog post, or meditate, or take my vitamins, but I do care that I actually do these things very regularly. A perfect example is that today I went directly from cardio to weights and only now realize that I skipped my stretching routine… a key ingredient to keeping my back healthy and ready to do weights.

Basically I had a habitual routine that was rock soiled while I had a work schedule to plan my routine around, and now that’s gone. I’m not going to figure this out today, and new habits take a while to form, but I want to figure out a kind of flexible routine in terms of times of day, location, and summer plans. I don’t actually know how to do this, so it may be messy for a while. Even so, I know me, and if I don’t have systems in place I miss getting things done.

There is a saying that if you want something done, give it to a busy person. That was me for a long time, now that I have more time I really need to create systems that will ensure all the healthy habits I developed are part of my new patter and pace of life.

I can’t wait

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Yesterday after work I wrote a longer, rather dystopian post about the future of AI. I developed the idea and the start of the title the night before. I thought up the end of the title, the 3 scenarios, on the drive to work, and I sat at my desk at about 4pm and wrote the post in just over an hour. This was a rare opportunity where I was able to sit, completely uninterrupted for that long, and just wrote a piece, start to finish… I did need some edit time after I published it because I had another work event in the evening, so I couldn’t sit longer and do the final edits.

And that’s what I can’t wait to do when I retire. I want dedicated, uninterrupted writing time. Not like right now, when I’m rushing to get most of this done before connecting with a friend to get a pre-work workout in. Not a 30 minute window where I try to get everything down, create an image, post and share online. Instead, I want an hour or more of undisturbed writing time.

This doesn’t always happen in the summer. I’ll often still feel rushed, with family commitments and other daily activities getting in the way. But it is my hope that in retirement I can actually schedule time to write, make it a priority, and a regular part of my daily routine.

Since joining a gym back in November, I’ve felt very rushed with my writing. It only takes about 12-15 minutes to get to the gym, but the commute costs me roughly a half hour more than my regular morning routine before joining. My workout is also a bit longer than it used to be. So the cost in time has come at the expense of my writing. And often I have to push my daily write to the evening when I’m tired and just want to get it done for the day.

I can’t wait to have more time just to write!

Sleep cycles

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I know that the one area of my life that I can most improve is sleep. I tend to sleep 5-6 hours a night when it should be at least 7 hours. For years I’ve convinced myself that I don’t need a lot of sleep, that I’m one of those rare few people who can live on less sleep than most people. It’s a nice narrative to have, but I’m really starting to question if this is true.

My Garmin watch consistently rates my sleep as ‘Poor’ with feedback like this:

“Shorter than ideal, not enough REM

You slept a bit less than recommended, and your amount of REM sleep was low. You may feel more tired or moody today.”

In the last 4 weeks I have had 15 days with a sleep score under 60 and only 2 days with a score over 80. Those are not numbers to be proud of.

And yet I still go to bed later than I should, and on days when I do get to bed early, I’ll often wake up an hour before my alarm and sleep poorly until my alarm goes off. I don’t know what I’m going to do differently, but what I can’t do is pretend that this is good enough. I spend so much time trying to take care of my body, I need to make sure a good night’s sleep is part of that routine.

A new groove

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It wasn’t that hard getting up on Monday morning at 5am to get to the gym. Coming back from a two week break didn’t hurt that much. But getting back into the routine of writing before I got to the gym at 6am has been a struggle.

It’s almost 11pm now and I’m laying down on my couch rattling this off to keep a commitment to myself to write every day.

The thing I am most looking forward to with retirement is time to write. The idea that I can schedule writing time that isn’t rushed excites me. Not having to think up ideas on the toilet first thing in the morning, or while washing my face and brushing my teeth. Not having to edit my work while on a treadmill. Actually sitting at a laptop with a coffee in my hand rather than hunting and pecking away on my phone… these are things I can’t wait to do as part of a daily routine upon retirement.

