Hey there, welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. Hey there, I said, hey there for Chuck too. Go ahead and say hey they're Chuck.
Hey there, that's our routine.
Let's start.
We're talking about routines today, and I think this is a good one because it's like everyone knows routines are good for you, but it turns out routines are great for you.
You might even say they're great for you. You might even say, there, frosted flakes is a routine.
You might even say they're crucial, and they are because they their game changes for almost every part of your life. You can think of mental health, physical health, emotional health, safety and security for children. We'll get into all this, but a repeated healthy pattern of behaviors to focus on helps us when we're off the rails and to solidify us when we feel unmoored. It helps buttress us when
we feel solid. Yeah, there have been countless studies. I saw one from Tel Aviv University, but there are hundreds of studies of how routines and habits and we'll get into the diff Basically help you reduce anxiety, help you calm yourself, and just put you on a good path in.
Life, which makes sense because what you're doing is creating something familiar that you can kind of bust out in times of uncertainty and give yourself familiarity, like a security blanket. Almost. So, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And there's a huge routines are having a moment. You could say they're big right now, and I think it's very appropriate that you use the word game changer because that's the kind of
attention it's getting right now. People use game changer are super into like figuring out routines and figuring out how they're like, how to perfectly optimize them, how to make them as essential as possible. And there is some actual like research and science to this. But you said that there's a difference between habits and routines. I disagree. I know some people say, no, they're actually different. I think they're the exact same thing.
Yeah, I mean you're sort of splitting hairs a bit. I've found some stuff that said basically that, and we should think, well, we got our sources from a lot of different places. Do you know some of them?
Yeah, Northwestern med Parenting, University of Iowa. Real simple. There was a post by a guy named Brad Stolberg. I can't remember what side. I'll have to look it up, but yes, go ahead.
Good stuff though, But I did see it broken down as The difference is that a habit is associated with a queue, like the queue to wash your hands would be that you have just used the bathroom and handled your private parts, and that a routine exists without that queue. It's not dependent on that queue. But I'm kind of with you. It's sort of splitting hairs.
Yeah. I also think that routines are dependent on cues. I mean we talk about them later. Like if you have a workout routine in the morning, your queue is waking up in the morning and putting it on your exercise quoth. That's a cue. I don't think that they can exist without cues. There's because if they existed without cues, you would just suddenly randomly start like eating a healthy breakfast at like three in the morning, even though you were just sleeping a second ago. You see what I'm saying.
So your que is being awake like you could you.
Would basically, but you would you would just like you would just randomly engage in your routines. They have to be they're contingent upon some either time or place or something like that. There's cues with routines, and if a habit is something a behavior that you do that's based on a queue, then it's the same thing as a routine.
All right, Well, let's just move on and say great, great, and talk more about routines and habits. One thing that they say is great about routines is that and I guess the idea idea here is that you have a certain amount of will power, and some people may have unlimited amounts, but I think the general person kind of taps out at a certain point and that if you've built a routine, you're not using that willpower of like, oh I gotta get up and go use my WheelPower
to get up and go to the gym. Like if it's a part of your routine and you do it without fail when you wake up, then you're sort of on autopilot and that willpower is reserved for other things later.
Yeah, it's just one less decision you have to make which allows you to suffer or put off the inevitable decision fatigue you're going to reach later on in the day.
Right, Yeah, And I think decision fatigue is a real thing. They've proven that. So they say one thing to help out with routines is to cut down literally on just the decision making process, right, Like if you get super stressed in the morning picking out your outfit for work, just like narrow get rid of some stuff and narrow it down to like five or six things that you can wear.
Yeah, just wear all black like that one be from Thanos, right or no, what was the name of that company?
I don't know what you're talking about.
Sana's to drop out Elizabeth?
Oh sure, yeah, farahnose something like that.
Yeah, she wore all black, and I think it was because she idolized Steve Jobs. But I think Steve Jobs wore all black because it was just he didn't You didn't need to decide, you just put on the black clothes. It didn't matter to Steve Jobs. He had other things to think about.
All right, let's take a break. We'll talk about how to establish routines. Does that sound good?
Yeah?
All right.
So to establish a routine, it's the same thing as establishing a habit because they're the same things. And that is that you basically figure out what you need to do, what you want to do, and you do it multiple times over and over, and there's all sorts of different studies about how many times it takes to make a habit or a routine stick. But there are definitely things that you can do to help the whole thing along. And one of them is that you can you can
create cues for yourself, like you can. I can't remember which which sources came from, but they said, Okay, let's say you want to be a writer and you want to write more. Well, a good way to set up a routine would be to take your laptop to the same place every day in order. Oh it was you, okay, yeah, so this was a great idea, Chuck, take your laptop
to the same place every day. You you take your the same lunch with you every day, or in the same like lunch container or something like that, and you set up these cues I think they're called affordances, objects and surroundings that help queue your routine. And as you build this up and you start to make these associations in your mind, your routine will become more and more habitual. Yeah.
And they've done research that says that pairing things together like this just makes for a stronger attempt at a routine. Like you said, you maybe doing the same thing every day or whatever, especially if it's productive because your body and your mind. Then say, hey, wait a minute, I got so much good writing done yesterday because I packed my turkey turkey sandwich in a lunch box and went to this part of the park to sit under that tree at noon with my laptop and my blue book bag.
And I'm going to that work today, So I'm going to do it tomorrow. And then it's almost like tricking yourself in a way.
Yeah, it is. It's like, so you're setting yourself up to eventually become like Reggie Jackson when he's activated in the Naked Gun and goes to kill the Queen.
