The Art of Manliness - Routines Are Overrated

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast you struggle

00:00:11.300 with being productive so you decide you need to establish a routine for yourself you get real

00:00:15.740 gung-ho about this routine this is going to be the thing that changes everything but then you

00:00:20.820 fail to stick to it so you flagellate yourself for that failure decide what you need is a different

00:00:25.060 routine but then you don't stick to that routine either the cycle then repeats itself leaving you

00:00:29.140 no more productive than you were at the start my guest madeline door found herself stuck in the

00:00:33.720 cycle so she decided to start interviewing successful creative types to get their secrets

00:00:37.740 to an optimal routine yet these folks would confide to her a different secret they actually

00:00:42.420 didn't have a routine either madeline's come to believe something that i've discovered too

00:00:45.900 routines aren't all they're cracked up to be and you can actually still be very creative

00:00:49.900 and productive even if you go about each day in a looser more ad hoc fashion today on the show i

00:00:55.000 talked to madeline who's the author of i didn't do the thing today letting go productivity guilt but

00:00:59.460 how the all or nothing thinking which surrounds routines can actually sabotage our effectiveness

00:01:03.360 we then discuss alternatives to keeping a strict routine that still allow you to get stuff done

00:01:07.520 including moving to a portable routine taking advantage of splodge time and embracing cycles and

00:01:12.680 seasons in your work we also discuss other ways to let go of unuseful productivity guilt

00:01:16.640 including setting realistic expectations and not eating the frog first after show's over check out our show

00:01:22.420 notes at aom.is slash door that's d-o-r-e

00:01:25.660 all right madeline door welcome to the show thanks so much for having me brett so you have a book called

00:01:43.920 i didn't do the thing today letting go of productivity guilt what's interesting though is that this the genesis

00:01:49.760 of this book about letting go of productivity guilt was you trying to be more productive by

00:01:55.220 interviewing creative people entrepreneurs to figure out like how are they managing their their

00:02:00.580 routines and what can you take from those so i'm curious how did that start like this you have a

00:02:04.700 podcast where you you explore routines of famous people how did that happen well i think like many

00:02:09.760 people i wasn't quite sure that i was getting it right in my own day there's this quote by annie

00:02:17.080 dillard that says how we spend our days is how we spend our lives and coming across that quote was

00:02:23.340 really inspiring but at the same time there was this pressure i felt to get my day right and then

00:02:29.000 therefore get my life right but there i was trying different productivity hacks trying on different

00:02:35.040 routines and i still felt like i was either falling short of other people in comparison or falling

00:02:41.660 behind my own idea of where i should be and so i turned to interviewing other people to try and find

00:02:49.280 the secret to how they approach productivity and getting things done and very quickly i found that

00:02:56.600 there there wasn't a secret because these people that i admired and had on a pedestal also felt like

00:03:02.620 they were falling short or weren't getting it right or not doing enough or weren't sure how to

00:03:07.760 do nothing or embrace those moments of downtime and so and so the interesting thing was that it it

00:03:14.220 really changed my question instead of about how do we get more things done it was more about why is it

00:03:22.040 that this obsession with being more productive is actually making us less productive because it's

00:03:26.800 making us feel either guilty or behind or like we're never enough well i mean what's your story with

00:03:33.220 you kind of alluded to that a bit but i'd love to hear more about your story with routines because i think

00:03:37.620 it's interesting in the book you describe your history of trying to find the perfect routine and

00:03:42.480 it mirrored mine i'm sure it mirrors a lot of other people so like what what has been your routine over

00:03:47.320 the years and when did you finally figure out like okay i need to stop stop with this well i think the

00:03:53.980 the beginning iterations of my routine were very much it was a lack of a routine i felt like i wasn't

00:04:01.460 someone who was able to stick to an early morning schedule no matter how many times i set you know a

00:04:07.140 5am alarm thinking that i could join the 5am club i would very quickly hit snooze and then find myself

00:04:13.760 even more tired because i would press snooze again and again and again rather than allowing my body to

00:04:19.140 just wake up when it needed to wake up after the amount of rest that it needed so it's it's always

00:04:24.380 been very higgledy-piggledy i would say there wasn't ever kind of a consistency to my routine so

00:04:31.220 something that i did every day i really struggled with this idea of sticking to say a daily writing

00:04:36.120 habit or say going to the gym every single day at the same time as much as i wanted to like i would

00:04:42.160 draft these elaborate routines for myself where i would wake up at 5am i i would meditate for 20

00:04:48.780 minutes i would do my morning pages and my journaling i would stretch i would go for a run i'd have a

00:04:53.120 really nutritious breakfast but then when the day came and i slept through that alarm the whole thing

00:05:00.040 would topple over and i found it really difficult to just pick up the next thing or go with the flow

00:05:05.780 of the day instead i would berate myself for the fact that it's sort of all toppled over and so

00:05:12.020 what i did is kind of i suppose look to other people for the answer i was really looking for an

