Build Your Life One Routine at a Time

I used to think that the changes that shaped the rest of my life had to be big.

Over time, I noticed something different. Some of the changes that looked small at first had a much larger impact because I repeated them.

One of the clearest examples came from my years as a full-time writer. I knew how long a writing assignment should take, but I still had a habit of procrastinating until the deadline was close. I could turn a six-hour job into a Friday-morning emergency simply because I kept putting off the start.

The routine that changed that wasn't complicated. I got up, went through my morning routine, got ready, and immediately started writing. Sometimes the first action was nothing more than writing one line.

Once I started, the procrastination was over. One line became a paragraph. A paragraph became 1,000 words. And sometimes I finished a project days ahead of the deadline instead of getting up at 5 a.m. to rescue it.

That's the principle behind this lesson: start with one routine small enough to use on an ordinary day, connect it to something important, and let repetition do the bigger work.

In This Lesson

·        Why small routines can have a larger long-term effect than they appear to

·        The question to ask when choosing a routine to build

·        How routines turn important actions into things you don't have to restart every day

·        The procrastination problem I had as a full-time writer

·        The simple morning writing routine that helped me start sooner

·        Why writing one line was enough to break the procrastination cycle

·        How small routines can stack and compound over time

·        Why routines can change the kind of person you become

·        How to give a routine a clear trigger, simple action, and obvious finish

·        Why the first version should be simple enough to repeat on an ordinary day

Watch the video or read the complete transcript below.

Build Your Life One Routine at a Time

(Transcript edited for clarity.)

Hi, I'm Wes. Welcome to Build Your Life One Routine at a Time.

What I'm going to share with you today is that if you can figure out one simple thing to do today, it can truly change the rest of your life.

I've learned this from experience.

I used to think that things that change the rest of my life had to be big.

They had to be a huge change.

But eventually, I noticed that a lot of times, changes that seemed simple or small often had a much larger impact on the rest of my life.

So: Build Your Life One Routine at a Time.

Here's the question that, if you can answer it today, can make a huge change in your life.

What one routine could make the rest of your life work better?

What's one routine you could put into place today that would instantly improve the rest of your life?

I'll come back to that question, but think about it as we go through this today.

Your life isn't built only by big decisions.

It's also built by the ordinary actions you repeat, the ordinary routines, and the simple routines.

We all have routines.

Everyone's life is built around routines of some sort.

A lot of times, we have these routines and don't even think about them.

Sometimes that's good.

There are a lot of routines we don't have to think about.

But when it comes to important areas of your life, you need to intentionally think about creating routines and putting them in place.

When I talk about routines, I'm basically talking about systems.

That's what I talk about all the time: systems.

One useful routine may look small, but repeated long enough, it can change an entire area of your life.

Routines turn important actions into something you don't have to restart every day.

Let me give you an example.

Back when I was a full-time writer, I had a tendency to procrastinate.

I'm better than I used to be, but I still have that tendency.

If I had a writing deadline, I would often procrastinate.

I knew how long it took me to write a certain number of words.

Let's say I needed to have 5,000 words turned in by Friday at noon.

Depending on the subject, at the time I could write around 1,000 words an hour on material I knew.

So 5,000 words due by noon on Friday would require five hours of writing.

Give myself an hour for editing, and I'd need six hours.

I'd know this a week before, and then I'd procrastinate.

No big deal.

Mess around on Monday.

Do something else Tuesday.

Work on something else Wednesday.

Then all of a sudden, it's Thursday morning.

I'd think, "Six hours," and then maybe life would come up.

What happened most of the time when I procrastinated was that it would be Thursday night, seven or eight o'clock, and I basically hadn't started yet.

Now I'm up against it, so I'd work through it.

I didn't usually miss deadlines.

I'm sure I did, but I don't remember missing many deadlines.

I rarely missed a deadline.

If I had to, I'd get up at five o'clock Friday morning and work the six hours to have it done before 11 o'clock so I could turn it in by noon.

But why did I do that to myself?

In that example, I could have worked an hour a day Monday through Friday instead of getting up at 5 a.m. on Friday morning to get it done.

So here's what I did.

I created a very simple routine.

The routine was: get up - and when I say you, I mean me - start my morning, go through my morning stuff, get ready, eat, etc., and then immediately sit down and start writing.

I didn't have to write a ton.

I didn't necessarily have a word goal every day, although for different projects I did.

But as a general routine, I got up, got ready, and immediately started writing.

What I found - and you have to find your own tricks, systems, or what works for you - was that if I could write the first line, then I'd write the first paragraph.

Before you knew it, I had an article written, or a thousand words, or whatever.

Getting started was the problem.

Procrastination was the big problem.

If I could just get started, the routine solved that problem.

The routine said: automatically start writing.

That's what I did.

It sounds simple, but it worked for me.