Must kill Nordberg.
He didn't even think about it. He just did it because of the routine that was programmed in it, albeit without his knowledge because Reggie Jackson had never heard anybody, but you know, it was still virtually the same thing.
Yeah, And I think another good thing to remember is that everyone's different and some people, like you, got to know yourself. Some people function great in the morning, some people function much better in the evening and at night. It seems like the middle of the day, no one does that great because research has kind of shown that we have different chronotypes and we are either larks or
owls in general. I'm sure there are people out there that break this mold, but to know your body and know, like, hey, I'll some people know they're much better at like that morning workout or they would much rather go after work that evening and setting yourself up for that success is key.
Yeah, And that's that's kind of part of a warning that Brad Stolberg gave. By the way, the site's called the growth Equation, but he was basically saying like, don't don't go and research routines and then try to make the routine. Make your life fit the routine, figure out how that routine's going to fit your life depending on when you're most active or when you're most productive or whatever.
Like he said, basically, if you're trying to sell a routine that works for you to other people, you're going to run into a problem because not everybody's like anybody else, and routines need to adapt to the person. You need to make your routine work for you. If you find yourself working for a routine you're sucker.
Yeah. Well, there's a lot of people out there right now that sell their ideas for routines, and they're like, shut up, Josh.
Those are the people who say game changer.
Right, and influencer and disruptor and all those other words. Kids and routines. I included this bit because it's just something that's become really evident to me as a parent.
Well, it's so important too. I mean, like, routines are important for adults, but man, they are essential for kids.
Essential for kids, extra extra essential for any kid with any kind of neurodiversity. They talk about routines just being critical. Kids love surprises when it's ice cream. Kids don't love surprises when it's hey, you're not going to school today, because well they probably love that. That's probably not a great example. But a routine that's disruptive it helps give the parent a sense of control and that power struggle.
Parents love control over kids.
It's crucial to get anything done. But you know, once that routine becomes established in theory, it takes away some of that battle. So if the routine is at the end of every night, you got to get the bathtub, you gotta brush your teeth, cut to use your bathroom, put on your jommies, and go to bed. That's the routine, and it's not questioned. You do that because your body has to be clean, your body has to be healthy. It's not up for debate. That stuff is still going
to happen. But you're way better at having success there than if you're like, oh, let's just try this a couple of nights a week and see how it goes.
Yeah. I can imagine that. Yeah, you're still going to get pushed back from time to time, but it's probably one time out of ten instead of nine times out of ten, or it may.
Be ten times out of ten, but the battle is just easier one.
Oh really, because you're like, it's the routine. Sorry, I can't do anything about it.
Yeah, I'm just speaking from the parent of a strong will child. It's just very rare that Ruby's just like great, I'll do that.
Yeah, I'll let's go with the flow. Yeah, but can she say like why?
No, she doesn't question why, and we've gotten pretty good at stomping her into submission.
Did that come from Parenting Magazine?
It did, Doctor Spock.
So one of the things that you do want to remember with routines, whether you are it's a routine for your kid, it's a routine for you. You want to mix it up from time to time because your brain is very, very lazy, and that's why routines work. Our brains love shortcuts. Our brains love to not have to think about something. They want to think about something else, or think about nothing at all, going to default network mode. The thing is is when that happens, it actually has
eventual impacts on your emotions. You feel boring, you feel like you're in a rut, you feel like your life is dull, and so there's routines take maintenance strangely to make them as effective as possible, and you also have to keep in mind what's coming down the pike. Like, for example, one of the best ways to completely run
a routine off the rails is to go on vacation. Well, if you know you're going to go on vacation, you want to have a contingency plan for either carrying your routine into vacation, which is not crazy, like it's actually kind of healthy, or if you're like nope, vacation's vacation
from everything, including routines. To have a plan to get back into your routine very quickly after you return, so several days don't go by because with each each day that passes, it makes it harder and harder to get back into that routine.
Yeah, and be smart about mixing up your routine. That doesn't mean if you've got a great workout plan that you completely change what you're doing. It could just be like I'm going to wear a completely different outfit than I normally do, or if it's my creative writing thing, I'm gonna pack a different lunch and a different container. Just little things like that can can move your brain in a better direction if you find yourself sort of
on autopilot. Speaking of kids again, you know my daughter gets she's a kid that says out loud like I hate my same routine, Like I get bored doing the same stuff. Like routines are great for kids, but a little thing like taking a different route to school can make a big difference. Like just little changes like that.
Plus, also, if you're afraid of being kidnapped, you should definitely take different routes all the time too. That's another good reason to mix up your routine. Absolutely, there's one more thing that you should mix up as far as routines go. In that is a workout routine, an exercise routine. For one, you can really overdo your muscles if you're working out the same groups over and over again, so.
You gotta have legs day for sure.
And then the other thing about it is you can actually like jumpstart all sorts of different things in your body, positive things by changing up your exercise routine, because again, your body gets used to it, find shortcuts, and you just don't get as much out of the same workout over and over again.
Yeah, good stuff.
Yeah, check on. I'm gonna go make a new routine. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm going to figure it out and do it and I'll report back to you on it. Yeah.
What's funny is we have our work routine that's very pretty much ingrained, and I am guilty of, Like when you've suggested different things that I'm like, no, yeah, no, I'm believes don't change this.
I know what you mean. I feel very similar. Yeah, I just I haven't said that in years that you feel similar with me. No, No, that like we should change up our work routine.
It's been a minute.
Yeah, all right, good stuff. Oh oh, sorry, Chuck's that good stuff everybody. That's the cue for our routine, which means short stuff is out.
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