Before the March break people would ask me if I’m excited about my pending retirement and I’d answer honestly that I haven’t thought much about it. Now, after the break, I can’t say that anymore. I am thinking about it. I’m wondering how to design my days? I’m looking forward to finding a new groove that doesn’t involve a 5am wake up time and rushing to get my whole routine done before starting a long day at work.

The real test will be next September, when everyone is back at work and I’m home. I’m confident that I’ll build a routine that works. I’ll find my groove.

Coming home

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I spent the day travelling today and now I’m home. What a fabulous holiday my wife and I had. It was wonderful to visit with my mom and sister. Unfortunately I spent the entire 10 days with a cough that I still haven’t shaken, but that helped me see the importance of rest.

Normally when a holiday is filled with a lot of down time, I end up feeling guilty, like I wasted the holiday. Not this time. I truly relaxed. I even took time away from my regular routines like meditation and working out… and I did this without the need to beat myself up about it. I just took the time to recover. And as a byproduct, my sciatica has completely gone. I’m not sure if it will return with more activity, but I am thrilled to not feel pain just from standing for a few minutes.

And now I’m home, and the routines return. I’ll be back in the gym early tomorrow. I’ll get back to daily meditation. I’ll start back at work on Monday, ready to enjoy my last 3 months before retirement.

Coming home after a break can often feel like a bit of a slog, but I’m excited to be back, and I’m looking forward to returning to my usual routine… Especially since it’s coming from a desire to get back to my good habits, without beating myself up because I took a bit of time off.

Time to read

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I switched mostly to audio books a few years ago and that multiplied the number of books I consumed significantly. As a slow reader with an internal voice that speaks louder than my internal reading voice, I’ve always found reading both slow and difficult. I can, without exaggeration, read and be so internally distracted that when I catch myself and look back I can’t remember anything on the last 3-4 pages.

Audio books are louder or at least more attention-holding than my internal dialogue and I can set the speed to faster than I’m able to read. Audio books to me are like a reading superpower compared to a paper book.

Except, I’ve struggled of late to get started on a book. I bounce around listening to podcasts, and don’t seem to want to start a new book, be it a novel or educational. I also have 2 paper books without an audio version that I’m wanting to start. So, I feel that I need to dedicate time to a paper book. It’s going to be tough because I get a lot of ‘reading’ done in the car, on the treadmill, and generally on the go.

Now I’ve got to juggle in some book reading. The only time I can see doing this is just before bed. I’m struggling with this decision. Do I really want to start yet another routined habit? Yes. No. Yes.

I’ll give it a try. I want more reading time. I’m just not convinced I’ll commit. I’ll know in about 2 weeks.

To pick up, put down

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We’ve heard this all before regarding habits, goals, and projects: Before you pick something new up, you need to put something else down.

The conference I went to back in October was led by Simon Breakspear who shared his Pruning Principle. He guided us to ask, “What is on my ‘Stop Doing’ list? What can I Delay, Delegate, or Dump?”

Adding a gym membership has been great, but it has come at a cost. The 15 minute commute each way means I’ve lost 30 minutes of time from my morning routine. I also spend a bit more time at the gym compared to my home workout. The question I now find myself asking is what am I going to give up to make up that time. I already get up at 5am and moving that to 4:30 would not be a healthy option for me.

I’ve decided that I’m dumping my online distractions. I’m leaving behind Wordle, Strands, and an online game that I usually play. I’m also doing zero social media in the mornings. Even 5 minutes can detract from a longer stretch or cardio workout. I’m keeping my Daily chess puzzle (while doing my bathroom duties), but not allowing any other online distractions in the morning.

I’m not sure that will be enough, but I also started writing this post last night and that’s going to help a lot too. Often the longest part of my morning is coming up with an idea to write about. If I get my idea started in the evening, that’s probably going to be the biggest contributor to not feeling rushed in the morning. I know online time in the am is also a huge distraction, especially when I’m stuck coming up with an idea. I’ll often distract myself online which is more of a delay than it is ever an inspiration.

While my gym membership has only been for a month, and two weeks of that were holidays, I know that adding the membership to my morning routine has been disruptive and unsustainable without a change. I need to prune distractions from the things in my routine that really matter.