Why you need both rituals and routines to power your workday
blog.rescuetime.com
blog.rescuetime.com
In other words it is useful to demystify the routine, and realise that you already have one, you just need to adjust to make it more optimal.
In response to:
m1dnigh7: > I truly envy people with routines or rituals...
andrewflnr: > I hate that this might actually be true...
The answer could be something trivial like: "I waste too much time browsing hacker news after work. I need to stop that!". But it's not easy to just stop that. Better ask yourself a second question like: " what could I do instead?" And then just find a tiny little thing you could improve. Every tiny step can be a huge improvement
Can anyone give their experience on the matter?
However the down side is that you’re incompatible with most other people. I dread routine to the point where ive lost relationships and a sense of purpose in most work. Being a cog is extremely unpleasant and it’s more and more apparent to me that that’s where most success in the world comes from (think millions of workers vs a single ceo.)
This article touched on all of that and I think I need to incorporate the routine and ritual more. Even if it’s so I can just get through the parts of life I currently struggle.
Sorry if this is a bit rambling. I’m working now but wanted to share. If you have any questions or want to chat I’d be happy. Still not sure how hacker news replying and all works so my apologies if I miss you.
I remeber being tald about all the spiritual things that seem bonkers to a western educated mind, but with the idea that - all models are false, some models are useful, I just “tried” to imagine it working, and it actually did, the mind is an interresting thing.
Now whenever I am presented with those ancient patterns of thought I don’t dismiss them outright as false, but think of them as a model that can influence your emotions, and act accordingly.
The teaching of Jesus and Buddha are really giving you the exact same advice. Self-sacrifice, honesty, hard work and being decent while you accept all the shit life throws at you and let it pass, because it will, are the ways to live calmly and fully in between the eternal struggle chaos and order.
I personally think the eastern approach was easier to comprehend than the western. Ying and yang are two dragons locked in eternal struggle, one is chaos one is order but within each dragon is a small piece of the other. Let too much of one dragon into your life and you will suffer, and since chaos lives within order (and vice versa) it’s also a fruitless struggle to chose one, because the other will always find a way to creep in.
You’ll find the same essence in the bible and the moral struggle between good and evil and a God who never tells you what he wants, but to me, it was much less clear. Perhaps especially because 90% of religions scholars are assholes and in the west you don’t meet the eastern assholes but you do meet a lot of shitty priests.
1. Love God
2. Love other people as much as you love yourself.
You'll find the second one in Buddhism, but not really the first.
That makes rather a lot of difference, because it focuses someone on being grateful for the world, rather than attempting to ignore it.
As there is no dogma in Buddhism, it's really difficult to casually learn what Buddhism is about. Usually people will throw a hundred books at you and say, "Well, that will get you started" (at least in my experience :-) ). However, I think you may have gotten the wrong end of the stick.
Certain of the Buddhist sects and practices (notably Vajrayāna) throw gods into the mix because they've incorporated local beliefs and culture.
To me, this is similar to how some people are really into audio and examine the minute details, while others are into music and appreciate the aesthetic qualities of it. This is not to say that either side is "better" or "more correct" or "the right way to enjoy music" or even that you can't have both!
The most enjoyable times I've ever had listening to music have been on objectively not the best sound systems. I HAVE had the pleasure of going to clubs / parties with very high-end sound systems, and I have some great gear set up at home, but I appreciate them in different ways.
I still don't feel that I've really nailed what I'm trying to say, but I hope that makes some sense to others and hopefully gives even one person a bit of a new perspective, or a hint that there is another perspective to these things :)
I’d love to hear more if you have the time to spare.
And after I got started the whole mindfulness thing just happened naturally as it was an integral part of the training itself, so it just made sense.
And with mindfulness my mind just naturally calmed itself down, I started to appreciate the moment more, and care less about stuff I couldn’t control anyway.
I never could start doing the meditation thing before on its own, but when I put myself in an environment were it was just par for the course, it was easy. I’m sure there are other ways to do it its just what worked for me.
I think I now just try not to do exactly what I want, but rather try to position myself into environments where that happens naturally, and just let it be. Sometimes it doesn’t work out exactly, but mostly it does, and is much _much_ less stressful.
Hope this is useful and best of luck :)
Anyways, the main difference here is in how I think your (and mine!) brain works - we think in abstractions, get bored with details and implementations. We recognize patterns and priniciples, that's why there are things you "know" but have barely ever done in your life. That's why stuff is boring - you know or can assume it already because you recognize the patterns and principles behind it. It's just an implementation of an abstraction.
It's also good to know that the brain constantly creates simulations about different situations. It's very important to realize that these simulations are not always accurate because they use your current beliefs about yourself to infer the emotions you would feel in that situation. You should go into situations instead of just imaging them - it'll lead to a more accurate model of reality in your mind and you'll be pleasantly surprised how inaccurate some simulations were. Social stuff stops being boring then.
