The case against morning yoga, daily routines, and endless meetings
andrewchen.substack.com
andrewchen.substack.com
Take that direction if that's what makes you tick. I've decided that that's not how I want to live my life, quit a 'prestigious' position, left the competitive career, and I now work as a teacher with "10x personal satisfaction".
I don't know what country you're speaking from, but here in the US teaching seems to have an extremely low job satisfaction rate.
If you already have a house and a fat 401k, just paying the bills at a certain age is fine.
The actual teaching is like 10% of the job at best and shrinking, school administrators have to be the dumbest category of people who hold advanced degrees (I don’t level that charge lightly), schools are heavily hierarchical and hard to influence toward improvement if you’re not in admin, constant methodology churn for all sorts of things based on whichever new “system” caught the superintendent’s fancy at their last district-funded drinking getaway er, I mean, conference. Which they’ll go on to half-understand, fail to apply the parts that make them uncomfortable, and of course doom the new program without its even having a chance. While creating a bunch of new work for the teachers and breaking stuff that was working fine. “Office” politics where the median would qualify as quite bad in the private sector.
Politicians and half the parents think you’re the enemy, in a very real way. No support from parents on discipline issues. Admin piss-pants scared of parents, too. Comp-vs-CoL varies wildly over the country, and mostly in the ways you’d expect, so it’s ok some places but it’s terrible in many others.
My guesses as to why:
- To teach is to be focused on the future, day after day. This is the opposite of dwelling on the past, which is commonly associated with depression, which is commonly associated with suicide.
- Teachers are surrounded by kids, and kids tend to change and develop drastically over the course of a year, usually for the better in terms of knowledge and maturity. Seeing that might inspire some optimism.
- Teachers are a crucial pillar of an impressionable community of hundreds of children at that. So they're less likely to trend toward suicide, because they feel less alone, more community, more accountability, and more responsibility.
- There's something inherently purposeful about teaching, at a deep biological level. Purposeful work leads to a purposeful life leads to lower chances of suicide.
Also, you'll notice that the highest suicide professions are also the most physically dangerous. It stands to reason that suicide often follows a life-changing debilitating injury. That would be pretty rare in teaching.
Dentists also don't have a lot of job related debilitating injuries, aside from depressions.
I have a climbing buddy who is US origin and teaches smaller kids in Geneva, Switzerland in prestigious private school, all above applies hard for him. Got off this school year twice from burnout. Normally he has 1-2 bad kids but this year it was 10, every day was pure suffering for him and even with assistant it was above their capabilities. The thing is, its a profession that makes you unemployable elsewhere apart from basic blue collar jobs, so quitting is not really that good of an option.
Just giving perspective, I am not teacher and probably wouldn't enjoy doing it. Preferring work hard and then have some cool time in the mountains during evenings/weekend or travel for holidays. But I consider it massively underpaid profession, those folks deserve same recognition as doctors are getting (with logic that doctors 'just' treat current problems, but teachers literally hold future of mankind in their hands and mold it, and in this world you cca always get what you pay for).
I run 6 times a week because I feel significantly better when I am running every day. The reward for me is so significant that getting myself running requires 0 mental effort or preparation. I live in a very hot and humid climate, if I run even at 8 am it's so hot it's uncomfortable. Because of this I'm waking up and running at around 6:30 am.
I also fall asleep at 11 pm like clockwork. Not because I have a schedule but because I'm so tired I have to sleep then.
I commit code to github almost every single day. I actually really just enjoy programming.
I should become a hustle culture influencer
For example, someone's stated goal may be to build an amazing startup or open source project. But they constantly find themselves going to founder meetups and conventions, staying up very late and drinking a lot. They may also find themselves posting a lot on social media instead of working on building their thing. I would claim that this person has a hidden goal of seeking attention and fame. They likely would never tell themselves this and this is why self honesty is important. Once you are able to bring these hidden goals to the foreground it's actually easy to manage them. Wanting to be famous and get attention is a pretty ridiculous / base desire.
My desires are to chill, play music for myself and friends, sleep a lot, have sex, hike, go to concerts and generally go out and drink. Only doing that would, predictably, make me homeless eventually.
Effortful actions it is for me, I guess.
I believe it's Carl Jung that talked extensively about bringing your unconscious into consciousness. Or Feynman: The first principle is you must not fool yourself, and you're the easiest person to fool :)
(Although I think it's normal to have some amount of internal conflict or inconsistency that we can only resolve as we go along, experiment, work and live)
[1] Maybe we should call those cravings?
[2] I think a more refined approach would add philosophical implications (e.g. ethics, meaning, etc..) as well
And if something regularly interrupts my routine (as kids often do) I just… adjust my routine.
Your wife should be greeted before the president.
It’s really simple and I use it to frame my reactions.
"What happens more often? Work or your brother getting married?" he asked me. "Work" I replied. "Well, there you go. Work is more important."