00:05:18.400 instruction manual and i think that that's quite a common thing because you know we don't get one

00:05:23.580 in life and so it's so easy to sort of just i think that's why we gravitate to these listicles

00:05:28.920 and these articles and these interviews because we think that maybe someone else has the answer

00:05:34.840 and it's easier if someone else tells us what to do but actually i think we need to figure out for

00:05:39.800 ourselves and we can be inspired by other people and then we can try things on but eventually we need

00:05:46.680 to sort of find the thing that works for us and what i found after speaking to people about their

00:05:51.640 routine more and more people would kind of whisper to me but i don't actually have a routine i'm not

00:05:57.040 sure what you're going to get from this interview with me and then i could really relate to that and

00:06:01.100 i could see that there were other people who were also higgledy-piggledy and who had sort of more of

00:06:07.580 an approach their day that was an ebb and flow or it was cyclical it wasn't linear and that really

00:06:13.900 helped me i guess come full circle and instead of changing who i am i've accepted that i'm higgledy-piggledy

00:06:19.860 and funnily enough that allows you to pick up the things when you need them and i i have gravitated

00:06:25.660 to sort of a version of a more consistent say exercise habit or meditation habit because there's

00:06:32.240 less pressure yeah i look back at my journals and i feel like when i was in my early 20s i was really

00:06:38.860 keen on trying to find the perfect routine which makes sense because you're young and you're ambitious

00:06:43.200 and you feel like you got to get all this stuff done and looking back at my journals i can see

00:06:47.480 various iterations of like my perfect routine like every few months i'd be like okay i'm gonna wake

00:06:52.960 up at this time and then after immediately after that i'm gonna do like journaling and then i'm

00:06:56.580 gonna exercise and then i'm gonna do this and then you know six months later obviously it didn't work

00:07:01.800 out because i was trying it again all right we're gonna do it this way this way and i i think like

00:07:06.420 you said one of the things you found when you're trying to find this perfect routine and stick to it

00:07:11.020 is that as soon as you tried as soon as something went off on it right let's say if you didn't wake

00:07:16.260 up at the right time then the whole like i don't know for some reason the whole day just feel like

00:07:21.060 felt like it was ruined like what's going on there like why is it whenever you try to live up to a

00:07:26.580 perfect routine and just one thing gets thrown out of whack it just ruins your entire day

00:07:33.460 i think that's the crux of it is that there's nothing wrong with a routine and they work for

00:07:39.040 some people but it's that emphasis on perfection or this idea that we're creating these ideal or

00:07:46.080 aspirational routines for ourselves and when we do that we we create something that's forever going

00:07:52.960 to be just outside our reach and in some ways by doing that it's the perfect kind of distraction

00:07:59.740 from getting on with it in some many in some ways in terms of oh well if i'm if i'm never going to

00:08:05.060 kind of live up to this perfect routine then i have this perfect excuse that it's that that

00:08:12.200 interesting tension of if we never quite master our routine then we can continue to delay our lives

00:08:19.140 and the things that we wish to to do in them because you know we're never going to reach perfection

00:08:23.920 like even the meaning of the word it means complete and our lives our to-do lists

00:08:29.320 are never complete and so if we accept this incompleteness this imperfection this messiness

00:08:36.960 in our lives the inevitable distractions and interruptions and plans that go awry then we

00:08:43.400 can be more flexible and malleable to the moment and instead of letting the whole plan for the day

00:08:49.960 topple over we can just pick up a piece and move with it and go with it and and and move on with it

00:08:56.440 there's this wonderful quote by the self-help author arnold bennett who wrote that the beauty

00:09:02.880 of time is that it cannot be wasted in advance and i think that's wonderful to think about is because

00:09:08.000 if we've wasted the morning or if you know we didn't wake up early we don't have to kind of

00:09:13.440 sabotage the whole day we we don't actually waste the the whole day because of that tiny little error

00:09:18.960 we can turn over a new leaf as he as he puts it so we can begin again each hour if we choose to

00:09:26.260 i think you're right about that one of the things that i found when i was trying to

00:09:30.580 pick you know stick to a perfect routine is that it did give me an excuse for why my day was crappy

00:09:36.180 as well it's because i didn't get my meditation in because the kid i had to like change a diaper

00:09:42.300 that's why my day is bad and it's like that's that's a dumb that's a dumb excuse yeah i think

00:09:48.540 it's also you know we're diminishing the beautiful variances of life when we do that as well like

00:09:54.020 why are we putting routine on a pedestal anyway because in some instances it's monotonous it's

00:09:59.980 if we had this perfect routine it would be like a groundhog day and it's actually you know inviting

00:10:06.600 life surprises that we kind of want we want those tensions and we want those you know moments of

00:10:13.340 novelty in our day like obviously novelty day after day would be exhausting too but it's this

00:10:17.680 you know lovely push and pull i think of of kind of gravitating to routine when we need it and it's

00:10:23.300 a support and it's a scaffolding but not being completely entangled by that and so closed off that

