Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Routines

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

Routines are a key part of a successful life. Ask anybody about theirs and they'll be happy to share!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The biggest black market you've never heard of might be blooming right under your nose. This plant could sell for between $10,000 and $15,000 on the open market. And where there's big money, there are bigger risks. We would just tie up these big M16s stuck to our heads. I'm Summer Rain Oaks. I'm a plant expert and author. On the Bad Seeds podcast, we explore why your favorite house plants might have a criminal record. Listen to Bad Seeds on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there. Welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. Hey there, I said. Hey there for Chuck, too.

Go ahead and say, hey there, Chuck. Hey there. That's our routine. Let's start. We're talking about routines today. And I think this is a good one because it's like, everyone knows routines are good for you, but it turns out routines are great for you. You might even say they're great for you. Frosted flakes is a routine. You might even say they're crucial and they are because they're game changers for almost every part of your life you can think of. Mental health, physical health, emotional health, safety and security for children. We'll get into all this, but a repeated healthy pattern of behaviors to focus on helps us when we're off the rails and to solidify us when we feel unmoored.

It helps buttresses when we feel solid. There have been countless studies. I saw one from Tel Aviv University, but there's hundreds of studies of how routines and habits, and we'll get into the diff, basically help you reduce anxiety, help you calm yourself, and just put you on a good path in life. Which makes sense because what you're doing is creating something familiar that you can kind of bust out in times of uncertainty and give yourself familiarity like a security blanket almost. So it makes a lot of sense. And there's a huge, routines are having a moment you could say, they're big right now. And I think it's very appropriate that you use the word game changer because that's the kind of attention

it's getting right now. People who use game changer are super into figuring out routines and figuring out how to perfectly optimize them, how to make them as essential as possible. And there is some actual research and science to this, but you said that there's a difference between habits and routines. I disagree. I know some people say, no, they're actually different. I think they're the exact same thing. Yeah. I mean, you're sort of splitting hairs a bit. I've found some stuff that said basically that, and we should think, well, we got our sources from a lot of different places. Do you know some of them? Yeah, Northwestern Med, Parenting, University of Iowa, real simple. There's a post by a guy named Brad Stolberg. I can't

remember what site. I'll have to look it up, but yes, go ahead. Good stuff though. But I did see it broken down as the differences that a habit is associated with a cue like the cue to wash your hands would be that you have just used the bathroom and handled your private parts. And that a routine exists without that cue. It's not dependent on that cue, but I'm kind of with you. It's sort of splitting hairs. Yeah, I also think that routines are dependent on cues. I mean, we talk about them later, like if you have a workout routine in the morning, your cue is waking up in the morning and putting on your exercise clothes. That's a cue. I don't think that they can exist without cues. Because if they existed without cues,

you would just suddenly randomly start like eating a healthy breakfast at like three in the morning, even though you were just sleeping a second ago. You see what I'm saying? So your cue is being awake? Like you would basically, but you would just randomly engage in your routines. They have to be, they're contingent upon some either time or place or something like that. There's cues with routines. And if a habit is something, a behavior that you do that's based on a cue, then it's the same thing as a routine. All right. Well, let's just move on and say, great. Great. And talk more about routines and habits. One thing that they say is great about routines is that, and I guess the idea here is that you have a certain amount of willpower and

some people may have unlimited amounts, but I think the general person kind of taps out at a certain point. And that if you've built a routine, you're not using that willpower of like, oh, I got to get up and again, use my willpower to get up and go to the gym. Like if it's a part of your routine and you do it without fail when you wake up, then you're sort of on autopilot and that willpower is reserved for the other things later. Yeah. It's just one less decision you have to make which allows you to suffer or put off the inevitable decision fatigue you're going to reach later on in the day, right? Yeah. And I think decision fatigue is a real thing. They've proven that. So they say one thing to help out with routines is to cut down literally on just the decision

making process. Right. Like if you get super stressed in the morning picking out your outfit for work, just like narrow, get rid of some stuff and narrow it down to like five or six things that you can wear. Yeah. Just wear all black like that one lady from Thanos. Right. Or no. What was the name of that company? I don't know what you're talking about. Thanos. The dropout? Elizabeth. Oh, sure. Yeah. Theranos. Something like that. Yeah. She wore all black and I think it was because she idolized Steve Jobs, but I think Steve Jobs wore all black because it was just, you didn't need to decide. You just put on the black clothes and it didn't matter to Steve Jobs. He had other things to think about. All right. Let's take a break.

