I’m going to share an embarrassing story.
So, I’ve been practicing a simple morning routine for the past 15 years, which includes time in the Word, prayer, exercise, planning, reading, and writing. I call it the POWER morning routine, and it has served me well.
But there was a time when I went a little overboard with it.
When I finished seminary, I was overwhelmed with how much free time I suddenly had at my disposal. After three grueling years of schooling while working full-time, the idea of just working a full-time job seemed almost too good to be true.
So, being the productivity enthusiast that I am, I set myself to redeeming the time by crafting The Ultimate Morning Routine™ (you should hear that in your head in a deep bass with lots of reverb).
Evidently, I had been reading too many Puritan biographies, because this is the ridiculous plan I came up with:
- Wake up at 3am
- Translate a passage in Hebrew
- Translate a passage in Greek
- Pray for one hour
- Read & write for one hour
- Exercise for an hour
- Shower and get ready for the day
I’m not joking. I really thought I had something there. I wish I had a photo of the self-satisfied smirk I had as I set my pen down and surveyed the brilliant plan I’d devised.
Then my plans met reality.
I tried that routine one time. Once! The combination of lack of sleep with mental strain finally brought my plans back down to earth. It was totally unsustainable.
There’s a difference between an ambitious plan on paper and what actually works in practice. And when it comes to morning routines, the key is consistency. And this was a routine I had no hope of ever maintaining consistency with.
Since I started working with believers in the Redeeming Productivity Academy, I’ve seen a similar pattern play out in the lives of other productivity-minded Christians (though, usually not to the same degree of insanity).
I think what happens is we get a taste of what’s possible with a good routine, that sense of not feeling behind all the time, of actually making real progress on what matters most, and then you start to wonder what would happen if you optimized things even further. And we optimize ourselves right into impossibility.
But for creatures, productivity isn’t a matter of dialing in every single little detail. You don’t need to live like a machine to bear fruit. In fact, it turns out machines can’t bear fruit. You really just need to develop a handful of good habits. Water daily, and watch God cause the growth.
To keep it simple:
- Daily devotions
- Eat well and exercise
- Plan your work in advance
- Curate your information diet
That’s the 80/20. That’s where the leverage is.
So before you set off to optimize every 15-minute chunk of your day or obsess over finding the perfect task management system, make sure you’re watering the garden.
And don’t overthink it.