00:10:29.080 we don't let life in a little bit you know yeah and so okay one downside of the of the routine is

00:10:34.480 that it's striving for perfection it can give you an excuse for your day going off kilter because if

00:10:40.800 you give one thing off on it it's going to make you feel terrible but then you also talk another

00:10:44.880 downside of routines that it is that it can lead to ruts how have you seen that in your own life or

00:10:49.140 maybe in the lives of people you've interviewed i think it's a really interesting connection between

00:10:56.240 routine and a rut because by definition they almost appear the same they're both a pattern they're both

00:11:02.740 kind of a habitual repeated action well one is you know glorified you know having the perfect routine

00:11:11.120 is is seen as a badge of honor but if you're stuck in a rut then that's something to get over get out

00:11:18.680 of move out of and yet they're sort of part they're connected so a routine i think and what i observed is

00:11:26.340 that if we do stick to it for a while it it does become monotonous monotonous as i said and and like

00:11:32.400 a groundhog day and then you can find yourself in a rut with that very routine so the things that were

00:11:38.720 a support to you become kind of rigid and you find yourself maybe uninspired or feeling stuck

00:11:45.620 and so when you find yourself in that rut sometimes it's a nudge is the very thing that we need

00:11:52.780 to alert us to that rut and a nudge can come in many different forms so a nudge could actually be

00:11:59.060 a heartbreak or a grief or maybe it's even something that's seen as positive like the birth

00:12:05.240 of a child it's something that that nudges you out of your pattern or way of being and and shows you

00:12:13.820 that maybe it's time to do things differently or it shows you that you are actually stuck in a rut

00:12:20.320 and your routine has become one and so i think that it's actually a cycle so instead of you know

00:12:27.440 placing judgment on one and idolizing another if we see it as part of this cycle of a routine a rut

00:12:34.120 and nudge and then finding a new rhythm i think that it just helps us be a little bit more

00:12:39.540 i guess gentler with ourselves in the different phases that we might take and funnily enough i think

00:12:46.660 that the other connection is that when we're in a rut often it's turning to a new routine

00:12:51.460 that can be the thing that pulls us out of one so often i think that i did this really big research

00:12:57.540 project on heartbreak and what helped people and interestingly enough it was having routine and

00:13:01.820 sticking to to sort of like a exercise schedule for example again was the very thing that helped

00:13:07.760 them steady that grief and was that scaffolding to get them through so i think that yeah there's an

00:13:13.300 interesting cycle there that we don't really we just put it sort of emphasize one and put value

00:13:17.860 on one when i think there's value to all the different parts of these things i think that's

00:13:21.680 an interesting insight so if you feel like you're in a rut it could be because you had this routine that

00:13:26.800 served you at one point in your life earlier it no longer serves you so what you need to do is find a

00:13:33.700 new routine yeah potentially or or i think it's just an alert to to change something like something is no

00:13:40.440 longer serving you something's become tired or something has you know i think sometimes we don't

00:13:46.200 even realize that we have outgrown parts of ourselves and i think that's why it's what i've

00:13:52.380 learned from different people about moving through these ruts is first of all having this patience

00:13:56.700 for them because i think that if we try to move out like if you think about a wheel stuck in the rut

00:14:02.160 if we just kind of put our pedal on it it's going to become further wedged so we do need to have

00:14:07.620 some patience with it first and foremost and recognize the value of that rut like what is it

00:14:12.740 teaching you about your life i think that sometimes it's those very tensions and those very kind of

00:14:18.440 sticking points in our life that are the biggest lessons and so we don't kind of want to smooth them

00:14:23.100 over and have this perfectly optimized self like we want to have these little bumps in the road they're

00:14:30.560 the very thing that i think we grow from and then i think this this lesson of to sort of move from

00:14:37.200 the rut um there was this great idea of just kind of making sure that our lives aren't just bundled up

00:14:41.980 into one component so like if we invest so much of our well-being in just our work for example or one

00:14:49.060 goal when we accomplish that one goal we can find ourselves feeling really flat or our days can be

00:14:54.960 you know lacking that kind of vibrancy and so if we put also value in spending time with family

00:15:01.740 or our health or even just that you know tinkering away with that pottery class i think it just helps

00:15:07.900 when one thing might be stuck to have some other wheels in motion so one thing i've i've seen in my

00:15:14.700 own life and just the lives of others some people love routines like they you know they'll have a routine

00:15:19.500 and they'll just stick to it uh religiously i think most people find them annoying and can be

00:15:25.580 demoralizing but stuff still needs to get done right like you still got to pay the bills you got

00:15:30.360 to take kids to school you got to work stuff around the house needs to get done so any best routine

00:15:37.380 alternatives that help provide you know some structure to help you get the stuff you need to

00:15:42.380 get done done but without the you know being as strict as routine yes yes because i think that's

00:15:49.280 a fine balance is because having a complete ad hoc day can also be so anxiety inducing you know not

