273. The psychology of routines

not just in their twenties, but throughout life. You know parents who swear by a routine for their children, sixty year olds, seventy year olds who seem like they are the happiest people in the world because they have routine. And is it really as simple as having a morning, waking time, or some general activity scheduled in your day. Could that be the simple answer to making us happier?

Turns out there is a lot of evidence for routine, but also some downside, some controversies that we're going to talk talk about on today's episode. I am going to start out by being entirely honest with you all. I am, by no means someone who claims to be an expert in productivity or routine for that matter. You know, if I had to choose between productivity and discipline or creativity and spontaneity. I would most of the time choose creativity

and spontaneity almost every day. But I have come around to the idea and I have been convinced that routine allows for both in you know, a way that actually lets you get the most out of what you want from life, even if it seems opposed to something that requires rigidity and strictness. And I have also realized in my own life that when I have structure, I feel better, I operate better, I have much greater clarity and focus. That is one side of the benefits that routine brings.

You know, it brings a great reduction to anxiety, It brings greater time management, to name just to name a few, and a recent study looking at over a thousand individuals has even suggested that people who have a morning routine they typically earn more, they are happier, they have more

fulfilling relationships. Even so, that is something that we need to most certainly look into, and I think even those things alone might persuade most of us who are on the fence to maybe start incorporating some rituals, some non

negotiables and some protocols into our life. So we're going to talk about all of that today, Why routine is so good for our brains, why our brains crave it, and the routines of some of the most successful people in the world, and what we can take from those routines to apply to our own lives in a small

and more sustainable way. I also want to talk about three very important tips for creating a routine that you will actually stick with, tips I'm guessing you probably haven't heard before, but also how to balance the need for spontaneity and the need for novelty with a desire for structure. It's a big episode, one that I think I'll probably end up coming back to myself, but as always, I hope that we learn something together. I hope that you

find the psychology and the research fascinating. Without further ado, let's get into the episode. Routine is quite a broad term, so not to sound too simplistic in like a textbook, but I do want to give kind of a guideline around what this generally means what we're talking about today. MY definition of routine is that it is a series of habits that benefit your lifestyle that are repeated on a regular basis, so in the morning, evening, daily, weekly, monthly.

And these habits have to be intentional, so you know, most people eat breakfast. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's a deliberate and specific routine. You have to be intentional with it, you know, putting a specific behavior at a time that corresponds best to your lifestyle, and you have to believe that it's going to help you in some area of your life. I think if someone was going to ask me for a definition, that's the best I

can come up with. Now. Routine routines have been applauded by people all over the globe from all disciplines, from athletes to entertain as, business leaders, politicians, parents, students. You will find an example in every single domain of a routine that people swear by and people who will very readily tell you that it has changed their life. And there is a real fascination with what do successful people do in their day that sets them apart from other people's.

Thousands of YouTube videos, thousands of articles, probably hundreds of books written on this very subject, but to keep it small. The reason that people love routine specifically the routines they've created for themselves. But really, any form of routine in general, is that it does for our brain what the modern

world simply cannot. It provides structure, and it provides a sense of predictability that makes us feel safe and secure as much as our brain does like novelty, and we crave new experiences, things that are surprising, even the best kinds of surprises, even the good stuff that actually still causes us stress. That's the interesting thing about stress. A lot of people think that it's this negative, nasty thing. Stress just means arousal. They can be good stress, there

can be bad stress. It still puts pressure on the body. But when we have a routine that kind of eases that necessary stress that we encounter in our daily lives by allowing us to almost switch off our brain for the routine stuff, for like the normal stuff we do day to day, and to save our cognitive resources for the surprising things, good and bad, and to make sure that you know, we give our brain rest so that it doesn't have to make as many decisions throughout our day.

It can find comfort and stability in the patterns and habits that we have rehearsed Basically, like I said, with so much chaos going on, routine is like a nice cozy bed. It's like a nice home to go home to. I think the biggest evidence for why routines work and why they help us is how much they actually alleviate anxiety and how much it removes so many of the

unknowns that anxiety and negative stress really thrives on. So there's this two thousand and two research paper that I've read for this episode that basically concluded that those of us who lack routine, we essentially leave the door open for more minor disruptions, and those minor disruptions can snowball into ongoing and chronic stress, but also more persistent and probable anxiety. I will say, like I said before, the times I have been most routine bound have been the

days that I feel more at peace. I wake up with less sense of urgency, I have less thoughts running through my head, I don't face as much choice overload. Routine is this very beautiful way of allowing us to explore and be creative and be big thinkers, whilst also knowing that we have something to ground us. So there's two words there that I think are really crucial for understanding the benefits of routine. It's certainty and its grounding.