He and I had the kind of casual working relationship that he could jokingly be an asshole and I took it in the good nature it was intended (and yeah, I got time off for the wedding).
I haven't thought of that story in years, but your advice brought it immediately back.
Tell your boss that you have spent more time with your family therefore every additional day spent with them is more normal than work.
I think what's not said is that some people are just naturally very focused on achievement and moving up the ladder. If you have the drive to be a successful CEO, then adopting the behaviors and routines of a other successful CEOs will probably work for you. If you are not that type of person, then trying to become one by acting like one will just lead to frustration.
I'm not a successful CEO, I have no desire to be one, I don't even want to be a manager of other people. It is not interesting to me. I've done it and can do it but it's not rewarding.
I'm not a "hustler" and have no desire to be one. I don't keep a scorecard of how many checkboxes I ticked each day.
Do what you are drawn to do, and look to other people who are successful at doing those things if you want role models.
And if it happens to be a routine that demands you be well (alert, rested, etc), most of what shakes out is stuff that keeps you well or at least doesn't inferfere with your wellness.
And similarly if the demanding routine insists on less healthy habits. If your priority is socializing and drinking until 2am several nights, the shake out is going to look like miserable, exhausted mornings and hangovers.
The hustle culture bs is the wellness equivalent of get rich quick schemes: "add this 10 minutes trifle and you'll finally be happy and successful!" --- But no, if you're not close to there already, the changes need to be way more comprehensive and radical.
Couple of years later (how time flies), I need to go swimming otherwise I'm in pain the next day due to the desk job. I've also added weightlifting 3 times a week, and then swimming, I'm feeling great, and when I finished my day, it feels like I haven't missed anything.
After I remove the icepack, I use a deep-pore cleanser lotion. In the shower, I use a water-activated gel cleanser. Then a honey-almond bodyscrub. And on the face, an exfoliating gel-scrub. Then I apply an herb mint facial masque, which I leave on for ten minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine.
I always use an aftershave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm, followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.
Let's see Paul Allen's card.
Is there a drug I can take to achieve this? This sounds like a superpower to me. I've tried to start running so many times.
It's hard (for a while) when you're first starting because most of your runs are pushing your limits -- intentionally or unintentionally -- and you can't help associating the runs with having to push and burn out.
Once you practice for a while (and take the effort to learn pacing), the bulk of your runs feel easy and refreshing and so you want to go do them. And the hard runs that you choose to run for limit-pushing become satisfying because you know you're in control of them and can often see progress in your PR's for pace or whatever.
In other words: you just have to stick with it and it mostly happens on its own. (Unless you're just a type-A person and can't learn to pace yourself)
People who don't go to the gym at all think they'll sign up at the beginning of the year and from zero make a life-changing routine change by the next week; gyms know this and take advantage of it to the point that many would go out of business if not for people failing to motivate themselves in that first month enough to start doing one of the hardest daily activities first thing in the morning 5 times a week.
If you don't like running, just do something else, sometimes; running sucks if it sucks and doesn't if it doesn't. Optimize if the nature of the activity seems like something you can find doable/enjoyable/rewarding.
What I've found happens is that I actually get used to it, and if for some reason have to skip a session, I'll get the feeling that something's missing because I actually "felt like" doing it.
Of course, this doesn work 100% of the time. Occasionally, I really, really, don't want to pump that iron or go for a run. But having developed the habit, it's actually much easier to push through the "don't feel like it" sensation and get my ass out there, "'cause I have to do it". And I'm usually very happy I did when I get back home.
I once worked a construction equipment maintenance job. Basically we'd roll out of bed at 5 am, climb into a big truck, and drive out to wherever someone called us to fix everything from dump trucks to excavators. I cant remember a consistent day, ever. Some mornings its pouring rain and breakfast is a slim jim from the truck stop. Other days youre driving so much it hardly feels like anything is getting done. I started making lunch about calorie counts instead of time of day, and eventually got to just taking a couple of cliff bars for lunch tucked into my overalls. I guess coffee was consistent. we filled four thermoses at the truck stop and that used to cost us about $20. after we fixed the air hose in the parking lot we got all our coffee free. i digress. I didnt have a routine, no "stoic virtue" stuff. the only thing i did religiously was the vehicle check in the morning.
People who obsess over a pattern or "grindset" in life rarely do the work necessary to fulfill the ethic of that said routine. They miss the forest for the trees. Theres way more meaning and reward to being adaptable and resilient than there is in worshipping a pattern or coddling a routine.
You didn't have to psyche yourself up to wake at 5am, because you had external forces setting that requirement for you.
If you set your own schedule and work remotely or what have you, getting up at 5am is an act of will.
Unfortunately, there is a whole genre of "Day in the Life Of [my job role]" Youtube channels that rack up millions of views. They are made for entertainment, not edification, so hoping to learn something end up focusing on the superficial parts of it.