00:15:58.700 having a schedule at all can you know be have it bring up its own kind of issues and so i think that

00:16:05.120 fine balance between embracing that you might be more higgledy-piggledy and also getting the things

00:16:11.020 that need to get done one approach to that i think my favorite is actually from the artist and author

00:16:17.660 austin cleon and so he has this portable routine that he spoke to me about and it's basically a

00:16:24.720 checklist so he's created four things that if he does those four things each day it's a good day and

00:16:32.020 so it was going for a walk writing journaling and reading and those things don't have to happen in a

00:16:38.840 particular order they might not happen every day but when they do it's a marker of a day well spent

00:16:45.120 and what i really like about that is that it has some inbuilt flexibility it's also achievable in

00:16:54.040 that maybe that's not every single day that that happens but we can kind of i guess shoot for it

00:16:59.540 and then also it can it can have some momentum within that and so with the writing for example

00:17:05.500 that writing is then in austin cleon's instance put into a newsletter that newsletter he starts to

00:17:12.360 develop themes and that might go into a talk and those talks then potentially become books and so

00:17:17.840 you can see the compounding momentum of that of just doing small little things each day and also

00:17:23.220 rethinking your approach to consistency because maybe it's not every day but consistency is kind of

00:17:30.280 when you look back and you can kind of see how much you've accomplished rather than it being every

00:17:35.100 single day that's kind of it's interesting because when i read that i was like this is what i fell on

00:17:39.320 this is like that's what austin does i have like a checklist of things i need to get done

00:17:43.460 every day it doesn't matter when i do them as long as i get them done during the day then i'm good and

00:17:49.680 so i've done that and the other thing that's helped me too is i've changed my expectation about what it

00:17:54.160 means to do it like i don't go for perfect you know if i like i like to work out every day well

00:18:01.120 sometimes i can't get my perfect workout in so i'll just like okay i'll do what i can it's even if it's

00:18:07.440 just 15 minutes of taking a walk around the block while i got some physical activity in i'm okay with

00:18:12.540 that and it by sort of having the flexible checklist and then changing my expectations of what it means

00:18:18.640 to do the thing i'm i found myself being more consistent and that consistency i think is that's

00:18:24.920 more important than being perfect yeah i love that approach brett because it's kind of lowering the bar a

00:18:33.080 little bit so that everything can become a bonus rather than the things not completed as a failure

00:18:39.300 i think that's a really nice flip that you've created okay so i think okay the takeaway there

00:18:43.860 if you don't want to do the perfect routine at least have a checklist of things you'd like to get done

00:18:47.940 in the day and i think the other thing the key there is don't be over ambitious with your checklist

00:18:54.380 like i think maybe keep it to four or five things yes yes because then we circle back to that idea of

00:19:01.140 you know that secret sabotage that we might create by um never quite getting there so we can delay our

00:19:07.020 lives we're gonna take a quick break for a word from our sponsors and now back to the show so another

00:19:14.860 thing you talk about is in our rush to be productive we have this feeling that we have to maximize our time

00:19:21.460 to the utmost like we have to optimize everyone's trying to optimize everything but you argue that a

00:19:26.640 healthier way to view time is as splodge time and i had to work i had to look up the word splodge

00:19:33.880 because this is a british word and it means splotch or blot so what do you mean by splodge time

00:19:41.540 well i think that we we view time as rather rigid it's linear it's it's perfect clock time you know the

00:19:51.300 minutes ticked by an hour 24 hours in a day but when we try to pin our schedules to this

00:19:59.220 clock time and this linear version of time it can really go awry because you know that moment can

00:20:08.500 arrive and something else might cause an interruption priorities in that moment can shift and if we have

00:20:17.240 that inflexibility then again you know we can sort of berate ourselves for not maximizing that moment

00:20:23.880 and so we try to grasp time and we try to sort of optimize it but it's imperfect and so it's more like

00:20:32.680 a splodge and a puddle that kind of spills in all these different directions and so it's not something

00:20:38.860 that we can actually just grasp and pin our plans to instead it's sort of more movable and i think that

00:20:46.360 seeing time is more like a splodge has helped me see that we don't actually wait for the perfect

00:20:53.820 time so i think there can be this trap of you know when i have more time i will be able to do this and

00:20:58.540 then you know the the time arrives and we we find ourselves again with a shortage of time or we might

00:21:04.260 wait until the perfect time even you know i've got this habit of if something's coming up in the

00:21:10.160 afternoon then i feel like i can't do anything in the morning because i'm thinking about that thing that

00:21:14.280 has to happen in the afternoon and so we can be quite rigid with it but time is a splodge means

00:21:19.920 that we can kind of seize the little imperfect parts of it something that really crystallized this

00:21:24.460 for me was speaking to the artist becky orpin and she is very prolific and often asked how she gets it

00:21:30.740 all done and so i put that question to her and she said that she just uses the moments that are in

00:21:35.640 front of her if she has 20 minutes spare then she'll work with that 20 minutes instead of waiting for