We'll talk about how to establish routines. Does that sound good? Yeah. All right. Right. America loves its founding fathers, but that's a tough act to follow as a founding son. If you do not rise to the head, not only of your profession, but of your country, you will be owing to your own laziness, slovenliness and obstinacy. So we're tracing John Quincy Adams' journey from the White House to the halls of Congress. I'm Bob Crawford, bassist for the Ava Brothers. Join me, Patrick Warburton and Nick Offerman, as we bring the sixth president to life. Was there ever witnessed such a barefaced corruption in any country before? Let justice be done, though the heavens fall. He held the union together

across two pivotal eras and two visions for America. Adams stretches his hand forward to Lincoln and in so many ways makes Lincoln possible. Listen to Founding Son, a curiosity podcast every Thursday on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So to establish a routine, it's the same thing as establishing a habit because they're the same things. And that is that you basically figure out what you need to do, what you want to do, and you do it multiple times over and over. And there's all sorts of different studies about how many times it takes to make a habit or a routine stick. But there are definitely things that you can do to help the whole thing along. And one of them is that you can create

cues for yourself. I can't remember which source this came from, but they said, okay, let's say you want to be a writer and you want to write more. Well, a good way to set up a routine would be to take your laptop to the same place every day and order... Oh, it was you, okay. So this was a great idea, Chuck. Take your laptop to the same place every day. You take the same lunch with you every day or in the same lunch container or something like that. And you set up these cues, I think they're called affordances, objects and surroundings that help cue your routine. And as you build this up and you start to make these associations in your mind, your routine will become more and more habitual. Yeah, and they've done research that says that

pairing things together like this just makes for a stronger attempt at a routine. Like you said, you may be doing the same thing every day or whatever, especially if it's productive, because your body and your mind then say, hey, wait a minute, I got so much good writing done yesterday because it packed my turkey, turkey sandwich in a lunchbox and went to this part of the park to sit under that tree at noon with my laptop in my blue book bag. And I'm going to that work today, so I'm going to do it tomorrow. And then it's almost like tricking yourself in a way. Yeah, it is. It's like you're setting yourself up to eventually become like Reggie Jackson when he's activated in the naked gun and goes to kill the queen. Must kill Nordberg. He didn't

even think about it. He just did it because of the routine that was programmed in it, albeit without his knowledge, because Reggie Jackson would never hurt anybody, but it was still virtually the same thing. Yeah. And I think another good thing to remember is that everyone's different and some people, like you got to know yourself. Some people function great in the morning. Some people function much better in the evening and at night. It seems like the middle of the day, no one does that great because research has kind of shown that we have different chronotypes and we are either larks or owls in general. I'm sure there are people out there that break this mold. But to know your body and know, hey, some people know

they're much better at that morning workout or they would much rather go after work that evening and setting yourself up for that success is key. Yeah. And that's kind of a part of a warning that Brad Stolber gave by the way, the sites called the growth equation. But he was basically saying don't go and research routines and then try to make your life fit the routine. Right. Figure out how that routine is going to fit your life depending on when you're most active or when you're most productive or whatever. Like he said basically, if you're trying to sell a routine that works for you to other people, you're going to run into a problem because not everybody's like anybody else and routines need to adapt to the person. You need to make your

routine work for you. If you find yourself working for your routine, you're a sucker. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of people out there right now that sell their ideas for routines and they're like, shut up, Josh. Those are the people who say game changer. Right. And influencer and disruptor and all those other words. Kids and routines, I included this bit because it's just something that's become really evident to me as a parent. Well, it's so important too. I mean like routines are important for adults, but man, they are essential for kids. Essential for kids, extra, extra essential for any kid with any kind of neurodiversity. They talk about routines just being critical.