E: also I used all those habits and routines to achieve my own goals and run a business for a decade.
Is that better?
Of course that's utterly insane. If you have ADHD then you should be putting more effort into routinization, not less and certainly not making up reasons that you can't even try.
Charitably, I read it as 'Telling someone to get good at the thing they are struggling with doesn't work'. This is similar to the oft seen adages of 'just do things to make you happy to fix your depression' met with sarcastic 'gee thanks, I'm cured' responses.
Certain habits, skills, etc, might be more important for some people to focus on than others to manage debilitating effects, but that importance comes with the consequence of those same feats being harder.
“You adapt to it — don’t let fear of inevitable challenges prevent you from starting”
“No thanks I have ADHD”
Okay, what other possible answer is there? There’s no way to guarantee your habits don’t get jostled and there’s no method to correct it than adapting. Any specific adaptation method is also notably harder for ADHD folks too. Yes, it is harder, that’s why in order to succeed at this thing one needs to work harder. Any Quick Tip that’d make this easier for an ADHD person would make it easier for everyone else too, ergo it’d be the default advice, and it’d still be harder for an ADHD person to apply.
I think it's fair to say "you adapt" is ~useless advice for everyone, FWIW.
Despite the insistence of many in our parents' generations, ADHD is not a disorder of not applying oneself hard enough.
I generally can adapt to long term new situations by inventing new routines but I fall apart without structure.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge it’s a bad thing but it is what it is. I’m sure the commenter above is similar
The real issue is skipping several days in a row. If I drop my routines for a weeklong vacation it takes more than a month to build them back.
One thing I've discovered for myself is that the routine doesn't decay as quickly if I at least maintain a placeholder. For example, even if I don't have time to do an exercise routine I can usually do five pushups. Even if I can't meditate for ten minutes, I can still sit and breathe for a minute. Even if I can't do all the dishes before bed, I can scrape them off. That makes it much easier to resume the routine. It doesn't deepen the rut but it does prevent it from being washed away.
I don't need to be more productive. I accomplish plenty in both my work life and my real life. If anything, I need to accomplish fewer things and spend more time living in the moment.
If you own the company, quite possibly yes.
Otherwise, very very unlikely.
(If only it worked like that! Suppose it somewhat does if you're self-employed, sole trader something or another. But realistically even then there's customers or something, some external factor that needs at least some work most days or at a moment's notice.)
“I don’t believe small changes can build to big ones” - lots of people
The latter is the much more likely error. Apparently or proximally low-impact routines like exercise, meditation, journaling, reading, etc. are frequently advocated specifically because they are extremely high impact but do not look like they are.
Inversely, permanently improv-jazzing through life and frenetically jumping from “high impact activity” to “high impact activity” feels productive, but if you succeed at this you are almost certain to burn yourself out before it really matters. And much more likely is that there really aren’t that many high impact things you can be doing, so what it actually looks like is either 1) waiting for something high impact enough to justify action, which never just comes to you, or 2) shifting your priorities to start treating highly available low-impact things as if they are high impact.
In the event you do have a series of high-impact things to do in rapid succession, you’re going to be totally dependent on your routines to sustain that work, so you had better hope you built them prior.
> This is why I’m so positive on sending outbound emails to interesting people, hosting dinners and events that bring together smart folks...
I find that I'm much better at this kind of proactive outreach when I have routines that push me towards this.
The non-routine approach tends to break down when you need to collaborate IME (though many companies are successfully asynchronous).
I used to hate routine by my kids showed me how necessary it is. Maintenance is essential to life. Routines get the maintenance done, and free up your brain to have ideas and energy for the hard work. An observation: Where I work there is a Nobel laureate who takes walks at almost the same time every day (past my window). I would think he knows about '10x work', and also about the utility of routine.
Our careers are defined by the highest moments of its biggest upside swings.
In my opinion, our careers are defined by the "area under curve" of achievements.
Bruce Lee gradually became a megastar by exercising and learning, gradually, not by hitting someone's head in a convoluted flying rotating high knee kick that is not repeatable at all.
By focusing on speed, they are able to accomplish a very large amount and never let a backlog build up. In some ways this feels closely aligned with the author's point. But these people are also spending a lot of time on what the author would call "1x" work (replying to emails, etc).
The key trait that seems to stand out in the most highly regarded people in history is discipline: there is no "10x work" without hard, long term focus, which requires discipline.
"Routines" have the advantage of making that discipline easier. Does it mean they are sufficient? No, and this is where the article is right. Does it mean they are useless? No, it's just one way of achieving the level of discipline needed to do the "10x work" that the article focuses on.
> "Imagine the thousands of tasks you did in the past year and sort them by impact. How many of them actually moved the needle?"
