I think the greatest joy of working a real job is the routine, the structure.
A good, pleasant, productive routine for the first four hours of the day
Here’s the routine I’ve cultivated and subsequently perfected over the first six months at my job.
I wake up when my body nudges me, pull on my exercise clothes, and do a workout video or two. I meditate, then I shower and change into respectable work clothes. Digging through my earring collection, I find a pair that suits the day and put them on.
And then I go to work.
I work from home, so it’s a short commute to my kitchen. Before I officially started the job, I set up some spaces with new triggers and new environmental cues to cement new habits.
I bought a kitchen island off Cragislist* that also doubles as a kitchen island and created a standing office for myself.
Nearly every day, I make a giant salad and then I set a timer for forty-five or sixty minutes and breeze through a working lunch, standing at my desk. I open up a Scrivener* file; the internet lays disconnected; my phone keeps time in the company lounge (my couch); and I write until my phone tells me it’s time to sit down. If I want.
When the timer goes off for the first time, usually around one pm at this point, I go into my resolutions chart and give myself several smileys for the day. Gold stars, Anita!
Work Out. Meditate. Eat something green and leafy. Work on book.
Freedom, fitness, good nutrition, and writing are my priorities in life and these are the things I want to create time for. If I do it in the beginning of the day, life is better.
That’s the first four hours or so after I get up. My first-four-hours-upon-waking routine. I don’t call it a morning routine because I don’t always wake up early enough.
One good habit leads to the next. Waterfall. If I start playing on the internet in bed, the day quickly turns to waste. If I leave my phone in the other room, my day starts much better. Waterfall.
I know the 90’s pop group TLC warned against it, but I chase the waterfall, the good waterfall. Work out right away and let the momentum sweep you up.
The opposite of a good, pleasant, productive routine upon waking
Compare that to the first four hours routine I drifted into in January 2019 before I started the job. The trigger was my phone. Having my phone in bed with me starts a spiral of bad yuck.
I’d wake up when my body nudged me, and then scroll through shouty bits of online garbage for a while.
Garbage in. Garbage out.
Eventually, my bladder would force me to get up and then I’d go sit on my couch with my laptop. I would watch Judge Judy yell at people while I played Freecell and laughed at the people Judy was yelling at. Good times.
At some point, I’d do fifteen minutes of Spanish practice on duolingo.com, cementing one of the three to four smiley faces I would earn that day on my resolutions chart, falling flat on the other nine.
Eventually, I would eat something from the fridge with a large chance of the food being leftover Chipotle or carby indian yumminess or something frozen that becomes edible in 4 minutes.
Maybe I would do something with the rest of the day, but mostly I found myself scrolling through my phone with every spare minute I have. I have more spare minutes than anyone should have.
Freedom. Nothing sounds appealing and I don’t want to do anything, so I do nothing. Hello, Precious.
The whole day is rotten because the beginning stinks. It’s hard to pull up out of the dive. A body in motion tends to stay in motion. A body at rest tends to stay at rest. I don’t know if that’s an actual science fact or something I made up.
So, yeah, this new job is good for me. I’m much happier with my day after cultivating a routine.
Of course, the wonderful thing about my life is that I can also chuck this routine on days where I feel like reading in bed in the morning or going to brunch with a friend.
Your turn
Do you devote the first four hours upon waking to your life values? Just curious.
What’s your ideal average, perfect day? Your perfect routine?
Ideal, Average, Perfect Day
- Wake when I want because waking up before my body is not something I enjoy.
- Some reading and writing
- Some movement
- Good nutrition
- Walk in the sunshine
- Hang out with someone whose company I enjoy
- Plan/think about some sort of adventure
- I should probably add something about making money
*Scrivener is a writing program that lives on your desktop and doesn’t need the internet.
Your routine sounds quite similar to mine except I don’t really exercise other than locking in 10,000 steps most days. Every once in a while I will go for a long up-hill hike. I also try to play the piano every day—classical repertoire or improvisations. Music and writing help me find some balance in the world that can easily turn chaotic and mundane. I love the kind of purity that come with focusing intensely.
With time, I think less and less about making money. I’ve got a roof over my head and enough $$ to feed my body healthy food and travel overseas once a year or two. As long as I am healthy, I am content to keep my way of living. I try to give my time instead of money.
I do think it might be good for me to join a musical group—trio or quartet—to share and learn.
Keep writing and thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing your routine. I wish I had some musical skill as it sounds like a satisfying hobby.
I need routines, it’s just how I’ve always been. Now that I’m semi-retired the 3 weekdays I’m not at my W2 have a pretty good one. I start by working 3 or 4 hours on my graphic arts side hustle first thing in the morning, then I workout. Usually a long bike ride, a run, or rock climbing. Then I nap or ride my bike to do errands like groceries etc. In the early evening I might blog a bit or brainstorm ideas of trips and vacations. Then I chill out in the evening and maybe watch a documentary or read. A simple life.
Sounds like a perfect life
My ideal day isn’t a child waking me up at 3am, then bright and sparkley at sunrise, my morning meditation involves making her breakfast, then rush off to work, then home in time to cook dinner, bath the child then get her to bed, and if lucky get in 1hr or so of side hustle work. It’s what I work with atm. 🙂🙂
I’m told it’s worth it and the double smiley faces at the end of your post suggest similar. The day to day can get a little drudgery-ish though, I’m sure.