> You should go into situations instead of just imaging them - it'll lead to a more accurate model of reality in your mind and you'll be pleasantly surprised how inaccurate some simulations were. Social stuff stops being boring then
Thanks. I know that and I try to do it but sometimes I need to hear it anew.
Are you the same type?
And unrelated question, because I feel like you belong to the same tribe. Do you think that sketching, drawing, painting, coding, writing just offloading thoughts on the paper/digital paper? I noticed that I have a tendency to do all kinds of stuff that includes translating abstractions to a medium (for example, invoking feelings with poetry, explaining with metaphors or sketching out ideas)
This is rare. Good leadership in that company.
> Are you the same type?
Yes.
I use voice recordings, sketching and drawing a lot to save mental concepts. Voice recording can be a high-density medium and is one of the most effective ways to preserve ideas and concepts - our consciousness has a specialized part for language understanding, after all.
This depends on the level of abstractness of the given concept. I also prefer sketching for concrete ideas.
> I also want to do the "crazy professor" style work
I can relate. Thanks for putting your mail address into your profile, I'm sure there are some interesting topics to discuss.
What does your group do? I’m very into the “crazy professor” work concept. I’d love to talk a little, even if just to see how others like myself are pursuing success in their own way.
This is all you need - I think it's a necessity that you've proved to yourself (very important for your self-confidence) and potential business partners that you're able to do some real work (otherwise it could be that you're simply a talker).
The rest is finding the right people who believe in your vision. This is connected with a simple bit of luck, but I would definitely use networking - I did. Go to meetups, tell your friends that you're searching for committed people who want to do stuff and be able to tell the doers from the talkers. Meet with everyone who seems remotely interested in the idea of starting something. Don't get too excited and start a company with someone you don't know. Get to know each other. Continue to meet other people. I've met several interesting people before I've met my business partner.
I've met him through table tennis. He already built something (small one-person company) and therefore I had the confidence that he says what he does. Make sure that you see a provable track record of work before making it official and make sure that you understand your partner on a psychological level - What motivates him? What are his life goals? Why is he a good fit? In which areas do you complement each other? What are your differences in your personalities? How do you resolve conflicts? (essential) Rational or emotional? Narcissistic or other tendencies? (You should know that about yourself, too).
I do personality tests (most people like them, anyways) to identify the core strengths and weaknesses (I have to admit - I also did it for dating in the past). Most of the time the results are pretty accurate. It's not about a specific personality type I prefer (motivation is an important factor, too), but I need to know the weaknesses to accommodate for them (the same applies to me).
Have you been able to make this successful for yourself?
Some time ago I just decided fuck it. I'm not gonna do it. And my life has been way better - the more I decided to be "me" and less "me disguised as an average person because I don't wanna scare everyone off and end up alone" the happier I was. And now I'm just like "okay whatever you wanna believe". (Unless it's work related, then I lead them to the conclusion by asking questions that will hopefully "connect their dots")
I can recommend Brain Rules and if you don’t want to read the book at least watch the videos as they are so funny.
I think you need to be a special kind of person to have them.
So yes, I have no productivity-helping routines.
Some of the ones I tried in a lot of different ways are time management (pomodoro, toggl, ..), activity logging (toggl, todoist, paper book, ..), waking up and going to bed on fixed hours, remembering thinks (google keep, evernote, paper book,..) and all of them fade away after less than 5 days.
Also, these rituals should either come to you naturally or be grown into with multiple attempts, so you shouldn't brush everything off at once.
After understanding this it's clear to see that your motivation is simply too low - there's not a reason that is important enough for you. That means you don't really feel the need to change your behaviour. It's a good sign - you are content with yourself and don't fear the social repercussions of your current behaviour to change anything about it - but it also means that you stagnate.
You'll change your behaviour if you have the fear that you could lose social status.
It seems that you try to control your behaviour through rational thinking. But please understand that this is not how the brain operates. It first and foremost wants to be socially accepted while minimizing energy consumption (with bursts of curiosity). If you want to use rational thinking for your behaviour, you have to add a value in your belief system that rational thinking leads to the best decision. This also has to be associated with emotions and you need some memories and stories where rational behaviour was advantageous to back this belief up. Change other parts of your belief system to make it injustifiable to yourself to live with unproductive routines. I have to admit that I'm not sure if this will lead you to happiness/fulfillment (pretty sure it won't if you're currently happy and fulfilled with your current beliefs), but that's how you change behaviour.
[1]: https://unifiedtheoryofpsychology.files.wordpress.com/2011/1...
Maybe you find value in this article about habit-building with some psychological underpinnings: https://jamesclear.com/three-steps-habit-change
I went through the 5-day program this week and it seems to help a lot.