A routine is a habit or a pattern that you do consistently. Now, we all have them. You might have a routine for waking up or a routine for going to sleep. You may even have a routine for driving to work.
Most of the time, we don’t think to update these routines. We prefer to save energy and just run on autopilot. Which is why according to some estimates, we spend almost 40% of our day following these routines.
This isn’t necessarily bad. This energy-saving mechanism actually frees up our brain to become creative in new situations. That’s actually a blessing and an evolutionary advantage.
The challenge is that we don’t recognize that from time to time we need to update them. And nowhere is this more important than when we’re at work.
At work, we go through the same steps daily to finish our projects. Here’s a typical routine:
We receive a task. We complain about the task. We procrastinate on starting the activity. Then we start. Then we get distracted. We then switch tasks. Then a colleague interrupts us. Then we restart. Then we get an email. Then we restart.
As you can imagine, this is not atypical of getting work done in the modern environment. Distractions are to be expected. However, to adapt to the modern environment, we must update our work routine.
Let’s say we receive a task. Instead of complaining, we can get excited for the task. Or instead of getting distracted, we can single task to get things done. Or instead of allowing colleagues to interrupt us, we can go to a private corner of the office. And we can work.
Any of these changes, interrupts our normal routine. Any of these changes makes us better at our jobs. And that’s what we must do if we want to do great things.
The question is: Will you update your work routine?
A New Source Code 