So what's one routine you could put into place right now that would help you if you automatically did it repeatedly?

It doesn't have to be every day.

Everybody has different goals, different things they want to accomplish, and different success areas.

It might be every day.

It might be every hour.

It might be once a week.

Whatever it is, it doesn't matter.

What's one small routine?

Think about my example.

My example was just start writing.

How small is that?

That's about as small as you can get.

Just start writing.

Let's say it was write one line.

Let's say a 15- to 20-word sentence.

That's nothing.

That doesn't take a minute.

But that simple routine of starting got rid of the procrastination.

I recognized that procrastination was the real issue, and I put a routine in place that destroyed the procrastination.

Once I started, there was no longer procrastination.

The reason I say that again is: don't focus on making this routine something huge.

It can be simple.

Make a small change.

Create a small routine that's going to help you with anything you're working on right now.

Then it's like most things when I talk about stacking wins or stacking small wins.

Create one little routine that helps you just a little bit.

Then come up with a second little routine that helps you just a little bit.

If you continually work on creating routines that automatically improve the rest of your life, they start compounding.

You get better and better, and you start making much better progress.

Routines turn important actions into something you don't have to restart every day.

Become the type of person who does this routine.

When I was talking about the writing, I became the type of person who got up every day and started writing.

I wasn't that person before.

I was the person who procrastinated.

I trained myself to become the type of person who just started writing every day.

That was the routine.

Everything else took care of itself.

So become that type of person.

Every time you create a small routine, become the type of person who does it.

What do you need to do to become the person who does that every day?

Trying to change several areas at once often creates more pressure than progress.

That's why I keep focusing on one small thing.

Create one small routine.

Yes, you might need dozens of routines to accomplish a big goal, a big project, or get where you want to go in the long term.

But you don't need all of them immediately.

What you need is to create one simple routine you'll actually use, put it into place, then find the next one.

You don't create 27 of these things at once.

You create one simple one at a time and keep stacking them up so that in a month or a year you have 27 of them in place to get to the big thing.

Don't try to do it all at once.

One simple thing.

The question was: What is one routine that would make the rest of your life work better?

Figure out what that one thing is and put it into place.

Start with one routine that supports something important to you right now.

Give it a clear trigger.

For me, what was the clear trigger?

I get up, I get ready, then I start writing.

As soon as I got ready, I had to start writing.

Give it a clear trigger.

That was my trigger.

Then give it a simple action.

What was my simple action?

Write one sentence.

Just start writing was what it actually was.

The trigger was: you're up and ready, go.

You've got to start.

The action: start writing.

And give it an obvious finish.

For me, the obvious finish was easy.

The finish was never missing the deadline.

If I needed to have 5,000 words written in the week, I didn't always do it this way, but the obvious goal for Monday would be to write at least 1,000 words.

Here's what I found, though.

Once I started doing that, often if I got started on Monday, I'd get on a roll.

Instead of writing only 1,000 words, I'd already be in the flow and keep working.

I might get 2,000 or 3,000 words done on Monday.

That's the opposite of putting things off.

That's the opposite of procrastination.

Just because I put this simple routine in place and trained myself to be the person who does it, all of a sudden, instead of procrastinating, I'm ahead.

Let's say I write 2,000 words on Monday.

I do the same thing on Tuesday and write 3,000 words.

Then I'm done.

That's the opposite of procrastination.

Then I have time to work on other things the rest of the week instead of procrastinating, wasting time, and forcing myself to get up at 5 a.m. Friday morning so I don't miss the deadline.

Make the first version small enough to repeat on an ordinary day.

The reason I say ordinary day is because we all know life throws all kinds of stuff at us.

It's not always a simple, easy day.

Sometimes there's chaos.

Sometimes there are all kinds of things that require your attention.

So make the first version of the routine so simple that you can do it even on a day filled with chaos.

The simplicity is what's important.

Worry about big and complex later.

Make it simple, then do it repeatedly.

A goal tells you what you want to accomplish.

A routine tells you what you repeatedly do to move toward it.

You can tie, and you should tie, each of these routines into a bigger goal.

Whatever your bigger goal is, these small routines should support it and get you closer to it.

But the routines aren't the goal.

The routines are there to support the goal.

Build one routine that makes the next day a little better.

That's my challenge to you today.

Find one simple routine you can build and put into your life that makes your life, in some way, better tomorrow.

This is Your Life Systems. I'm Wes.

Thanks so much for being with me.

Like, subscribe. Take care.

What's Next?

·        Choose one area of your life that would improve if one useful action happened more consistently.

·        Make the first routine small enough that you can repeat it even on an ordinary, messy day.

·        Give the routine a clear trigger so you know exactly when it starts.

·        Define the smallest useful action that moves you forward.

·        Give the routine an obvious finish or completion point.

·        Use the routine consistently before adding another one, then stack the next small routine on top.

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