The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 219 - Routine Audit

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: Hello, Jen.

Jen: We have, in the past, recorded an episode on morning routines, we have recorded an episode on evening routines.

Pete: Mmm-hmm.

Jen: And I am currently in a place where my routines are all sorts of crazy, and I thought I might unpack my routine shenanigans with you today.

Pete: I love it...routine shenanigans. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: Those are throwbacks, morning and evening routine episodes.

Jen: Right? The Box O' Goodies is being created right before our very eyes. So, here's the situation. For the last however many years, I really have been completely in control of my own schedule. I work for myself so I get up in the morning, I do my morning routine, I go to work, I come home, I do my evening routine, rinse and repeat. But right now I'm in the middle of a rehearsal process, and it has been a while since I have been adhering to someone else's schedule and someone else's needs in this way.

Pete: Yes.

Jen: And as soon as rehearsal started, I was like, "I have to change my morning routine. What I'm doing is not setting me up for success with the kind of days I'm having right now." And I went through a period of grieving my morning routine that I love so much. But I was coming home at the end of the day exhausted and I needed to do something different, so I had to let it go in favor of something else.

Pete: Yeah, which obviously I'm keen to hear about. But I think you articulated a really important point, which is, it's worth us reconsidering our routines so that we can meet ourselves where we're at. Because someone in their mid-twenties who's single and has no responsibilities has more flexibility and freedom, potentially, to have a certain type of routine, versus someone who's juggling a family or got a new job where they're now responsible to other people and they don't get to work on their routine. So I feel like the macro point you're making is an important one, which is routines are awesome and so is pausing to consider, "Is this still serving me? How is this still serving me? And is there something I need to change and mix up?" I actually think mixing up and experimenting with different things is a great way to freshen up one's routine.

Jen: Yes. And the thing that I realized that helps me give myself permission to change it is, what is the routine for? So, my typical morning routine is for setting myself up to have the kind of energy and stamina and awareness and creativity that I need for the day. But that routine did not work to set me up for what I needed for the kind of days I'm in right now.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: And what's been interesting is there are things in my morning routine that I want to have in my day, the challenge for me has been figuring out where to place those things if they're not going to be in the morning.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah, which I think is another important point. I remember talking about morning routines with a group of awesome changemakers once upon a time, and a couple of them were mums. And they said, "Listen, like the reality of my morning is I don't have time for a routine, because the kids wake me up and then it's like game on." And so we talked about the fact that morning routine is a kind of well-understood concept and catchphrase, but really, if you can make time for them during the afternoon and practice some healthy habits then that some people will do in the morning. that's just as good. It's just some sort of proactive healthy habits kind of time, and if it's in the morning or if it's in the afternoon, that's great too.

Jen: Yeah. I found for myself, you know, when my daughter was under three, a morning routine was kind of a joke. Like, "I'm not going to decide what time I get up. It's whatever time she climbs on my head. Like, come on now." But once she was school-age, the thing that I realized I love is time to myself in the morning. And so, I really have designed my life so that I have time for myself before my family wakes up. So I get up basically an hour before anyone else might even think to open their eyes, so I can do my meditation, have my cup of coffee, read, work out, other things that I like to do in the morning. So, I feel the pain of parents with young children. I've been there. And it is true, you hear someone talk about a morning routine and you're like, "Shut up."

Pete: Yeah, that's exactly the look that I've experienced a few times when I brought it up.

Jen: Yeah. So in moving my morning routine around and changing it in order to be sharper and focused and more prepared for my rehearsals, I've had to go back to this concept that you and I have spoken about a lot which is resource buckets or resource categories, and look at what resources I have and which of these buckets, when depleted, stay empty, and which of these buckets, when depleted, I have the capacity to refill. So like, an example is energy...that part of what my morning routine used to do for me was supply me with the energy for the day.

Pete: Right.

Jen: Strangely, resourcing energy has not been the thing that I've needed these last couple weeks. I get very energized as soon as I walk into the rehearsal room. But what I really needed was focus. Like, I just was missing mental focus, so I had to think about replacing the...not that I don't need energy. I've haven't wiped out the energy bucket. But if that was really part of what I was focusing my previous morning routine on, now I'm like, "How can I get focused? How can I get myself in a state of readiness?" And that feels very different for me.