00:21:41.640 a perfect hour or perfect afternoon to get the thing done and so i think that's a great example

00:21:46.640 of you know you've got this little puddle or splodge of time in front of you and you use that

00:21:51.600 rather than waiting for you know the the time that you allocated in the calendar no i love that idea

00:21:57.520 and it's interesting you highlight some of these in your book but when you look back at some of

00:22:02.320 history's great scientists or creative types the idea of being like let's take writing for example the

00:22:08.360 idea of being a full-time writer it's a relatively new thing right before like in the 19th century

00:22:14.220 you had to have a day job to support yourself and so these guys some of these writers and poets

00:22:19.060 they would just you know they'd have they work at a bank and then they would find time to write a bit

00:22:24.280 of poetry every day on the way to work in the carriage and that's how they got their stuff and

00:22:28.940 they i mean they were able to compose great stuff in these little just bits of time they found

00:22:33.780 yeah exactly i think that you know learning to see the it's the toolbox fallacy i suppose where

00:22:41.420 you know we we wait to get the perfect gear or the perfect desk space or the perfect time

00:22:46.480 or the perfect environment or the perfect focus and flow but actually it's just stealing those

00:22:52.440 little splodges that can make the big difference like even just writing on your phone i think is is

00:22:58.520 it's it's the little bit by bit that it adds up it's not these you know grand kind of routines

00:23:04.680 sometimes that lead to it i think that that can be a luxury you know having the whole morning to

00:23:10.200 focus on your novel or poetry or what have you you know we we say all the time that you know

00:23:14.480 everyone's got the same 24 hours in the day but they unfold differently for everybody depending

00:23:18.960 on so many things like your responsibilities whether you're dividing yourself across you know

00:23:23.080 multiple day jobs to make ends meet even whether you you know have to go to a laundry to do your

00:23:27.940 laundry takes more time than if you can just pop it on at home and so i think that recognizing that

00:23:33.380 the hours unfold so differently for everyone and we have different sort of splodges available to us

00:23:39.420 i think helps us see that you know the little bits count but also if it's taking longer for you then

00:23:45.720 you're not entirely to blame for that either okay so take advantage of the splodge time don't think

00:23:51.380 of time as just this linear thing um another thing you write about too i think a lot of people

00:23:55.500 this whole idea of optimizing time is when they don't optimize it like oh i'm wasting time like

00:24:01.560 oh i can't believe i just that the past two hours i didn't do anything there any mental shifts that

00:24:06.760 you've come across that help you feel less bad about wasting time well i think again that's where i'd

00:24:12.760 really return to this idea of turning over a new leaf i think that can really help ease the the guilt of

00:24:19.840 of taking into the new hour if that productivity guilt or that time wasting worry that you might

00:24:25.540 have there's a great ralph welder emerson quote which is finish the day and be done with it you

00:24:31.760 know whatever kind of blunders we might have made today we don't need to take them into tomorrow

00:24:36.440 so i think that can be one shift but also i think just overall we need to rethink this idea of wasting

00:24:43.080 time anyway like what what do we even mean by that often i think that when we're talking about

00:24:47.940 wasting time we might not be doing something that's tangible or um you know a show of our

00:24:54.080 productivity and that's why in the book i really call for this shift away from measuring our days

00:24:59.480 by how productive we are to instead taking a more creative view of our day and what i mean by that is

00:25:06.240 that we don't all have to become artists but actually just tap into our innate human creativity

00:25:10.760 and we can do that in a tangible way i think by applying the creative process to our day

00:25:16.960 and if we look at sort of some people have documented the creative process and there's distinct stages so

00:25:24.620 there's the preparation stage which is really where you're researching and you're gathering information

00:25:28.680 then there's the incubation stage where you're you know letting ideas mull over and it might look like

00:25:34.420 you're doing nothing it might look like you're wasting time but it's the thing that leads to the

00:25:39.060 illumination stage which is really that aha epiphany moment and that's when you can move on to the

00:25:44.820 verification stage which is the doing and so i think the big lesson there and applying that lens to our

00:25:50.380 lives is that we see that wasting time could actually just be the incubation it's the thinking and

00:25:56.620 we've really i think devalued thinking when we put so much emphasis on accomplishment and productivity

00:26:04.860 thinking is the very thing that i think if we skip over it it can lead to mistakes it can lead to

00:26:11.860 inefficiencies interestingly it can lead to being sort of less productive than if we gave it space and so

00:26:17.860 i think that not to say that you know i'm a big advocate for wasting time for this reason and for

00:26:23.420 doing nothing and not just so that we can be more productive but just because you know it teaches us how

00:26:28.880 to just be and be a human being and you know there's that beautiful quote about wasting time

00:26:35.460 enjoyed wasted isn't wasted time there's even just something as simple as having a nice relaxing moment

00:26:42.200 or you know having time to think like i don't know i think that we can invite more of that into our lives

