Great post! I just started getting into running again and am training for a marathon in December. You hit many points right on and on top of that I feel like I can take a lot from this post. Keeping organized but leaving room for spontaneity & avoiding monotony. Love it!

Also completely agree with writing goals down and exercising to be more productive in a day.

Thanks again, and look forward to more from of you guys on this blog.

Daniel

noticed your Blog throught the bootcamp and thanks to the article Drew wrote I thought about a writing subject and found that the result might be a good comment here.

Establishing a routine – a report:
Sometime in May of this year I started reading a book about Visual Reading as I was looking around for something new to learn and make life better. One of the first exercises in the book was to read a text providing information about jogging and how it is best exercised.

I can’t say why reading this article had an impact, but it did. Soon after I started back into a routine doing some sport in the morning. At the beginning I simply noticed the advantage of “waking up” by being for only 30 minutes on the Cross Trainer. This provided a good motivation to continue and have some sort of a daily routine: waking up, going down and start the day with 30 minutes of light sport.

I followed the suggestion, that it would be best to train in an easy going manner and pulse not going too fast. The optimal pulse speed depends at least on age and fitness and should normally be discussed with the doctor, which I admit not doing.

At the beginning I felt a bit strange as it didn’t seem to be impressive or whatever, I mean aren’t you supposed to be sweating and puffing and changing colour when doing your sport ? Wait, that’s not too impressive either, as it shows that you aren’t trained! I decided not to care and try to make the best out of it. Until now the routine works pretty well, when time is there I work out a bit longer. The good news to me is, that speed and distance have grown since the beginning.

First step is ok, now I can tackle other issues on my daily routine like adding creativity into it

Kaizan- I completely understand your point in regards to creative inspiration. You gotta write when your mind can flow. My ideas on routine are more about eliminating laziness and not being productive. Your diversions from a routine result in something positive.

Stephen- That’s what it is all about. When your are in a routine where you are a slave or feel trapped, you are doing worse than if you haven’t got one at all. It is vitally important to learn to enjoy your routine and feel good about it. One must constantly reevaluate their routine to see if it maximizes their potential and is also enjoyable.

“Watch out for your routine becoming mundane and repetitive. Allow for flexibility and spontaneity to run through your life.”

I need to find a balance. Too often I drift from lack of rigor around my routine. However, I don’t want to become a slave to organization either. So I’m trying to put more planning into my day while at the same time remaining open to going with the flow.

I find it hard to reconcile the need for a daily routine with my creative inspiration. If I have an idea for a blog post, I often feel compelled to write immediately. In this case, it would be foolish to stick to my routine, and deny this creative impulse.

But because I follow my creativity, then my routine is all over the place.

(By the way, the spell-checker on this comments box, doesn’t recognise the word “blog”!!!)