Those are the two really important components. And we can probably out a final word in here, and that is efficiency.

So certainty grounding efficiency. So a twenty sixteen paper from Harvard Business School, just to float another study out there for you, they found that by decreasing anxiety, which we know is what routine does, rituals, routines, protocols, they improve mental performance and they improve cognitive performance as well, because they become a way for us to get the most out of our hours by really streamlining processes at critical

time periods. So in the morning or the evening, there's a lot that needs to get done in those opening and closing shifts, and it can quickly consume our whole day if we don't use our time and the limited hours we have in those pockets of time most efficiently. That's what routine does. You know, if you have a solid morning routine, you don't have to set your alarm every night for what time you want to wake up. You've already done it, you know what time it will be.

You don't have to think about what you're going have for breakfast every morning. You don't have to calculate when you can squeeze in a workout. It's all laid out for you, like this gift from a prior version of you who thought, Okay, let's just make this all a little bit smoother. Let's make this a little bit easier,

more effortless. Routine and allocating dedicated time slots for specific tasks have also been shown to make us more productive, obviously, because we have a distinct time period where something needs to get done. That really increases focus and what we call task based urgency, meaning that if you have fifteen minutes that you put aside every day to do something, you are more likely to use that time for the

desired activity. You're less likely to compromise, and that actually means that you'll achieve more, but also you'll be happier because if you can streamline kind of the annoying things, the admin tasks of life, the brushing of the teeth, the showering, like the admin emails, you do end up having more time to just be a human, to enjoy yourself, to have fun, and those benefits they are not sequested by age. They don't disappear, you know, at a certain age.

It doesn't take a specific time or age for them to start. So maybe I should explain this in a

better way. Basically, routine benefits everyone. I came across a really cool paper while researching this episode from twenty eighteen, and it talks about how good routine is for children specifically, and how there are some pediatricians and some teachers who can tell the kids that have a bedtime, who have a dinner time, who have homework or family time compared to those who don't, and those kids are typically more resilient,

they're less stressed, and they have better attention spans. So when we take that same logic into adulthood, you know, when we are adults, we don't have a parent telling us to do. We are the primary grown up in our lives, being like, Okay, I'm going to be a little bit strict with myself here, and I'm going to allocate certain times I'm going to create routine. Those same structures that helped us as children will continue to help

us as adults. This is specifically the case when life feels naturally or like contextually very stressful, like whenever I get dams from people being like I'm so overwhelmed at UNI. I've just been through this huge breakup, and I feel like the world is crumbling underneath me. I always say, you need to start practicing some kind of grounding ritual

or routine for yourself. You need to lower the cognitive burden of even the most minute decision making tasks, because your brain needs all the stability that it can get during exam periods, during really difficult emotional times. If you can just make some things more automatic, that gives you more time to process and to think and to be able to problem solve. So I hope that just like big mount of evidence that I've just thrown at you,

has made a compelling case. You know, it's evidence that I probably need to re listen to myself at times. I need to stop scheduling meetings at eight am during my morning routine. I need to find a dedicated time to work out because it's always the last thing on my list for the day. Like I definitely need to have a better bedtime. But consider me like an imperfect version of success or adherence here, like do better than me.

