The Empty Promises of the Elaborate Routine

Why nailing a 12-step routine will leave you lonely and unfulfilled

If you’ve been online , you’ve probably been inundated with pseudo-optimized morning routines presented to you as the height of discipline.

They’re nonsense.

At best, pseudo-optimized routines are performance art, elaborate kabuki that’s not intended to be replicated. At worst, they make those not matching their level of “commitment” feel like failures. When you apply a critical eye to pseudo-optimized routines, you realize it’s quite sad.

People film themselves in the early hours of the morning mouth-taping, cold-plunging, and micro-needling totally alone save for the indifferent blinking of a record button.

No friends. No family. No pets. No greatness or performance or deep work on anything other than executing a routine itself.

A lonely endeavor

What is the point of having the greatest morning routine if its adherence means you cannot maintain or cultivate relationships? What is the point of having the greatest morning routine if it leaves you sleep-deprived? What is the point of having the greatest morning routine if you aren’t great at anything else?

A good life involves meaningful work and relationships, not dunking one’s face into a bowl of ice water at 5 AM. (If the ice water helps, that’s great. But let’s not pretend its necessary or moralize it.)

This is not to say routines aren’t important; I’m a huge believer (and practitioner) of routines. But there’s military-like adherence to the performance of routine, and then there’s the reality of routines that are sustainable amidst the messiness of life.

Effective Routines

If you want to implement helpful routines into your life, there are some key principles everyone can follow.

(Spoiler: none of it includes waking up at 3:30 AM or filming yourself for social media.)

Attributes of effective routines:

• Offer a sense of predictability in an inherently unpredictable world.

• Help you activate when you are feeling low.

• Keep you grounded when you are bursting with energy.

• Automate decisions to save willpower.

• Prime you to perform at your best and get into the zone.

• Support focus, consistency, discipline, patience and confidence.

You shouldn’t work for your routine; your routine should work for you.

Simplifying is great. (And the opposite of the performative nonsense we see online.) For example, on a daily basis, I wake up and make coffee; shoot for 45-90 minutes of physical activity; two hours of deep focus on meaningful work; family dinners; and I don’t fight my natural chronotype, which has me in bed most nights before 10 PM.

It’s hardly elaborate, but if I do those things, I set myself up to excel at my priorities: being a good dad, husband, writer, and coach. The prior examples are beneficial for me at this stage of my life. Your guideposts and cadence will almost certainly be different. Unlike what you see in performative online routines, there is no single best routine. It’s a moving target, and you’ve got to find what works for you.

But the broad catalog—supporting consistency with movement, sleep, relationships, focus, and meaning—is aligned with decades of research on what leads to health, longevity, and flourishing.

It’s also important to accept that sometimes you’ll need to release from your routine. Life is messy. You can’t be too rigid. What allows you to be rugged and consistent over the long-term is your flexibility and adaptability in the short-term.

Rules of Routines

The three rules of routines:

• Do everything you can to uphold them.

• Release from them when life demands it.

• Don’t let rule number two become a chronic excuse for rule number one.

It’s crucial to develop a few anchors that foster stability, predictability, and strength in a world full of chaos and complexity. This is the immense and genuine value of routines. But like so much else in modern life, when it comes to routines, don’t be fooled by the pseudo-version. Focus on the real, not the performative.