If you instead try to predict the impact factor or long-term result of a given task/activity in advance, how good would your predictions be?
> "However, I’m convinced that you can create an environment where 10x work is more likely to come up."
This sounds like the gambler's fallacy of retrospective determinism, which involves looking at historical data and seeing patterns, leading to the erroneous conclusion that these patterns dictate future outcomes. It ignores the inherent randomness and independence of certain events.
The argument for daily routines is that they keep you involved and engaged, so that if an opportunity does randomly arise, you're ready to run with it.
This seems mostly a diatribe against chasing "productivity" in disguise, with anti-routine as the clickbait hook, bait-and-switch. Habits are powerful in part because they allow you to reduce overhead. If your auto-pilot routine is to doomscroll, why would this be less stressful than a yoga session?
> The question is how to create the most opportunities at achieving that, not how to execute perfect little habits.
Say, wouldn't it be nice if there was some tool we could leverage to do that?
Yoga and meditation isn't about advancing your career.
The author makes this logical attempt to "refute the paradigm of fitter, happier, more productive routines as the secret to success" but starts with this completely subjective premise which is kind of hidden in this word salad sentence.
"Success" by other definitions can be greatly enhanced by routine and regularity. If I define my career by the time I have available to myself while making enough money the a routine helps tremendously. I can focus and get things done so I can stop working. That's success!
Personally, I find it best to block out some time for things I want to get done and things I must get done. Those are my daily routines. :) Everything else, I fit in on the fly.
Cal Newport tells stories about some amazing people in the past that we think of today as A+ players and very productive. But by today's standards, they would be considered loafers!
I honestly think that the necessity to busy ourselves is a symptom of a deep malaise. Very few people even feel able to consider greater collective outcomes. We need to keep the wheel spinning and the creditors at bay.
It's a stark contrast when you're self-employed and there are zero things to provide structure to your days unless you them there yourself. It's a life circumstance that provides you with a lot more agency, and just how you structure the day can have a fairly tangible impact on not only your productivity, but also your physical and mental well-being
No, no we don't. And no, you don't either.
Are you conflating productivity with wealth? I routinely observe people 100x or 1000x wealthier.
If I do the same exercise routine for example, it’s easier for me to detect changes in my body (positive or negative) and react to them.
I suspect many oafs do a lot less effective work than that during a week.
Source: have been such an oaf after a period of burnout
I'm definitely one of those people who has fallen into the slump of do a bunch of the same things every day, rinse, and repeat, largely driven by the requests of others. I do despise it, but at the same time, I wish I worked some more routine into my day so I can make more progress on the things that matter to me. But largely I feel burnt out from the routine of others that is imposed upon me, and it causes an almost visceral reaction to adding more planned time to my day.
But I think where I really didn't connect was the framing. The "productivity" thing, as if my goal in life should be to maximize output. The author frames routine as a robotic state, but I'd argue productivity maximization is an even more robotic trait.
It's really okay to have some hours in your day where you both don't have a routine and don't "accomplish" anything.
Most of us need to get shit done so we keep getting out paycheck and not get fired. Routine is pretty much the only way to survive the chore long term. Push it to subconscious and don't think about it anymore.
Top25% is nowhere even close to being very good
- my sarcasm agreeing with you.
"Remember that no matter what you do, there is always an Asian better than you. And this applies even if you are an Asian."
-my sarcastic Asian friend in college
"If you re not first, you're last" -rickybobby
I struggle to have a good routine but spontaneity happens more often when I do.
If I go to the gym at 5:30 and do chores at 7 and go to work at 8 and eat lunch at noon and read at 6 and eat dinner at 7 and work on personal projects at 8 and go to bed at 10:30 then if something comes up I can say "I have an hour at lunch, lets meet" Or "I will skip my personal projects today and go to so and so's house"
If I'm just constantly chaotic then I'm always feeling harried and like I don't have time for anything. And even if I do make time for something spontaneous, then I'm feeling like I'm stealing time from myself even though I didn't really have anything planned during that time anyways.
Also 10x work is a silly idea to me. Progress happens in almost all areas because of consistency. Research, fitness, home life, relationships, work. They grow or produce or increase because you do them regularly not because you had some magical insight and suddenly need to disappear into a hole for a week to work on it.
His section on breaking routine feels like it completely misses the point.
"Serendipity loves randomness and hates routine"
There's also a saying that luck favors the prepared.
Rarely have a read a piece that is mostly well-written that resonates so poorly with me. It's like every insight he has is the opposite of my lived experience.
On a more serious note, I've found that routines are necessary for me to be happy. Once I've established a routine, I can break it, but if I don't have a routine, I'll usually just do nothing. I sense that the author is coming from the opposite perspective. He's probably a very conscientious and energetic striver and is trying to break free from that.
It takes a lifetime to learn to do that. Some people are lucky enough to be naturally that way.