But also it's hopefully an example, like hopefully you can use my life as an example of how even just going forward imperfectly with your routine. Although those things routine and imperfect like sound contradictory, like if you can just show up as often as possible in your desired routine, your life does get better. All right, Let's talk about some of the most effective routines in the world. What do some of the most successful people on this planet

do in their mornings, evenings, afternoons, and nights. Some of these are rather intense. I will say I love hearing people's morning routines, but there are times when I'm like, wow, like four am, wake up. You get all of that done before you've even had lunch, Like, how am I even able to compare? We will be taking small lessons from these routines. Please don't consider these as like options for you to choose from. I think they're just very,

very fascinating. So with that in mind, let's start with Barack Obama, former president of the United States. So he would reportedly wake up at seven am every morning. Honestly, seven ams pretty early in my mind, but kind of later than I thought a president would wake up, But that's what he does. Seven am. He would work out six days a week for forty five minutes. He apparently told his aids that the rest of my time will be more productive if you give me my workout time,

which that's a man who prioritizes. He would then have breakfast with his family if he was like in the White House, which we love a family man, then this is a really beautiful part of his routine. He would then walk one minute to his office in the Oval office, because of course he lived in the White House. And

he said that was like his thinking time. That was like almost to meditation, a one minute solo walk to work basically where he would just allow himself to just breathe think, imagine, do whatever a president does, I guess with that time. I think this is a really really simple routine for someone who was at the time, you know, like the busiest and most influential person in the world. But what I like about it was that it was predictable, it's easy to follow, and it's not like as intense

as you would imagine. Let's talk about Anna Winter's routine. Obviously the editor in chief of Vogue. Now. She apparently wakes up at five forty five am and then she plays tennis for an hour on the dot finishing at seven. So she says this keeps a physically fit. It also helps her sharpen her focus, and then following her game, she spends the next hour and a half in hair and makeup, and she does it every day. She says, it's like ensures that she is ready for her demanding schedule.

I think if you are like someone who wears makeup, you understand this feeling. I remember, like when I was at Uni, I would do a full face of makeup every single day before I left my dorm room before I went to class, and some of my friends would be like that seems a little bit unnecessary, but I was like, this is meditative. This is a way to just be like I'm present with myself for twenty minutes thirty minutes doing this like ritual of like painting my

face and like making myself feel presentable. That does influence how I feel for the rest of the day, which I think is really special. Let's talk about an unusual one. We've had two that seem like pretty cut and dry, like exercise as a priority, very busy people. Jim Carrey, Let's talk about his routine. Very famous comedian. Apparently he has just this one daily ritual that at eleven am every single day he calls himself and he pretends that it's someone from the past calling him with some news

or calling him to tell him something. And he comes up with a new character every single day, and it's like a creative exercise for him to get the juice is flowing. So there you go. There's another example of how it can be very much suited to who you are. I want to touch on one more famous morning routine. You've probably heard of it before. It's Andrew Huberman's very famous ritual for his early mornings. So Andrew Huberman, he is a neuroscientist. You may have listened to him on

the Huberman Lab. I will say, I don't necessarily agree with everything that the man has to say, but his morning routine is definitely interesting, definitely evocative, and according to his own research, highly productive. So let's talk about it. So, his morning routine consists of waking up two to three hours before you habitually wake up. So most of us have obviously, we have circadian rhythm, we have a body clock. Most of us have a time that we would naturally

like to wake up at. You know, I know For me, it's around eight o'clock, Like that's when my body is like, all right, we're awake. If I oversleep past that time, I always feel a little bit groggy. If I get up earlier, I'm always a little bit like I have to really pull myself out of bed. He says, that's a good thing. Get up two to three hours before you would habitually wake up. Then hydrate, drink five hundred miles of water, Get ten to thirty minutes of morning

light exposure. This one's a bit hard, like if you live somewhere that's really dark in the mornings, Like you know, if your normal wake up time is eight and you have to wake up at six or five and the sun doesn't rise till nine. This seems like a bit

of a Californian thing, but let's keep going. Then you want to exercise for at least forty minutes forty minutes three to four times a week, either cardio or weight training, shower, and then you do ninety minutes of focused work before lunch or like just in that first early morning bit.

Ninety minutes. Apparently, that's like you should be able to sit down and just knock out all those early morning things, and then he has something for his afternoon as well, which is he does like ten to thirty minutes of non sleep deep rest or hypnosis or a nap, and then he gets ten to fifteen minutes of evening light exposure intensive. Some key points to this. His focus really seems on streamlining alertness, being very in touch with his body.

