Essentialism (XXVIII): Execute: Flow

 "Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition." - W.H Auden

Greg McKeown starts this chapter with a story of Michael Phelps, the multiple gold-winning medalist in Olympic swimming. He goes through a series of activities - a routine - that he applied not just on race day, but every day of training.  Leg placement, stretches, how he mounted the block - the same.  Along with this physical routine, his coach  Bob Bowman gave him a mental routine - "The Videotape" - which was visualizing swimming the perfect race.  In slow motion, with every detail, every morning and every evening.  

His routine had become his habit, so when he raced, he was not acting in any different way than he had envisioned acting a thousand times before.  The habit had taken over; he was just executing a program.

The Nonessentialist, suggest McKeown, only thinks of the essentials when they are forced to do something about them using raw effort and labor and a push. The Essentialist, on the other hand, "...designs a routine that makes achieving what you have identified as essential the default position." There may be labor involved, but it is effort in the right places through the right routine.

"Routine", he says, "is one of the most powerful tools for removing obstacles."  Enshrine the essentials in a routine and after that initial burst of energy, there is nothing left to do except follow the routine which drives the essentials.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (The author of Flow) states that "Most creative individuals find out early what their best rhythms are for sleeping, eating, and working, and abide by them even when it is tempting to do otherwise. They wear clothes that are comfortable, they interact only with people they find congenial, they only do things they think are important.  Of course such idiosyncrasies are not endearing to those they have deal with...But personalizing patterns of action helps to free the mind from the expectations that make demands on attention and allows intense concentration on matters that count."

40% of our choices, suggests a Duke University study, are unconscious - which means that we develop routines that we execute without thinking. Reprogramming is possible, but unless we consciously choice our internal programming, we run the risk of doing routines that are not helpful to our essentials.  How do we get there?

Overhaul Your Triggers:    McKeown borrows heavily here from Charles Duhigg and his book The Power of Habit (an excellent read). In short, Duhigg notes that each habit we have is made up of a cue, a routine, and a reward.  The cue triggers the brain to go into automatic mode, which then engages the routine, which then delivers the reward - which reminds your brain why this habit (and not another one) is worth remembering.  Changing our routine, then, is not so much changing our habits as it is changing our cue from triggering a non-essential activity to an essential ones

Create New Triggers:  McKeown uses himself here as an example.  Wanting to journal, he failed miserably on a regular basis - until he tried putting his journal in his bag right next to his phone, such that when he pulled his phone from his bag to charge it every night, the journal was right there, cuing him to write in it.  Once the habit was established, he trained himself to write in the journal as soon as he saw it.

Do the Most Difficult Thing First: McKeown looks at Ray Zinn, the (then) CEO of Micrel who at the time of writing was 78 years old and had been CEO of the company for 35 years.  The company's stock never dropped below its IPO value during that time except for one year.  He credits his success with an iron routine (rising at 0530 every day, exercising for an hour, eating breakfast at 0730 and arriving at work at 0815, having dinner with his family at 1830, and then going to bed at 2000).  At the time of writing, he had done this for 50 years.

On top of all of this, he credits the fact that his highest contribution is governed by a single rule:  "Focus on  doing the hardest thing first".  "After all", Zinn says, "we already have too much to think about.  Why not eliminate some of them by establishing a routine?"

McKeown suggests the same: Find your cue, do the hardest thing first thing in the morning, and see how the day goes from there.

(The motivational speaker Brian Tracy had a similar concept:  Eat the frog.  As, of course, if one ate a frog the first thing in the morning, everything else would be easy.)

Mix Up Your Routines:  Routine can become, well, routine.  Thus, suggests McKeown, it is okay to mix up your routine for different days of the week.  This allows the mind to spend time on different areas, thus allowing some variety and avoiding "routine fatigue".

Tackle Your Routines One by One:  Try to implement multiple routines or multiple changes to multiple routines, and you are likely to fail.  Instead, McKeown suggests starting with one routine and one change.  Embed that, then move from there.

The changing of routines, especially Nonessential ones, can be hard, says McKeown.  We have invested considerable emotional energy to develop them. But once we can master our routines, make them essential rather than non-essential - then, says McKeown, we have won a great victory.  Because once something is routine, it becomes "the gift that keeps on giving".

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Application:

I am a creature of the morning routine.

For years now, I have risen at 0500. I read the Bible, pray, read a few pages in a theological book or philosophical book, and journal.  I then study language for approximately 30 minutes, then change and do calisthenics, then walk.  I return home, shower, make breakfast, and catch up on blogs and comments and start writing (or completely write) a post.  I brush my teeth, grab my lunch, and am usually out the door by 0730-0735.

My evenings are less routine, but by the time I go to bed my lunch is made, my breakfast laid out, my clothes picked out, and my exercise clothes ready.

The morning routine varies a bit on the weekends - maybe a little less language or more focused language, less or more of a walk, definitely more coffee. But they are largely the same.  But the evening routine always happens.

I cannot say this is a perfect set up, but I do seem to make time to at least do every one of those things in the morning - and am enabled to do more in the morning because I have prepared in the evening.

My struggle is applying that same logic and practice to my evenings.  But I am working on it.