“I’m more about organized behavior routines. Yes, I do put my toothpaste on the same spot all the time. I’m not O.C.D., but I love routine. I get less depressed with routine. You’re just a trained animal in a circus. I like that feeling: Now we’re going to do this trick, now we’re going to do that trick. That makes me feel better. I don’t want too much mental freedom. I have too much of that anyway.”
– Jerry Seinfeld, New York Times
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“When forced to work within a strict framework, the imagination is taxed to its utmost and will produce its richest ideas.”
– –T. S. ELIOT, quoted in, The Houdini Solution by Ernie Schenck
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Focus is a form of harnessing energy.
A routine is a way of creating a pen in which to hold the unthinking sheep of our day to day routines.
Once we’ve shown up, as usual, to complete the task there is an extra bit of energy derived from the pride of having done it again.
By reducing indecision, friction is reduced.
We put ourselves under strain by placing a box around our creative selves.
It’s in the flexing against the constraints that we get stronger.
Judgement of the rightness of the activity is removed if it is part of a larger system of routine.
It’s like dressing our minds in the same clothes every day. A self imposed uniformity is it’s own style. There is nothing dramatic or wild. But there is consistency.
Routine is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same result. The work is done. The routine does not assess quality. It only guarantees delivery.
Once I’ve been delivered, I do not think of the million other things I could be doing. I am free to do the one thing that needs to get done.
It’s a routine superpower. But it’s powerful.
And free.
Conversations With Quotations 