He also has this thing of like delaying caffeine intake by like an hour and a half after you wake up, So really letting our bodies nap truly regulate through light exposure, through hydration, which you know, really does prepare the body and it stimulates a lot of neuromodulators and increase arousal and mental acuity throughout the day. It's a good thing. But if we're going to look at all of these

routines holistically, they do have one thing in common. They all revolve around the thing that is most important to that person and a singular non negotiable. Whether it's exercise, whether it's makeup, whether it is alertness, whether it is a phone call. And what those priorities indicate to me are values they suit the person's values. Is it family, creativity, confidence, mental clarity, physical health, and that kind of leads me to the question, right, is there a best routine? Of

all these examples, is one of them best? And the answer is, you know, a little bit more complicated than you would think. We're going to talk about all of that and more. Stay with us after this short break. Is there a perfect routine? The answer is no. There is not a universal routine that is going to work perfectly for everyone, but there are ingredients to a routine that will most certainly help you, and also a routine that will hit some of those core pillars of health

that we want to target. Firstly, if you're going to start with a routine, choose either the morning or the evening. This is an amazing way to bookend your day with good habits. So I feel like a work a you know, a midday routine or a workday routine is a little bit complicated and takes a lot of effort. But your evening and your morning routine they kind of only take like an hour or an hour of half, So that's

really where you should begin to focus. I think, you know, your morning routine sets the tone, but your night routine gives you the last taste of the day. It allows for restoration, whatever one you choose. Depending on which you choose, what each of these routines need to be centered around is something to do with sleep, something to do with movement, and something that is going to make your life easier.

So for example, laying out your outfit for the next day, gratitude journaling, not going on your phone thirty minutes after you wake up or thirty minutes before bed. Most effective routines contain at least two of the above, and they start small before expanding. You know, after that, some people might add in meal times, liquid, showering, makeup, whatever it is that you know you feel needs to be done. It is structured around, firstly, things that are small, and

we're going to talk about why that's important. Something that I really think if you are more focused on creating like a daily routine instead of setting up like a specific time blocking a gender to begin with. Instead, I want you to kind of think about a checklist routine instead of like a specific time routine. And it's my opinion that your daily checklist, your daily routine checklist should

prioritize these five things. Something for your health, something productive, something for your mental health, something for you socially and something just for you. So health, productivity, mental, social, just for you. If you want to hit the five pillars of happiness in our life, you may also include spirituality in there. Those are the ones that I would be

focusing on. So jim in the morning, writing out a to do list as soon as I sit down at my desk, ten minutes of meditation, seeing friends for lunch or dinner, and then watching my favorite show or doing something crafty before. But like that is the perfect day that involves specific protocols I know will make me happy. It also makes sense that, like when we're talking about choosing routine, different routines are gonna work for different professions,

different personalities, different people. So if you are someone who works night shifts, a morning routine starting at six am isn't gonna work for you because you're just clocking off or you're at the end of your shift. If you're someone who has ADHD, a highly intensive time bound routine with many many steps, many different parts also probably won't work, or maybe it will. Actually, you know, I have been seeing recent studies about how time blocking for ADHD is

really effective, really helps with time blindness. But I think you've had to have had some practice before you jump straight in. My point is really this, You've got to choose what's best for you. Like I do not wake up at six am because I know that I am most productive between seven and ten pm. So I want to prioritize that time period of my life knowing that that's what my peak performance is, right than trying to fit myself into the circle or the box of someone

else's routine. So, coming back to what we were talking before, how do I choose my routine? How do I start with the structure. Once you've kind of decided morning or night routine, the first thing I really want you to do is reflect on one thing that you are trying to prioritize in your life right now. Some examples. Is it exercising, is it limiting social media time? Is it reading more? Is it feeling more rested? All of these

sound amazing. I want you to choose just one that is going to become the centerpiece upon which you are going to build everything else around. So let's say your biggest goal is to get more daily movement. You know, you work in an office, you sit all day, You're feeling sluggish if that's your priority. Then I want you to assess your day for where there is the most

time loss by doing a quick time audit. Basically, when you do a time audit, you're meant it's really meant to help you identify where you are perhaps dedicating too much time to what I call lost hours. So lost hours include time scrolling your phone, time sleeping past the point of restoration, time spent in bed, time spent procrastinating. Of course, sometimes you know having a bit of bed rot or brain rot is helpful. Sometimes you really do just need to turn your brain off in front of

