1. From Today Until This is Over, You Have a New God, and His Name is ‘Routine’

The biggest lesson I have learned from the past two weeks is how much I rely on social pressure to accomplish, well, anything.

That may sound weird coming from someone whose occupation (author) doesn’t even require me to wear pants most days. But, I know, it surprised me, too.

My days used to revolve around meetings, calls, and deadlines. It used to be, “Oh, I have a bunch of really important meetings this afternoon. Better get writing!” Not only have those been removed, but so has the urgency of getting anything done in a timely manner. I mean, all my deadlines are in limbo, so who cares, right? Whether I write something this morning, tonight at 11 PM or next Tuesday, nobody is going to know. Therefore, constant procrastination has set in. And it’s been brutal. I’ve often found myself finishing work at 2 AM and somehow feeling good about it. Apparently quarantine life brings out my inner college student.

When you look at professionals who have to deal with a lot of social isolation, they all say pretty much the same thing: routine is king. Most people are like me, they rely on the fear of social embarrassment to get them out of bed on time in the morning. Without that social accountability, they morph into some sloth-like creature that vaguely resembles a functional human being.

That’s why, in these desperate times, we must fall back on our personal routines, and worship them like the angry jealous gods they are.

Routines should be basic. They shouldn’t be over-planned or obsessively detailed down to the minute. That’s because the more rigid and detailed a plan is, the more you’re going to fuck stuff up. And when you fuck stuff up, it becomes that much easier to throw the whole routine out the window and say, “Well, that didn’t work. Back to video games.”

For our quarantine routines (quaroutines?) let’s stick with the basics:

Wake Up Time
Work hours or Productivity Hours (new skill, project, etc.)
Time for health and self-care
Bed time

For me, this looks like…

8 AM – Out of bed by this time

8 AM to 3 PM – Work hours

3 PM – Exercise/Health self-care

4 PM to 9 PM – Socializing/calls/video games

12AM – Lights out

Set times for each one, and then adhere to them religiously. I don’t know if you’re into Jesus or Yahweh or Allah or whatever, but if you are, take a minute to pray to them and let them know that it’s not them, it’s you, and you need to see another deity for the next few months. And that deity’s name is QUAROUTINE.

Quaroutine is an angry, jealous god and demands 100% compliance. If you miss any of Quaroutine’s deadlines, you’ll be punished with 48 hours of lethargy and despair. Don’t disappoint the Great God Quaroutine!

Now, here’s the important part. You need to set up little rituals for yourself to make sure you worship Quaroutine correctly. Pick a location for everything. Are you going to work at the kitchen table? In your bedroom? What are you going to wear? How can you set up your house to make this as easy as possible?

This sounds crazy, but a lot of people who work from home still get dressed up as if they’re going to an office because they find it shifts their mindset. It also wastes a lot of money on make-up and straight razors, but we’ll discuss that in another article. The point is, your Quaroutine shouldn’t be mindless, there should be a conscious process around each time.

One thing I do that has always helped me is opening up everything on my computer that I will need to work on the next day, the night before, so when I wake up it’s harder for me to procrastinate starting. If you’re going to exercise, where? Can you put your exercise clothes out the day before? If you’re going to cook, can you meal prep? When will you decide what you’re going to make? Decide these things now, because I guarantee if you wait to do it in the moment… you just won’t do it.

The Quaroutine God is best worshipped in pairs. If you can, find an accountability buddy (accountabilibuddy?). Find someone else who is struggling to get shit done each day and link up with them either via text or call a couple of times a day to check in. Better yet, start up a Skype/Zoom call with your Accountabilibuddy and just sit there and work together on the call to make sure you’re both doing it! On top of finding some accountability for yourself, this will have the added benefit of getting you important social contact with others (which is the next point we’ll cover).

Finally, when it comes to sleep, you can’t control when you sleep or how well you sleep. But you do control when you get in and out of bed. If you adhere to the strict Quaroutine that you lay out for yourself, your sleep will naturally adapt (after a couple painful days).

When I say worship your routine, what I’m really saying is that your routine should take precedence over everything else for the next few months. Some days you’ll be productive. Some days you won’t. Some days you’ll be healthy and energized. Some days you won’t. But every day, you can control whether you show up or not. And showing up is (mostly) what matters.

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