Interesting thoughts on routine. I agree. I noticed an inflection point when I listened to a podcast (interviewing a comedian of all vocations!) that described how to automate the low-level decision making with routine so that you don’t waste mental energy. By day’s end, decision fatigue makes us do stupid things.
Your post also reminds me of a passage from an epic book by a dude named Alistair Humphreys. He wrote a two part book about ride his bike… around the world. He says something along the lines of: I had an epiphany when I realized that I escaped the world of routine only to find that my day-to-day schedule became highly structured and I thrived on routine… my own routine.
I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot recently, I hope you can check out my next post, think I’ll be stewing on this…
Come back and post your next your and I’ll definitely read it!
Some mental wandering perhaps, but tried to get out some thoughts on wellness and routine that have been rattling around lately:
http://box2101.temp.domains/~insistin/simplifying-wellness-and-embracing-routing-or-what-tom-brady-taught-me-about-vibrating-foam-rollers/
Oh, and that book by Alastair Humphries is called: Thunder and Sunshine. In putting these thoughts together, I realized how influential that book and his story were/are to me. I wrote him an email directly out of the blue to thank him… and he responded! He’s got some pretty interesting stuff on his site, I especially appreciate his musings on “microadventures.”
Thanks for sharing. Decision fatigue is real and definitely something to take into account. I’ve heard of Tom Brady’s book, but you’re the only one I’ve read who recommends it. I’ve heard it’s very pseudoscience-y.
Ooof, maybe I should have piled on with the sarcasm more then. I agree on the pseudoscience. I wonder how different it would be if it was written on a napkin by Alex Guerrero (TB’s guru-dude) NOT financially motivated…
Could you recommend a wellness/fitness book? I was originally looking for the Four Hour Body, but it was unavailable. I think it’s really hit or miss with this genre in book format. I started something by Thich Nhat Hanh a little while back and I couldn’t handle the woo-woo.
Younger next year is pretty good. I plan on monitoring my heart rate next month because of it.
Routines are definitely good for me as well, I find them comforting and stabilizing. I just FIRE’d 2 weeks ago, and I’m still struggling to establish one. For now, I just make sure I hit the gym each day, and do yoga each evening, but the rest of my time is chaotic and very much along the lines of “do whatever is most urgent at the moment,” whether that’s paperwork, cleaning, running errands, prepping an upcoming trip, … which is a bit discombobulating. I guess over time it’ll be easier to establish some consistency? Has that been your experience? Also, I really like your chart and all the smileys – I will definitely copy it 🙂 Thank you!!
It definitely gets easier with time. Tomorrow is another day to start living like you want. That’s what I tell myself. It often works. 🙂 I’m so happy you’re doing a resolutions chart! Yay!
I get up to the sound of chirping birds at about sunrise, although that varies a little with the season. I tend to be out of the house as soon as possible and head to one of three local Caffe Nero’s. Two are a cycle ride away, one is a walk, all of the routes are along a coastal path. I catch up with the regulars and then I work at Caffe Nero for an hour or two, depending on the weather. That work involves reading, writing or planning, I’m retired so the topics are very wide ranging.
Then I’m usually back on my bike, although if it’s raining I will be walking, and I cycle for another 30 minutes or so for breakfast at another selection of cafes. That’s the relaxing start over with, next I will do something productive. Usually that means tending my fruit and vegetable gardens for about two hours a day, they furnish all of my vegetables (all year round) and seasonal fruit and I share that bounty with my wife and kids, their families and extended family, about 20 people.
I arrive home at about 2pm and have a home made lunch, meditate and take a nap. The rest of the afternoon is very varied: I try to squeeze in a few mobility exercises, I sow seeds, do housework, watch the sunset, make home made granola etc until Debbie calls me for a home grown dinner. Then I cycle back to the allotment to close up for the day, write my diary before we watch 2 TV shows: one is always a documentary, or a comedy.
Finally I settle down for an hour of fiction reading in the bath.
Like you I track a lot about my days, I try to move for about 3 hours a day and move hard for 30 minutes, I get 10+ servings or organic fruit and veg etc. After tracking myself for many years I know a lot about what makes life good.
Of course, that’s the routine days, just as often I skip the routines and hike, cycle or do some kind of project.
Ok, your routine sounds heavenly. I’m especially a fan of the homegrown veggies and having someone else make dinner for me. 🙂
I work full-time (remotely) so unfortunately my routine is still dominated by work most days and is far from what I would consider ideal. Do you find it challenging to maintain your routine with an irregular sleep schedule? This is something I’ve been struggling with for a while especially since my “real job” doesn’t provide a great deal of structure or a fixed start time. I drafted a resolutions chart to help me make progress here but so far I’ve been reluctant to update it when I know I’ve missed a goal and can’t get 100% for a day.
My routine is generally the same no matter what time I wake up. Work out, meditate, write, eat. Sometimes I’ll eat earlier if I’ve woken up later, but the rest of the routine is pretty much the same.