the TV for a little while. Sometimes you have slept ten hours because you really need it. But if that means if that is consistently and it's not actually helping you, that is where your lost hours are probably sitting. So where on your day do you have the most lost hours? Is it morning, middle of the day or afternoon slash evening. Let's say for this example, it's evening. That is where

you're going to choose your first routine. Where you have that priority that you want to get done, You're going to put it where there is most time wastage. Pretty simple. This also really helps you work with what you have instead of feeling like you need to eat into more valuable things in order to get stuff done, like working out, like you're finding space that you already have available. Like I said before, we are also going to structure our

routine for seven or eight hours of sleep. So know where you want to Like, where do you want to sleep? Are you someone who prefers an early night or a sleep in? In this case, we're doing evening, so we are perhaps I'm guessing, considering a bit of a sleep in. And choose where you want to insert your major habit, what you want your bedtime to be, and work backwards from that time to kind of create the structure. So I want to go to bed at eleven PM. My

major habit is that I want to work out. I want to work out at least three hours before bed. I'm going to have this really nice evening afternoon routine working towards this idea that I will be embedd at a certain time. So this is kind of how I do it. If I know I want to go to bed at a certain time, I know I want my teeth to be brushed, my face to be washed, my sheets to be all cozy, my water to be filled

by another time. So let's say an hour, and I know I want to get home from the gym and do X y Z for maybe like thirty minutes, have a bit of a decompress. So my routine would be Okay, I finish work, I go home, I make dinner, I go to the gym for an hour, even if the workout is terrible, I stay for an hour. Then I come home and then I start that secondary part of my morning routine that kind of caps caps off the night.

But really, the one thing I want to ensure that you get out of this is that we are focusing on only one habit that we consider tier one. So your tier one habit is the one thing you cannot compromise on. As you get better at not compromising on it, then you can start adding in Tier two habits like a five minute meditation or a fifteen minute you know,

journal practice, or of sunlight. The reason this is important to secure is that even if you fail a tier to habit, your day will still be a victory if you get your tier one habit done. And this really avoids like a very unhealthy all or nothing thinking mentality of needing to have a routine with a thousand steps. We really want to standardize one activity before we add or optimize other areas. So I say this because I see many people try and create those crazy morning routines.

It's too complex, it's too complex to have too many small things that have too small, minuscule you know, time blocks and hope they all add up. Because things happen, things go wrong, we're busy, we're tired. We want to simplify the process. Also, research from the University of College London found that on average, it takes sixty six days for a new habit to stick. If you have too

many habits, they ain't going to stick. There's going to be too many of them that you need to be really, really loyal and dedicated to for you know, almost two and a half months at that point. So if you set and you stick to a new plan or a new habit for sixty six days, there is a good chance that that routine is going to become something that feels like a non negotiable and then you add on from there. Like I always think about it, like building a house. You don't put the furniture in before you

have a floor, plan or foundation. This is known in psychology and in other areas as the compound effect, and it is a proven strategy. From there, we can also habit stack. I feel like I've spoken about this before. Habit stacking feels like magic. Honestly, what it involves is taking one thing that you already do and then just adding one more thing to it, you know, brushing your teeth in the shower, listening to your lectures whilst on

the treadmill, calling your long distance friends, whilst meal prepping. Remember, your time during your day is expansive. It's not just linear. It can hold multiple tasks at the same time. I think my other biggest tip for setting up a routine is to romanticize your routine, rather than feeling like it's something you have to do that you must do, that

you're dragging yourself into. I love the feeling of exercising in the evenings so I can be kind of like all sweaty and like cap off my day with some final real push and then I get to have this really nice shower. Like. I like how that makes me feel. I love how romantic it feels to work late into the night. I'm like some tortured rider or like a hard working CEO. Like I like that feeling. I romanticize

that feeling. My friends who swear by their morning routines always tell me how peaceful and quiet it is before the sun comes up, and what it's like to really just spend three minutes with their coffee and just focus in on all the sensations. So that is really the second part of what I want you to do. Once you have your baseline secured, once you've decided on the major habit, once you've decided whether it's a morning or a night routine, then it's time to be like, Wow,

I'm so lucky I get to do this. This is fun, This is a process. This is almost a bit sentimental, a bit romantic. I'm going to move on from all the warm and fuzzies and many many benefits of routine. Let's talk about some of the criticisms. Because nothing is ever one hundred percent faultless, otherwise obviously everyone would be doing it, and routine setting routine building is no different.