Pete: Yeah. I like that. I also wonder...you know, you mentioned the mourning process of letting go one's routine. This is very timely for me too, which I can get in to. But have you been surprised at the fact that you can still function? Like, you didn't die when you weren't able to do your morning routine? Have you noticed anything there?

Jen: Is this a statement phrased as a question?

Pete: Yeah, it is a little bit. It is a little bit.

Jen: Yeah. I mean, I'm still mourning. Like, I can't read in the mornings right now. I have to do something that is specifically related to prepping for rehearsals. And I miss reading in the mornings. Like, I can't wait to get that part back.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: Because I do feel like I'm having less of these like, I don't know, I tend to have these big, morning, on my way to work aha/connect the dots moments. That's not where I'm at right now. I'm like blinders on, laser-focused.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: But I think your question was: Am I surprised the world didn't end (or something like that)? ...Yeah. Because I relied on that routine a lot.

Pete: Yeah. I think it was a little slightly loaded question, because something that I've been thinking a lot about is my routines, and morning routines, especially. So we've had some really atrocious flooding in the state of Victoria, but across the whole country of Australia. And so the ocean, where I usually have my morning swim, the bay is so polluted from the floodwater that I haven't had a morning swim for like over two weeks, at the time of recording, because the water is filthy, absolutely filthy. There's like random logs floating around. And anyway, so I've had to let go of the morning swim that I did for I think over two years.

Jen: Mmm.

Pete: And I instead replace it with a morning walk around the block. And one of the things I was laughing to myself about as I was going for the walk was like, "Oh, I can still function without a morning swim." You know? Like, "I can still have a good day without my morning swim." Which actually, for me, was really a healthy reminder. Because sometimes you don't necessarily have time for the swim. Circumstances change, in my case. And you could easily be like, "Oh my god," and like let it ruin your entire day. But I guess the realization of that is like, "Oh yeah, you can still function. Everything's okay. Routines are great. Healthy habits are great. And change can also be good." So I just was like laughing to myself about that. And then, the other thing that's relevant to me at the moment is that Tracey and I are in the process of moving our lives to Brisbane. And so, in thinking about settling in once we've moved, I'm thinking about, "Huh. What does a new routine look like? How might I try something different, in an exciting and energizing way?"

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Because like we said earlier, life circumstances are now changed, so you don't need to try and fit the square peg into the round hole. Maybe that routine that you have in Melbourne doesn't work anymore in Brisbane. So, I'm actually quite energized about the thought of experimenting and trying to find a new routine.

Jen: Yeah. You know, it's been really fascinating. Like, I was talking about moving the different pieces around...I had told myself stories about what I'm capable of at certain hours of the day.

Pete: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yes.

Jen: And like, I learned that that's bullshit.

Pete: I think that's what I was getting at with the like, "I didn't die when I didn't have my morning swim, because I can't facilitate a great workshop until I've had a morning swim." It's like, no, that's not true.

Jen: No, you can.

Pete: You can, yeah.

Jen: Yeah. I have told myself, "I cannot work out unless it is the first thing I do in the morning." Turns out that's not true. "I can't do a crossword puzzle in the evening because I have to think too much." Not true. In fact, I've been enjoying doing my crosswords before bed. Usually, it's something I do in the morning but I've been really enjoying doing it at night.

Pete: Right. Now I feel like we're getting to the crux of the matter, which is, I feel like the stories that we tell ourselves shape the way we think and the things that we do.

Jen: Yep.

Pete: And that is, in the examples that we've shared, where we're realizing, "All those stories that I told myself that I can't do a crossword at that time of day is actually not true." And I think the same can be true with creating new habits, where like, "I couldn't possibly start to be a morning person," is a very common story that you hear people tell themselves. And I just wonder if sometimes it's worth challenging that, of like, "Is that true? Or is this just a story I'm telling myself?" My perception of, at least my own existence, is, most of the things that I think to be true are just stories I'm telling myself, and they're actually not physically, categorically true. They're just things that I've decided based on the stories I've told myself. So, I think it's...like, this feels like an episode where it's a healthy reminder to challenge the stories we tell ourselves.

