The Secret to Getting More Out of Your Day
How do your days start and end? Are you snuggled under the covers moving your finger along the endless scroll of social media, or intentionally priming for the day or night ahead? As creatures of habit, routines serve us well, and there are ways to tweak them to get even more out of your days.
Hacking routines
Here are a few keys to building high-powered daily rituals that stick over time.
Figure out your natural rhythm. I do all kinds of things in the morning because I’m a morning person. I get up without an alarm and know that if I want to try something new, it’s in the a.m. or it will never happen because I get caught up in the day. For a routine to work, it really needs to respect your rhythm. A great resource to start with is The Power of When by Michael Breus.
Build up your ritual one step at a time.
Add the notion of pleasure. Success feels much more obvious when actions have immediate positive benefits. For me, other than the energy boost I feel in my body, an immediate pleasure factor comes from my morning moka coffee—and it comes at the end of the ritual.
Leave room for change. I do this because I’m a rebel and don’t respond well to anything imposed upon me, even by myself. Sometimes I mix up the routine with something new—a new exercise, a new hack—because it gives a dopamine rush that helps to keep me motivated. Sometimes I change the order or follow my gut to choose what goes in the routine that morning.
Follow the “At least one thing” rule. No matter what. That way, you never miss a day.
Much of life is made up of established, predictable, patterned behavior. Routines structure the day. Between 40 and 50% of everything we do is habit, which makes for a powerful tool to hack.
In Good Company
We all have daily routines, the question is whether or not we do them intentionally. It a book by Mason Currey called Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, which details the lives of 161 famous artists, it becomes clear that many were fond of nootropics such as coffee and nicotine, as well as walking, reading and meditation. Frequent breaks and change also inspired a lot of creativity. Sounds like biohacking to me.
Victor Hugo started his day with coffee and two raw eggs—that’s what I do when I have a big day ahead of me, although I only eat one raw egg, which I put in my fat coffee.
Beethoven also began his morning with coffee, counting out sixty beans as an ideal dose. I use a scoop and a half, which I just counted and comes to 140 grains. Hmm… perhaps my mug is bigger?
What stands out when your read about such thinkers and performers is the ritual of their lives and the focus on details which allowed them to work a little every day toward big long-term goals. This coincides perfectly with recent research and theory on habit forming.
The beauty of small actions
BJ Fogg, the world’s leading habit researcher, found that starting small predicts more than anything else whether someone establishes a habit. And once the habit is in place, the principle of compounding benefits sets in. I always go back to these principles. In the middle of winter, when the morning routine is harder to implement, I tell myself that I just have to go small. Get out of bed, do one thing. Once I get started, it’s easier to keep going. And if that’s all I manage to do, I celebrate it as a win.
Stacking for efficiency
Whether you want to have great abs, read more, sleep better, write that book, crush those objectives, or whatever your goal may be, determining small, habitual contributing actions and tagging them onto a preexisting routine is one of the most powerful moves you can make.
I like the efficiency. And I’ve used this hack of stacking for everything from meditation to reading and work-related tasks. I can say without hesitation it has changed my life.
As an example of stacking, I start the day slipping on my headphones for binaural-beat meditation, which I do while I drink a half-litre of water followed by some qi gong and yoga. It could be doing squats while you wait for your coffee to brew. I read while I have my breakfast. Depending on the time of year, one or more of my morning activities will be done outside watching the sun rise or in the early morning light.
Humanoid vs human
Routines have the great advantage of not requiring a lot of thought or energy to implement. This makes them powerful. I don’t need to think about getting up and brushing my teeth. From there, it’s easy to tag on the rest of my morning routine.
Rituals, on the other hand, have added mindfulness, an intention to achieve a desired outcome. Psychologists have shown that rituals can have a causal impact on thoughts, feelings and behaviors, enhancing confidence, motivation, and subsequent performance. This is why high-performing athletes do pre-game rituals.
I conclude that the ideal formula is:
Small actions + Routines + Stacking + Intention
= Long-term high performance