Pick 84 - Daily Routines vs the Pandemic of 2020

Perhaps the most disruptive force of the COVID-19 pandemic was not its threat to our health, but the stress it provoked by forcing us to change our daily routines. 

In his book on the daily routines of creative people, Mason Curry informs us that  all creative people seem to depend on daily rituals and routines to remain productive. In the process of citing many examples, he forces us to consider the hidden value in the rituals we employ to keep ourselves going.

 

Daily Rituals - How Artists Work

Edited by Mason Currey

Apr 23, 2013 | ISBN 9780307273604 

 How do we do meaningful creative work while also earning a living?

 Is it better to devote ourselves wholly to a project or to set aside a small portion of each day?   

 When there doesn’t seem to be enough time for all we hope to accomplish, must we give things up (sleep, income, a clean house), or can we learn to condense activities, to do more in less time, to work smarter, not harder?

Are comfort and productivity incompatible, or is the opposite true: Is finding a basic level of daily comfort a prerequisite for sustained productive work?

Whether work/learn from home was a welcomed change or a nightmare, most of us might agree that breaking routines, developed in childhood, was a treacherous experience. Being forced to do so by an enemy that seemed invincible, made it all the more so.

 

Routines simplify our busy schedules and give us structure.  Sometimes the only way to make it through the week, even in "normal" times was to switch on auto-pilot, turn off our brain, and just let routine take over.  In fact, Psychologists tell us that our brains need routines and rituals to remain well.

1. Routines help minimize uncertainty.
   • Our brains don’t like uncertainty. Uncertainty engages the fight-flight-freeze-appease part of our brains (the amygdala) which can stifle clear thinking. Routines, however, give us a greater sense of control. This creates certainty.  Our brain loves certainty and stability.
2. Routines make space for clearer thinking.
   • In the front part of our brain, the pre-frontal cortex, executive functions like planning, abstract thinking, social intuition, and emotional control occur. However, that part of our brain tires easily. The more we use it, the more it tires which can affect our ability to think clearly, make wise decisions, and relate to others well. However, when we create routines and habits, the brain stores those routines in our habit centers (basal ganglia). As a result, routines free up working space in our pre-frontal cortex so that we can think and concentrate better on new tasks and relationships.
3. Routines can reduce the drain on our daily energy.
   • Ego depletion refers to the concept that we all possess a limited pool of mental resources available for self-control and willpower. And it gets used up during the day. If we spend that resource on activities that could be routinized, we waste energy that we otherwise could dedicate to more important tasks and relationships. Routines help conserve our energy for what’s most important.
4. Routines help us focus and maintain attention.
   • The ability to pay attention to what’s important is a key to successful living, leading, and learning. When we are scattered (Where did I leave those keys?) attention gets diluted. Routines, however, can help us direct our attention toward what really matters.
5. Routines help quiet the tyranny of the urgent.  

•  The tyranny of the urgent beckons us to worry about insignificant issues that seem important at the moment. The term rumination describes the mental process of rehearsing something that happened in the past or something that might happen in the future. The tyranny of the urgent breeds such rumination. Routines help us focus on the life’s essentials rather than spending precious time trying to prioritize everything
  

Since there is hidden value in those routines and rituals that we once took for granted, we should not forsake them entirely. An effective Life Coach would assure us that realigning our daily routine doesn’t have to be difficult — there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Just adapt it to our current reality. We can continue to do the things we normally did before the pandemic disrupted our lives. Simple routines like waking up and going to bed at the same time each day are still under our control. The rushed breakfast and hour-long commute to work can now be replaced by a leisurely and healthy breakfast. This can be followed up with a second-cup of our favorite coffee or tea. Since we, no longer need to spend time getting appropriately dressed for work, we might just brush our teeth, wash our face, and change into a comfortable sweat  suit just in time for our AM Zoom conference.

Over time, we will develop routines that help us grow more comfortable working and learning in the comfort of our own homes. In fact, many of the WFH veterans have grown so used to their new routines that they do not want to return to the old ways of working. So if employers find that WFH employees are equally or more productive than those who want to gather in factories and office buildings, they may find ways to accommodate both.