Kids love surprises when it's ice cream. Kids don't love surprises when it's, hey, you're not going to school today because, well, they probably love that. That's probably not a great example, but a routine that's disruptive. It helps give the parent a sense of control and that power struggle. Parents love control over kids. It's crucial to get anything done. But once that routine becomes established, in theory, it takes away some of that battle. So if the routine is at the end of every night, you got to get the bathtub, you got to brush your teeth, you got to use the bathroom, put on your jammies and go to bed. That's the routine and it's not questioned. You do that because your body has to be clean. Your body has

to be healthy. It's not up for debate. That stuff is still going to happen, but you're way better at having success there than if you're like, let's just try this a couple of nights so we can see how it goes. Yeah, I can imagine that, yeah, you're still going to get pushback from time to time, but it's probably one time out of 10 instead of nine times out of 10. Or it may be 10 times out of 10, but the battle is just easier one. Oh, really? Because you're like, it's the routine. Sorry, I can't do anything about it out of my hands. I'm just speaking from the parent of a strong-willed child. It's just very rare that Ruby's just like, great, I'll do that. Yeah, I'll just go with the flow. Yeah, but we can-

Does she say like, why? No, she doesn't question why. And we've gotten pretty good at stomping her into submission. Did that come from Parenting Magazine? It did. Dr. Spock. So one of the things that you do want to remember with routines, whether it's a routine for your kid, it's a routine for you, you want to mix it up from time to time because your brain is very, very lazy. And that's why routines work. Our brains love shortcuts. Our brains love to not have to think about something. They want to think about something else or think about nothing at all, go into default network mode. The thing is, when that happens, it actually has eventual impacts on your emotions. You feel boring. You feel like you're in a rut. You feel like your

life is dull. And so there's routines take maintenance, strangely, to make them as effective as possible. And you also have to keep in mind what's coming down the pike. Like, for example, one of the best ways to completely run a routine off the rails is to go on vacation. If you know you're going to go on vacation, you want to have a contingency plan for either carrying your routine into vacation, which is not crazy. Like it's actually kind of healthy. Or if you're like, nope, vacation is vacation from everything, including routines, to have a plan to get back into your routine very quickly after you return. So several days don't go by because with each day that passes, it makes it harder and harder to get back into that routine.

Yeah. And be smart about mixing up your routine. It doesn't mean if you've got a great workout plan that you completely change what you're doing, it could just be like, I'm going to wear a completely different outfit than I normally do. Or if it's my creative writing thing, I'm going to pack a different lunch in a different container. Just little things like that can move your brain in a better direction if you're, find yourself sort of on autopilot. Speaking of kids again, you know, my daughter gets, she's a kid that says out loud, like, I hate my same routine. Like I get bored doing the same stuff. Like routines are great for kids, but a little thing like taking a different route to school can make a big difference. Like just little changes like that.

Plus also, if you're afraid of being kidnapped, you should definitely take different routes all the time too. That's another good reason to mix up your routine. Absolutely. There's one more thing that you should mix up as far as routines go. And that is a workout routine and exercise routine. For one, you can really overdo your muscles if you're working out the same groups over and over again. So you gotta have leg stay. For sure. And then the other thing about it is you can actually like jump start all sorts of different things in your body, positive things by changing up your exercise routine. Because again, your body gets used to it. Find shortcuts and you just don't get as much out of the same workout over and

over again. Yeah. Good stuff. Yeah. Chuck, I'm going to go make a new routine. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm going to figure it out and do it. And I'll report back to you on it. Yeah. What's funny is we have our work routine that's very pretty much ingrained. And I am guilty of like when you've suggested different things that I'm like, no. No. Please don't change this. I know what you mean. I feel very similar. I haven't said that in years. That you feel similar as me? No, no. That like we should change up our work routine. It's been a minute. Yeah. All right. Good stuff. Oh, oh, sorry. Chuck said good stuff, everybody. That's the cue for our routine, which means short stuff is out.

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