Routine Sets Me Free
Up until a year or two back, I was struggling to find enough time at work. Days seemed to roll by fast without much to show for them. I also had more mood swings than I liked. It felt like being on a roller coaster ride. Fun at times but overall not very satisfying.
Fast forward to today and I am predictably more productive and happy. I still have unproductive days but they are few and far between. I also find that my mood is more stable and I seem to enjoy challenges at work more than I used to. What changed? I developed a routine.
Like a lot of people, I had a very low opinion of routine. My schedule was waking up whenever and starting work and then finishing work when I mentally couldn’t take it anymore. At the time, it felt like I was giving my all to work and I felt good about not ‘half assing’ it. The truth was that my days and my mood were often unpredictable and while I did have some solid days where I worked a lot, I also had a lot of days where I felt burnt out and couldn’t do much. On an average I wasn’t very productive, and as I found out later, average matters a lot if you want to make sustainable progress.
At this point, I should talk about my mood swings a bit more so there is better context for what’s ahead. Over the last decade, I struggled pretty seriously with depression. A lot of times, pretty crippling and other times only moderately crippling. For some reason, I took my depression as a given. Something I could learn to live with but not do much about. Looking back , I now understand that I was textbook bipoloar. It seriously affected my work and my personal life. On my manic days, I would commit to overly ambitious plans and on my depressive days, I would feel crushed under their load. I finally understood my affliction about a year back. At the same time, through some experimentation, I discovered that depression is something you can do something about. For example, you can start exercising, stop drinking and try to sleep better. You can also try out some natural supplements and make changes to your diet. Easier said than done, but definitely achievable.
This is where routine comes in for me. I now understand myself well enough to craft a routine that if followed keeps me predictably healthy and happy. My weekdays are usually like Groundhog days, only very satisfying. By perfecting my routine and practicing it enough, I have been able to put my happiness on auto-pilot. I can have a pretty good day without having to make any real decisions. This leaves me with a lot of mental energy to think about the problems I actually care about solving at SupportBee. Apart from fixing on place to work from (cafes, libraries) and places to eat, my routine also involves hitting up the gym and keeping a lot of time for going out and hanging out with friends. Sticking to a routine involves solid discipline. In fact I find that I have to be pretty disciplined about disconnecting from work and relaxing on the weekends to be ready for the next week.
There is a clear place for spontaneity in life. It makes life beautiful and fun. I usually reserve it for the weekends. I tend to let plans flow naturally on weekends and end up having a lot of fun. Most of my exploration for new places (especially cafes) is limited to weekends. I can confidently say that routine has truly set me free!
