F**k Routine

I recently tried a 5am for 5 days routine and it confirmed something I’ve secretly known all along: I hate routine. This post is an affirmation not a lecture. I’m not going to try and convince you routine is bad, instead I want to reassure you that if you hate routine that’s ok. By the end of this post, you’ll be Today Years Old when you’re comfortable without routine.

People say the secret to success is having a good morning routine and, for the last 28 years, I believed them. I tried getting up earlier, later, in the middle — anything as long as it was consistent. I don’t know what I was hoping to achieve or feel but I didn’t. Then I’d skip a morning, feel bad about it, and then never get back on the bandwagon for more than a few days at a time.

Even worse, I found that routine put me on auto-pilot and I had less creative energy, more stress and more anxiety about how to use my time.

So I’ve given up trying to fight it; instead, I embrace being routineless.

Here’s what works for me, it might work for you too

Just because I don’t have a regular routine, doesn’t mean I waste my time. In fact, the opposite.

Each night, I set an intention for the next day. An intention list is like a to do list but bigger picture: it considers purpose, not just task.

I set the intention for the day which has a maximum of three items. I still have a to do list for my corporate job but beyond that, I have intention lists. This means that if I only accomplish those, or even some of those, I count the day as a win.

I then work backwards: which of these do I need to do before work to put me in a good headspace for the day? How long does that thing take?Considering I need to log in to my corporate job at 8:30, I simply wind the clock back from there.

This means that when my alarm goes off, I know what I’m getting up to do, why I’m doing it and that it’s been my choice. Comforted by this knowledge, it doesn’t matter if the alarm goes off at 5am or 9am, I will get up.

For me, the most important thing is to know why you’re getting up. I didn’t get up at 7am this morning because the routine said, I did it because I was looking forward to writing this post.

What I do each morning and what time I get up to do it varies. Sometimes I get up early, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I get an early workout in, sometimes I don’t. Whatever I do, it’s by conscious choice.

Now I mostly ignore articles and YouTube videos about the wonders of a morning routine. I’ve tried it. It really doesn’t work for me. If it doesn’t work for you either, that is absolutely fine. Just do you.