Jen: Mmm-hmm. Absolutely. Sidebar, what is the fascination or like the desire to be a morning person? I am a morning person. I've always been a morning person. But I've not heard morning people say like, "God, I wish I could stay up later." But I've heard people who stay up really late say, "Gosh, I wish I could be a morning person." I don't know. What is that?

Pete: I wonder if...I guess we're guilty of contributing to this. But I wonder if it's the fascination and the obsession with morning routines that seems to exist in podcast land, in book land, in thought leadership, high-profile individual land, where people are often describing their wonderful morning routines of like, "Oh, I get up with the wind on my face as the sun's rising and meditate with the birds." And it's like, "Oh my god, you all sounds so perfect with your morning routines." And so, I wonder if that story, the societal story that we tell ourselves about morning has like crept into people's stories about themselves.

Jen: Interesting. Hmm. So what's kind of fascinating is, for the last two weeks, I've been in the rehearsal room. And next week, we're going to be moving into the theater, and have a completely different schedule yet again. So you know, I've been doing: Drop Cate at school, spend a little time killing time, go to rehearsal for six hours, go home. Starting next week, it'll be: Drop Cate at school, kill many hours (so I think I'll probably go to my studio and get some work done), and then spend as many as twelve hours in the theater before going home. So I'm going to have to reinvestigate the routine all over again, and figure out how to re-sort the different parts that are really important and meaningful to me. But with a twelve-hour day, there are going to be things that I have to actually say, "This is not going to be part of the routine or part of the day at all for a certain period of time." And that's going to be really interesting. So I haven't gone through that whole process yet of figuring out what my life looks like during, you know, twelve-hour days, but it'll be interesting to figure out what the priorities are and what I really need in order to be able to show up at my best.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah, I want to reverse-engineer this.

Jen: Yeah, please.

Pete: I feel like the questions to consider when we're doing a routine audit, because we, A., recognize that we would like to do a routine audit, or B., our circumstances have changed. In the example that you just described, I feel like there's the question of, "What are my constraints," which is what you just described. "Well, I've got to be here for twelve hours. I've got to drop Cate. So like, what are my constraints? Let me acknowledge those." And then, "What do I need," I think is the other question you kind of alluded to. So, "Do I need to fill my cup? Do I need to move my body? Do I need to consume a certain amount of book? Like, what do I need?" And then, I guess the third question is, "What's the most effective way to get there?"

Jen: Mmm.

Pete: You know?

Jen: Mmm-hmm.

Pete: So it's like, "What are my given constraints? What do I feel like I need on any given day? And then, how might I get there? What's the most effective way to get there, recognizing my constraints and what I need?" And to your point, you know, is there like a minimum viable way of getting there? Because you're probably going to have to let some things go.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Maybe the twenty-minute meditation needs to be a ten-minute meditation. Maybe the reading a book needs to be reading one page of the book. You know? Like, what are the ways that we can try to still get what we need, but in an effective and time-conscious way based on the constraints we're living in? Does that make sense?

Jen: Oh, yeah. Even just hearing you unpack those questions, I already have started answering them for myself. And I'm already realizing...you know, I love task stacking. So I have to get from my office to the theater and I'd like to be able to move my body, so I'm going to ride my bike.

Pete: Right.

Jen: That's what I'm going to do.

Pete: Here we go.

Jen: I'm going to ride the bike...two birds with one stone.

Pete: As someone who likes to brush his teeth in the shower, I could definitely get down with a little stacking of routines and habits.

Jen: You brush your teeth in the shower, eh?

Pete: Always, yeah.

Jen: Huh.

Pete: Two birds, one stone.

Jen: Do you do deep thinking in the shower? Is that something you do?

Pete: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Tracey laughs because she thinks I have these like twenty-minute long showers, and she's like, "What are you doing in there? Just staring into the distance?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I do thinking. I think. I think in the shower."

Jen: Yeah, that's my task stack in the shower too, deep thinking. My daughter's is sing Taylor Swift songs.

Pete: Ah, that's amazing. Okay, so I feel...I mean, like I said, this is timely. I feel inspired to do a bit of a routine audit. And I think what I'm going to do with thinking about my routines when I move to Brisbane is consider the questions: What are the constraints? What do I need? And what's the most effective way for me to get there?

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.