We live in the most ludicrously wealthy country in the history of the world. We have more choice than humans have every been presented with – even the most minute decision is met with a billion options. Cereal? Here, you have 150 options. Milk to go with your cereal? Sure! Pick from Whole, 2%, Organic Skim, Chocolate, Soy, Almond, Coconut, Coconut Vanilla, Almond Vanilla, Unsweetened Soy Vanilla, or any combination of the above. Oh, want a bowl? Here’s sixty more options. And a spoon? Another twenty.

I think you get the idea.This has become such a ridiculous situation that it’s been given the term Overchoice¹. We have so many decisions to make that we just opt-out and make no decision at all. And every decision we are presented with kills our willpower just a little bit more. So we end up making better decisions early in the day and bad decisions late at night after we’ve burned through our willpower².

The solution is to make our choices ahead of time before we face other options. Scott Adams refers to this as “reducing daily decisions to routine”³. The idea is we make a decision once and then just continue executing on that decision without blowing through a bunch of willpower. It’ll reduce your stress and just make things easier overall. So, what is a routine?

A routine is simply a group of habits that happen in a certain order.

Routines are helpful because repetition makes for automaticness⁴. Once you’ve done a routine enough times your brain starts to hand off some of that to the rest of your nervous system⁵. If you’ve ever driven home and arrived without realizing what happened during your trip, you’ve just experienced the power of routine.

Some routines happen at a specific time, like when you wake up. Morning routines are all the rage right now⁶, and they can be a great start. I have one and I’ll share it near the end of this post.

You can also have routines for certain activities, like what you do when you get to school or work. I have a bunch of applications I launch as soon as I get in front of my computer, and I fill my water bottle while they go do their thing. I also have checklists for different kinds of project that help me not forget things.

And you can even have a routine for unplanned events. When I get into a high stress situation, like a conversation that is going sideways, I’ll step back and start asking myself questions like “Why am I upset?” “What do I want to happen here?” “How can I be kind to the person I’m working with while still accomplishing my goal?” That’s also a routine.

Oh, right – I still need to share my morning routine. It’s not especially complicated (the best routines are simple). It goes something like this:

1) I get up around 6am.
2) I start heating a pan to make breakfast and get a glass of water.
3) While the pan is heating up, I sit down for 15 minutes to read scripture and pray.
4) I head back to the kitchen and cook breakfast – almost always a couple of eggs and maybe a bagel.
5) I eat breakfast while I read my list of comics.⁷

It’s almost like one big habit. The mornings I manage to follow my routine, I feel way way better. And my day goes better too.

All of this sounds like I’m some hyper-organized type-a overachiever. Maybe I am. I don’t know. But my desk is a mess, I only get through my morning routine four times a week, and I procrastinate like mad. What I’ve learned is you don’t have to execute perfectly to feel the benefit of routines.