00:26:48.220 yeah i totally agree with that and i think the trick there though is to i think people might hear this

00:26:53.960 like well okay i'm just gonna watch netflix all the time uh i'm i'm incubating and i don't think

00:26:58.720 that's not what you're advocating because i think i think is if you're if you find yourself you're

00:27:03.020 doing something and you're not it's not allowing you to flourish then it's probably a problem like

00:27:07.400 so if you're just constantly playing video games or scrolling social media and it's not resulting in

00:27:13.100 anything productive i'm not even productive but a creative or like then it might be you might want to

00:27:18.500 rethink that like well maybe i should eliminate that for my life yeah i think it's a very nuanced thing

00:27:23.840 i suppose like what is um not serving us in that way because i think that even these even these so

00:27:31.760 called i don't know lazy activities can be nourishing sure in some instances but i think that the lesson

00:27:38.220 there is that even if even if you're say berating yourself for for doing nothing either because you

00:27:45.500 really are being lazy or you're being complacent i think is maybe a better word for it or you're doing

00:27:52.780 nothing because you're exhausted and you need that moment of downtime or you're doing nothing

00:27:56.820 because you're thinking whatever iteration of that i think that applying a layer of guilt or worry or

00:28:02.980 anxiety or shame on top of that isn't going to make it any easier to move through it so i think that the

00:28:08.860 first thing to do is to really recognize that maybe you're in a spiral of feeling guilty for not doing

00:28:16.200 anything and then once you can recognize it you can sort of step outside of it and see what the

00:28:21.360 circumstances are and see whether it is exhaustion or complacency and then you can actually inspect the

00:28:27.260 stories that you might be telling yourself around you know needing to be perfect needing to be

00:28:31.440 constantly doing things needing to be busy to prove your worth and then once you know those stories you

00:28:36.980 can kind of come up with alternatives that might work for you a little bit better related to this idea

00:28:41.320 of wasting time and trying to like find what you're making the distinction between it okay is this

00:28:44.860 relaxation and nourishing me or is this me being complacent is this idea of balance i think a lot

00:28:51.380 of the productivity stuff out there's all you got to find balance in your life work-life balance and

00:28:56.540 whatnot you argue that balance is overrated uh why is that yeah i think that it's so funny that it

00:29:04.500 really is seen as this the the holy grail of you know if you can achieve balance then you know

00:29:09.320 you've got it or like it's a balance is what everyone will say and looking at balance though

00:29:14.520 it's kind of an interesting thing to strive for because what is it if something's balanced then

00:29:19.760 it's quite stagnant it's still and we need those moments of stillness of course but i think that life

00:29:25.920 is about movement and so why are we aspiring to be stagnant and still when actually it's about

00:29:32.440 balancing rather than balance and i think that you know we can get really stuck in this idea of

00:29:38.780 of balance or consistency in ourselves but actually you know what makes us interesting to

00:29:44.960 ourselves and others is this idea that we're inconsistent and we're contradictory you know

00:29:49.480 the whole walt whitman i'm large i contain multitudes like embracing that part of ourselves that

00:29:54.420 we won't be perfectly balanced we will be inconsistent and we'll contradict ourselves and i think that that's

00:30:00.080 what's interesting about you know what i learned in my my pursuit of trying to find the secret from

00:30:07.020 somebody else is that they can't really provide that for me because they too are inconsistent

00:30:11.880 and so is i guess you know even every self-help author you know we're going to contradict ourselves

00:30:17.900 and so i think that what shifted for me is seeing that balance is it's temporary and it is this act of

00:30:24.720 balancing rather than perfect balance and you know that when we recognize that we can sort of see that

00:30:30.960 we might be in these distinct stages that change and something that really helped me if we go back

00:30:36.440 to this idea of you know worrying about doing nothing is that you know we can actually view

00:30:42.040 ourselves more like sponges and that is that like a sponge you know we need time to absorb things the

00:30:49.720 world around us we need to fill up have that sort of thinking time take in the inspiration simply just

00:30:55.940 rest but the thing is that we can't sort of sit and absorb for too long because that's when we become

00:31:01.780 oversaturated or we can succumb to that complacency or inertia and so just like a sponge we need that

00:31:09.420 squeeze that that action the doing that the outpouring of the ideas and both of those stages

00:31:16.120 have value you know each informs the other you need to absorb something to then squeeze it and it's kind

00:31:21.020 of i suppose like breathing in to breathe out like we need both and so once i sort of saw this frame i

00:31:28.200 saw that it's not balanced it's it's it's taking in and taking out and we're constantly in flux

00:31:32.800 and i suppose it can be helpful to know where you are you know if you're if you're in a really busy

00:31:38.460 period of your life maybe you can be like okay well i'm in the squeeze and i know that the absorb can

00:31:44.320 come or you know sometimes you might need to say i think i think i'm ready for the squeeze i think i need to

00:31:50.360 be busier i think that everything if we take the judgment away from it we can find more i guess

