F**k Routine

I recently tried a 5am for 5 days routine and it confirmed something I’ve secretly known all along: I hate routine. This post is an affirmation not a lecture. I’m not going to try and convince you routine is bad, instead I want to reassure you that if you hate routine that’s ok.

Photo by Bianca Berg on Unsplash

People say the secret to success is having a good morning routine and, for the last 28 years, I believed them. I tried getting up earlier, later, in the middle — anything as long as it was consistent. I don’t know what I was hoping to achieve or feel but I didn’t. Then I’d skip a morning, feel bad about it, and then never get back on the bandwagon for more than a few days at a time.

Even worse, I found that routine put me on auto-pilot and I had less creative energy, more stress and more anxiety about how to use my time.

So I’ve given up trying to fight it; instead, I embrace being routineless.

Here’s what works for me, it might work for you too

Just because I don’t have a regular routine, doesn’t mean I waste my time. In fact, the opposite.

Each night, I set an intention for the next day. An intention list is like a to do list but bigger picture: it considers purpose, not just task.

I set the intention for the day which has a maximum of three items. I still have a to do list for my corporate…