Mundane

Every morning, my alarm goes off. I get up out of bed and get dressed to go to the gym to work out. I go to the gym and follow the workout on my phone. I finish my workout between 7:30 and 7:35. Afterwards I shower, sometimes shave, get dressed, and go to work. I take the same route to work every day.

When I get to work, I make myself coffee. While my coffee is brewing, I finish my breakfast of two hard boiled eggs, a sliced apple with almond butter, and a banana.

At this point, I have made no decisions nor have I had to apply myself. I have followed the road I laid out for myself, relied on the habits I have and the planning I already put into place. I have spent no mental energy to get to where I am by 8:30 every morning.

My outfit is pretty standard and unremarkable.

My breakfast is the same.

My workout is preplanned.

As mundane as this sounds, it is incredibly freeing. I am set free to execute predetermined systems and processes while I pay attention to the things that really matter to me. I stew on the ideas of the podcasts I am listening to while I work out. I am pondering the items on my schedule while I “pump iron”.

Even when I get to work, putting together my coffee and eating my breakfast is as much a part of my mental boot up process as it is a habit.

Oh, and did I mention I am significantly physically healthier now than I was 2 years ago?

My entire process has freed me to make more decisions about things that matter while I have systematized the mundane. The mundane no longer has the power to steal from me while I pour my energy into what really matters to me.

Where are you spending energy making mundane decisions? How can you better systematize these mundane decisions? What can you make more reflex based than decision based so you can focus on what really matters?

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Consistency

Posting so frequently I have to regularly be writing and producing posts. I am constantly observing to find more ideas. Many ideas. I have to come up with enough ideas that I can throw out the bad ideas and keep the good ones. Sometimes the bad make it through too.

As much as I like the ideas I have, they all are not good ideas and not all of them turned into a post. My ideas page is full of ideas that will never be posted because I know the ideas are not worth the time it takes to post much less the time it would take to read it.

The idea is only the first step. After the idea I have to sit down and write it, workout an image I like. All of this take time and patience on my part because I want to be done after I come up with the idea.

The most difficult part of the process is the writing the post. I will regularly run into a phase where I do not want to write something, cannot write something, or just plain do not know how to address a topic. The only saving grace I have in this process is routine.

The more I go to the same place. In the same chair. With the same view. At the same time. The fewer and fewer issues I have. The words write themselves from the tips of my fingers when I am feeling truly inspired and they steadily drip out of my fingers when I have no motivation or at all.

Where are you stuck? What routine do you have to help you cross the hurdles in your life? Where are you so beholden to routine that you are sacrificing others for the sake of routine?

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