00:31:57.440 value in it in terms of even busyness has a purpose too you know sometimes we do need that

00:32:03.340 squeeze um and we can thrive off that too yeah one thing that's helped me sort of a paradigm that i've

00:32:10.680 tried to view my life through more is i try to look at my life as like a farmer right there's seasons

00:32:16.380 to life right so there's going to be a winter season where you're not really doing anything

00:32:21.200 and then spring you're going to be starting to things are blooming you might start planning

00:32:26.020 preparing the ground summer you're planning fall it's going to be really busy you're going to be

00:32:30.700 harvesting and working and then uh winter it goes back to that dead cycle and i think you can look at

00:32:35.920 your own life and find those different seasonalities there's going to be periods of your life where you're

00:32:40.680 going to have to be just working all the time that's the harvest season but just know that it's going to end

00:32:44.740 eventually and then you can take time to relax and recharge and get your life in order again

00:32:50.140 exactly yeah and so just just knowing that it is that constant change and i think that that's why

00:32:56.040 potentially routine doesn't really fit in that equation it fits in parts of it or it will change

00:33:01.240 and just allowing for that ebb and flow in our lives i think that yeah nature's the perfect metaphor

00:33:06.540 because nothing blooms all year long yeah and there's a going back to emerson and this idea of

00:33:13.820 i think being patient because going back to the rut thing sometimes you feel like i'm in a rut what's

00:33:18.180 going on emerson talked about this a lot he'd have periods of writer's block and you know his initial

00:33:24.360 response was trying to power through it i'm gonna i'm gonna just punch through this writer's block

00:33:28.520 but then he um started to approach his life as looking at it through nature a lens of nature

00:33:36.020 so he would say he would adopt the pace of nature whose secret is patience so he looked at like he

00:33:42.880 compared his life to a pear tree or his mental creativity to a pear tree sometimes it'd just be

00:33:47.600 barren but it didn't mean it was nothing was going on there just sort of fallow and then eventually it

00:33:52.660 would bloom again so i think his approach was you're gonna have periods where it doesn't seem like

00:33:56.960 anything's growing but if you just kind of keep grafting it and watering it and just doing the bare

00:34:02.260 minimum you have to do eventually it's going to give some fruit just you just have to be patient

00:34:06.560 with it i couldn't agree more i think that that's reflected again and again especially in the creative

00:34:13.760 process is really seeing the value in the fallow and how it's just as you know bountiful as the spring

00:34:21.740 can be so i think you know as we've been talking about the idea of routines and trying to make the

00:34:28.060 perfect day and optimize our time a underlying issue of of all that is just these high expectations

00:34:34.860 and that's probably what makes us miserable because we have this expectation that something

00:34:38.560 will happen and then it doesn't happen and then it just makes us feel bad for the rest of the day

00:34:43.560 and but we still need to have expectations because like again we have to we we have goals we have

00:34:48.760 things we want to do so how do you count how do you counteract the the pitfalls of having

00:34:55.740 expectations while still having expectations yes because you know we need expectations can also be

00:35:03.580 the very thing that boys us you know when someone believes in us you know has an expectation it can

00:35:08.620 be the thing that that can inspire us to to work harder so again there's that lovely tension of all

00:35:14.560 these things but if expectations are the very thing that's throwing you off course in the day or making

00:35:21.760 you feel like the day is a failure because you're not meeting those expectations then i think that

00:35:26.760 one one helpful approach can actually be to be an expectation realist so you know when we're overly

00:35:34.300 optimistic about our expectations and what we can actually expect to get done in a day that's when we

00:35:39.840 might make an overly ambitious to-do list or we might find ourselves squeezing so much into our calendar

00:35:45.440 but then inevitably having to cancel things because we're not able to get it all done

00:35:49.060 it might be when we have to ask for deadline extensions because we're overly optimistic about

00:35:54.580 how how quickly something can be accomplished and so optimism in that instance can be replaced with

00:36:00.900 this idea of being a realist and an expectation realist defines enough for themselves and an expectation

00:36:08.800 realist is able to delegate when needed an expectation realist is okay with things moving to the next day

00:36:15.680 instead of seeing it as a failure that it wasn't completed or that there's still things left on the

00:36:21.720 to-do list it's wonderful to sort of switch it and see that it's a possibility you know it's something

00:36:26.500 you can still do and so i think that's one frame that we can have for our expectations is also to really

00:36:34.500 take note of how long something might take you know i think that the more we observe our own work

00:36:40.320 patterns the more we even observe you know those seasons that you spoke to that can help inform

00:36:46.560 our expectations of the day you know if we are in a fellow then we can adjust our expectations

00:36:52.880 accordingly and so i think it's a it's a great sort of way of becoming more intimate with our own work

00:36:58.900 patterns rather than trying to copy and paste someone else's and then we can actually start to make

00:37:04.560 more realistic expectations and goals so one thing that people often do when they feel like they need

00:37:11.020 to get more done is that i got to get more disciplined you make this really compelling case