The biggest issue or struggle that people have with routine, and let me know, if you relate to this, it's that a it can be really boring and b It can be difficult to be spontaneous. The monotony of doing the same thing every single day can weigh you down. It has its own name. It's called the groundhog Day effect,

named after the movie Groundhog Day. So the groundhog Day effect basically refers to the feeling of repeatedly experiencing the same day over and over again, and how that leads to a lot of frustration, a lack of purpose, a lot of boredom, and it makes you feel like there's nothing new in your life, which can at times also make us quite depressed. That is the risk with being too structured and strict with your routine. The biggest solution to this is to not go overboard. You are not

a drill sergeant. You are not a member of the army. I want you to make sure that you are giving yourself a day off every couple of weekends or every weekend. I want you to break up your routine every couple of weeks. Keep the foundation the same, but make the details different. So the workouts are different, the alarm sound is different, the meal prep is different, the journal prompts are different, the commute is a little bit different. And

please don't sacrifice novel experiences. Don't let yourself turn your back to newness an opportunity. You know, missing out on an amazing last minute concert is a lot worse than skipping your evening routine one day this month. I know a lot of people will stress to you discipline, unwavering, dedication, commitment, But you know that's really not everything in life, is it. There should be room for spontaneity over constant efficiency and

constant hitting of our routine KPIs. We also don't want to feel like we're missing out or we're experiencing social isolation from our routine. Routine is meant to help us. It's meant to increase happiness, increase you know, mental focus, increase productivity. If we are lonely, if we are sad, if we are resentful and frustrated, that is doing the opposite, that is not helping. I just think that if your routine also becomes too restrictive of your social life, you

will present it and then you won't do it. So stress test your routine for kind of two to three weeks and see if you know it's causing a lot of roadblocks, See if it's something that will require minor adjustments, you know, but so that you don't have to give up major sacrifices, because if you will, again like it's not going to be long lasting, you won't see the benefit.

Please please, please start small. I will also say you can and should have periods of your life where you are not bound by daily, weekly, or evenly even you know, monthly commitments or protocols. You should have times in your life where the soul focus of your life is not

to get things done. I think it's actually quite mentally healthy to sometimes give yourself space to just be a little bit free and to just wake with the sun, go down with the sun, to let yourself do what suits your rhythm's best without feeling like you have to drag yourself from task to task. It feels, you know, quite human. And I know a lot of us look at that and they're like, wow, I don't think I could have that relaxed attitude with the job I have

or with the life I have. But you do have the weekend, and you do have space during the holidays, Like obviously that's what holidays are made for, is to break you out of routine that gives you the necessary newness and freshness to go back with renewed vigor and dedication to the structure of you know, a moo moannotonous life. So please, life is not all about having routine, It's

not all about having structure. It definitely does help us, and there is a lot of reasons why we should hold ourselves accountable and a lot of other strategies like time blocking or time management that also fits in with this. But hopefully this is like a basic instruction on how to get started. Hopefully this has convinced you of why you need a small routine with just a couple of things, specifically a wake up time, specifically one core habit, and

you can kind of build it out from there. Again, I appreciate that you've listened this far. If you have the emoji I want you to leave in the comments is an alarm clock. If you want to detail your routine in the comments, I am fascinated by it. I cannot wait to read them. I love seeing what people do because they can be so niche and so specific to the individual. So drop like a couple hours of your morning routine, or your evening routine, or your daily

routine down below. Extra points if they're interesting, but also just as many points if they're just play not because we can all get some inspiration from that. Make sure if you have someone who you know who might like this episode, that you send them a link. That is how it helps. This is how the show really grows and reaches new ears, reaches new audiences, reaches new people. Also follow us along on Instagram at that Psychology podcast.

If you have further interesting questions, thoughts, feelings about this episode, or you want to just suggest a new episode, you can just shoot me a message. I do you know, infamously do a lot of episodes that are suggested by listeners, So if you want that to potentially be you, we'll see you over there, and until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself, and we will talk very very soon,