Clean, Stretch, Meditate, Read, Write: The Power of A 30-Minute Routine. (5/100)

Every single day I do these five things:
I clean for 5 minutes.
I stretch for 5 minutes.
I meditate for 2 minutes.
I read 5 pages of a book.
I write 100 words.
I do this so that these five things become conditions for my life. I never miss one day.
My philosophy is that my capacity to accomplish these activities or my capacity to act these procedures out in the world diminishes every time I cease to fulfill this daily routine; and conversely my capacity to clean, stretch, meditate, read, and write increases every time I accomplish this little routine.
Every time I accomplish this routine I become more capable of acting these things out. It inches me closer and closer to 6 minutes of cleaning and stretching, 3 minutes of meditation, 6 pages of reading and 200 words of writing.
Slowly, after years of consistently completing this little routine the progress will stack up as I start to invest a little more time and effort into each activity. It will become effortless daily activity that would be hard not to do.
The power of the 30-minute routine is that anyone can find 30 minutes. However, its power is not in how short the routine is, but in its capacity to create a bridge from 30 minutes to 35 minutes, and from 35 minutes to 40 minutes.
Over a period of consistently accomplishing your routine you will be able to increase the time you engage in each of these activities.
This is how you implement routine into your life. It’s the old “it’s a marathon not a sprint” adage.
How to create and implement a 30-minute routine into your life:
1. Start by choosing three difficult things you want to add to your life
By difficult I don’t mean that the activities themselves have to be characteristically difficult, but difficult in the sense that in your attempt to add them to your life you have experienced consistent failure.
Cleaning, stretching, meditating, reading and writing are all characteristically easy in my humble opinion, but I describe them as difficult insofar as my attempts to make them routine have been futile.
Now grab some paper and write down 3–5 activities.
2. Short and Sweet
This is crucial.
It is the difference between success and failure in implementing a daily routine. Make the routine as easy as bloody possible.
If you pick biking as one of your daily routines, make the goal to bike around the street once per day. This is an easy enough goal for someone who has never biked routinely. It will be easy to succeed on a daily basis, and your motivational fuel will not run out.
The trick is to not set up your daily goals so that it is easy to fail and difficult to succeed because this takes a huge hit on your motivational juices. And when those juices drain, so does your capacity for routine.
3. Do it every single day and do not miss a beat.
It is called routine for a reason.
Every day that you do your routine, the probability that you will do it the next day increases.
Every day that you fail to do your routine, the probability that you will do it the next day decreases.
When you do your routine you are helping out your tomorrow-self. It is a matter of self-respect.
4. Have a notebook on hand to track daily progress
In line with the above point about increasing the probability of completing your routine, is the notion of tracking your progress in a little book.
The tracking itself becomes a routine; a tool of increasing the probability of completing your daily goals.
It is as simple as writing down:
Clean
Stretch
Meditate
Read
Write
And after completing each activity you jot a little checkmark beside it to demarcate your success.
5. Sometimes do a half-assed job
Lastly, on those days where you just couldn’t be bothered to put in 30 minutes of routine, just do the movements.
Trick your brain into thinking you did it so that the probability of completing it tomorrow doesn’t plummet.
This is a hail mary and is necessary for anyone who recognizes they are human and motivation does dip sometimes.
On those days, do a half-assed job, so that the next day you can do a more sincerely killer job.
