105 hours: Self-Imposed Routines

I use a set of tactics and principles to manage my time. I call it 105 hours.

It helps me allocate the 105 hours I have in the week.

It can be challenging to spend our time how we want to.

So I spend most of my time according to my routines.

Learning Japanese with no routines

When I was young, I had no self-imposed routines. The only thing I did consistently every day at the same time was go to school.

I had things I wanted to learn, such as playing the guitar or chess, but none of those activities had a time, place, and cadence to be done.

At one point, I decided to learn Japanese. Back then, video games like Final Fantasy would come out in Japanese years before the English version. I didn't know English very well, but I knew absolutely no Japanese.

So I enrolled in a Japanese course. The way the course worked was an excellent match for me:

• During class, I'd work at my own pace on self-guided materials
• At the end of class, a tutor would assign me some of those materials as homework
• At home, I'd work on the assignments whenever I wanted
• Next week, back in class, the tutor would rate and correct my homework

Self-directed work in the classroom was a breeze, with the only noise being tutors occasionally helping students. We spent about 1 hour in deep focus.

Self-directed work at home, though, was tough. I never knew when and where to study. The problem was in the "whenever I wanted" part.

Studying at home became progressively difficult as the material got harder. Sometimes I struggled to do even a single hour of homework the whole week.

In hindsight, it's easy to make excuses for young me and say that I needed more structure for consistently studying at home.

But setting a self-accountability structure is hard no matter what period of life we are in.

My last day in Japanese class was illustrative: I was going out for a 2-month vacation and convinced my tutors to assign me 20 assignments, roughly 20 hours' worth of work. They pushed back but then reluctantly agreed.

I never finished any of those 20 assignments.

And never came back.

Building a routine of reading books

Fast forward to my adult life.

Without routines, it was hard to decide what to do after work. I'd often feel tired or lazy and convince myself that all I had the energy for was browsing the internet or watching TV.

If reading a book was a decision, I'd weigh it based on the day's context: Am I mentally exhausted? Did I exercise today? Do I feel like reading? What time will I have dinner? Do I know what book to read? What else do I feel like doing?

Evaluating decisions based on the context may seem wise, but the problem is Feynman's First Principle applies here:

The first principle is you must not fool yourself. And you're the easiest person to fool.
– Richard Feynman

As anybody who's had a routine of exercising every day will tell you, it's really only the days we don't exercise that we regret.

And it's the same with reading books.

Despite the excuses I'd conjure up, they almost always proved wrong when I just went ahead and read anyway.

So I decided to read books at a particular time, place, and cadence: Every day, 8:00 pm, in my office. No excuses.

By deciding when and where beforehand, I make better decisions.

But then the hard part starts: Actually doing it.

Dealing with routine misses

But do I ever miss an activity in my routine?

Yes, of course I do! All the time!

Doing the same thing every day without fail is hard, especially when the routine is self-imposed.

Anything can seem easy in the first few days. After a few weeks, I start seeing strains and getting a few misses here and there. But after several months, I can feel in my bones the endurance necessary to stick to the activity, no matter what it is.

When it comes to routines, the goal is months and years, not days and weeks. Routines are about what we can consistently do over long periods of time.

Some exceptions to the routine are OK and even welcome. If friends can only see me during the evening, it's not a big deal. After all, I still have all other days of the week to read.

Other exceptions are expected. If I need to work late one day, I'll pick things up the following day.

But sometimes I just plain fail. I feel tired, exhausted, lazy, and unfocused; the list of excuses seems limitless. Somedays, I pity myself and all this self-imposed discipline and talk myself into taking a break.

Sometimes I fool myself. Sometimes I don't, but I skip it anyway.

Never miss 2 days in a row

As long as my routine is consistent, missing a day is not a big loss. From an outcomes perspective, it mostly doesn't make a big difference to do something 6 days a week instead of 7.

But missing a day makes it MUCH harder to do the activity the following day.

The willpower and discipline needed after a miss is much greater than after a hit. My mind will say, "Well, you missed yesterday, and it was fine. Why do it today?" and part of me will say, "Good point," while the other says, "Shut up!"

That's why Haruki Murakami, who runs every day and has done so for 25 years at the time of writing, emphasizes in his book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running that he never misses two days in a row.

Never missing two days in a row is essential to not turning missing one day into missing one week.

As long as I avoid two misses in a row, it's just a matter of being flexible and sticking to my routines.

Writers and their routines

In his book Hello, Habits, Fumio Sasaki has similar thoughts to mine on routines. He even describes his routine in detail:

MY SCHEDULE ON A TYPICAL DAY
5 a.m. Get up > do some yoga.
5:30 a.m. Meditate.
6:00 a.m. Work on my writing or my blog.
7 a.m. Clean house > take a shower > do the laundry > have breakfast > prepare my lunch.
8 a.m. Write in my diary > practice English > read the news or social media.
9:10 a.m. Take a power nap (a strategic way to go back to bed).
9:30 a.m. “Commute” to the library.
11:30 a.m. Eat lunch.
2:30 p.m. Leave the library.
3 p.m. Take a power nap.
3:30 p.m. Go to the gym.
5:30 p.m. Shop for groceries at the supermarket, return emails and check social media.
6 p.m. Watch a movie after dinner.
9 p.m. Bring out my yoga mat and stretch.
9:30 p.m. Go to bed.

Like me, Fumio maintains a consistent schedule on both weekdays and weekends:

My schedule is basically the same each day, and it doesn’t change whether it’s the weekend or a holiday. My off days are when I have special plans like seeing friends, going to events, or traveling. I take about a day off each week.

Sasaki, Fumio. Hello, Habits: A Minimalist's Guide to a Better Life (p. 3). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

In his book Novelist as a Vocation, Haruki Murakami describes how he starts the day by writing for 4 to 5 hours, even on weekends. Neal Stephenson remarks on a similar routine in his book aptly named Some Remarks.

Mason Currey has written extensively about the habits of writers in his book Daily Rituals – How Artists Work. He follows a writing routine himself:

Nearly every weekday morning for a year and a half, I got up at 5:30, brushed my teeth, made a cup of coffee, and sat down to write [..]

Mason Currey – How Artists Work (Intro)

It never gets easy

It's hard to stick for several years to self-imposed routines such as exercising, eating healthy, meditating, or reading books.

I find writers to be an excellent reference point, given how much of their work is often self-imposed. Many writers have reflected and written about the crucial role routines played in their ability to publish.

So when there's a new activity I want to do, I incorporate it into my routine. I decide on a time and place to do it. I ideally plan to do it every day. And I do my best not to skip it two days in a row.

Then I just don't fret the small disruptions and try to keep it for years.

After all, consistency over the long term is where true transformation happens.