Hi there 👋
It's Monday again, and I'm here with a new idea to carry into your week.
Okay so, why is the internet SO obsessed with routines right now. Morning routine. Bedtime routine. Skincare routine. Workout routine. There's probably a routine for how to have a routine at this point lol.
And every time I see one of those "5am, cold plunge, gratitude journal" videos, part of me rolls my eyes and part of me wonders if I'm just built wrong.
Because here's the truth. I am not a 5am guy. I aspire to be one day but my chronotype (Yes that's a real thing, it's basically your body signaling your wake and sleep cycle) says I'm more of an early evening person. What that means is my energy levels are higher during the evening in contrast to early morning.
So when the internet tells me mornings are where discipline lives, I quietly close the app and open it again tomorrow 😄
But something I've noticed in my own weeks is this. On days where I have some kind of set times for when I'll do what, there's been less friction when I look back.
And on the weeks where everything's up in the air, more unknowns and more "I'll figure it out when I get there" that's when I sweat the small stuff. I skip a meal. I miss a workout. I doom scroll instead of doing the thing.
I used to think that meant I lacked discipline. Turns out it's not that deep.
There's a researcher named Wendy Wood at USC who spent decades studying exactly this; Why we do what we do. Her research found that about 43% of what we do in a day isn't actually a decision at all. It's a habit. Something our brain runs on autopilot. Brushing your teeth. How you hold your coffee mug. The route you take to work. None of that is you choosing in that moment.
Your brain already decided a long time ago and just hit replay the moment you get close to the task.
Cristiano Ronaldo sleeps five times a day. 90 minutes each, totaling 7.5 hours spread across the day instead of one long overnight block. His sleep coach built a routine so precise that his brain never has to decide when to rest. That decision was made once. Then automated.
Which honestly reframes the whole routine conversation for me. It was never really about waking up early or being some productivity robot. It's about how many decisions you're quietly saving your brain from making before your day even really starts.
A routine isn't discipline dressed up. It's just fewer decisions left standing between you and the version of your day that's yet to happen.
That's probably why the free flow days feel harder even when they look easier on paper. Every little thing becomes a decision again. What to eat, when to do the groceries, where to take your kids on the weekend. That adds up fast. And by the afternoon we're not lazy, we just ran out of fuel from deciding things that used to run on autopilot.
Routine basically means less decision fatigue, which in return gives you more energy for the decisions that actually matter.
This week's nudge
Tonight, before you go to bed, pre-decide exactly one area of the day for tomorrow. Set a time and decide exactly what you'll be doing within that window. Nothing else during that time. Just that one thing.
If it works out, ask yourself if you want to apply it to the next day.
If it didn't go as planned, reflect on what you actually did instead. No judgment. Just data.
It's not about copy pasting a CEO's 5am routine. It's about becoming the CEO of your own day.
See you next Monday ☀️
Warmly,
Narman
Just a human trying to pre-decide his way to a better week.
P.S. Know someone who'd like an honest perspective on topics like this? Bring them along here 🌿