00:37:15.300 instead of thinking of discipline as a trade it's better to think of it as a skill uh why is that

00:37:21.500 yeah so when we think about discipline as a trait we really tie it into reward and punishment

00:37:29.440 you know this idea that if we don't stick to a schedule for example then we'll punish ourselves

00:37:35.100 by depriving ourselves of something or if we do get up early we'll reward ourselves with a treat

00:37:39.420 but the thing is that when we think about discipline in that way it has this dread kind of baked into it

00:37:47.240 this this punishment baked into it and motivational psychology is showing that rewards actually don't

00:37:53.300 motivate us as much as they we think that they would when the moment arrives and so motivation

00:37:59.300 is something that we do develop rather than find and so i think that looking at discipline rather than

00:38:05.880 a trait looking as a skill we look at people like writers for example they have the discipline of

00:38:11.960 writing and what that really is is a practice rather than a reward and punishment system and so having

00:38:19.740 it as a practice immediately makes it something that is able to have failures within it you know we can

00:38:27.000 make mistakes it can be imperfect it doesn't have to be every day it's a practice that we return to

00:38:31.520 and at the heart of that practice is interest in something you know a fascination with something

00:38:38.520 and fascination and interest is the very thing that precedes motivation because if motivation is

00:38:46.840 something that we develop then what actually comes first and it's often the fascination and then we do it

00:38:52.640 and we find motivation and it's this beautiful kind of momentum that's created and so i think that

00:38:57.780 rather than having this punishing discipline that's you know we dread the day before it's even begun

00:39:03.860 i think that if we have a more delightful approach to discipline which is what i call it in the book

00:39:09.340 then we can kind of see that the reward is in the process rather than the outcome and it's flexible and

00:39:16.140 it's expansive yeah and i think that there's some tangible ways we can sort of approach delightful

00:39:23.220 discipline which is you know one good example of a supposed discipline in the punishing sense

00:39:27.980 is this idea of eat the frog that's been popularized and that's a really great approach

00:39:33.840 for some people you know get the most dreaded thing out of the way and then the rest of the day

00:39:37.360 will be downhill but you know if we dread the day then sometimes we can kind of put that off

00:39:42.500 completely and so if we instead start the day with something that we find delightful i was inspired

00:39:49.400 by my conversation with a farmer matthew evans we've spoken a lot about farmers today um but he uh

00:39:55.980 he started the day with a dollop of clotted cream on his porridge and he did that to immediately have

00:40:04.000 delight in the day and start with a highlight because the day might not get any better but often it did

00:40:10.760 because he was in a good mood he was delighted and often we can carry that into the day and so i think

00:40:17.420 that in favor of you know eat the clotted cream instead of eat the frog we can find our own version

00:40:22.660 of that and it doesn't have to be literal it could be anything it could be a walk it could be you know

00:40:27.860 i know someone who gets delight from answering their emails first thing in the morning because it

00:40:31.640 has that sort of sense of clearing the decks i like to unload the dishwasher you know unpack

00:40:36.260 tomorrow and and have the clean start so it can be really mundane but something small and delightful

00:40:42.260 i think that there's something to be said for like bringing a good mood into the day rather than

00:40:47.140 one of dread yeah i've tried to eat the frog approach it never works out for me because i just

00:40:52.540 get stumped then i just go on to something else anyways and in my experience with any hard thing

00:40:57.740 i think it's always easier to find the easy way in it's like do like the you know if you're writing

00:41:03.080 something or you have a big project what's the easiest thing i can do because then it gets the

00:41:08.640 the flywheel going and then the hard the really hard part becomes easier once you get that motivation

00:41:14.140 going because you got some stuff done yeah exactly and i think that we can make things that are hard

00:41:21.120 because there will be things that we don't want to do and difficult things but we can make them

00:41:25.700 delightful by making them smaller or making them more fun and then as you say you can kind of

00:41:31.940 tackle the bigger thing by making a small start well madeline this has been a great conversation

00:41:37.160 where can people go to learn more about the book in your work the book you can find at madelinedore.com

00:41:42.820 or all good bookstores of course and there you'll also find a newsletter that you can sign up to

00:41:48.780 keep up to date with sort of the next things which is all a a bit of a question mark as i'm in a

00:41:53.960 absorb stage at the moment rather than a squeeze and you can follow me on instagram at extraordinary routines

00:41:59.720 fantastic well madeline door thanks for your time it's been a pleasure thank you so much brett

00:42:04.940 my guest here is madeline door she's the author of the book i didn't do the thing today it's

00:42:09.020 available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find more information about her work at

00:42:12.240 our website madelinedore.com and that's door d-o-r-e also check out our show notes at

00:42:16.960 aom.is slash door where you can find links to resources we delve deeper into this topic

00:42:20.880 well that wraps up another edition of the a1 podcast make sure to check out our website at

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00:43:00.760 the continued support until next time it's brett mckay remind you on the listening podcast but put

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The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

Routines Are Overrated

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