Do you have routines to get things done? Or do you make it up every day?

There is a story about Steve Jobs and his black turtle-neck sweaters. Not sure if it is true, but it makes a point. It was part of his routine. The story goes that black turtle necks are all he had in his closet. That way he never had to make a decision about what to wear and when. It was always the same. He used the routine to move faster, save time, and get more things done.

I do like having a uniform of sorts at work. I have one type of shirt, six of which I wear with jeans and the same boots daily. I am living groundhogs day that way. But I never have to think about it and it is just part of my morning routine.

Routines help me do everything better. It has an order to things so you don’t have to stop and think of what to do.

In the military, we have lots of routines. All of them are called different things. The most prevalent, life-saving routines in the infantry were called IAs, or Immediate Action Drills. It is what you did when there was an ambush, contact with the enemy, or took incoming fire. Those things that you should be doing without thought. The more things you did in the military the more IA drills you learned. And then you practiced them all the time.

I’m a civilian now and actually take pleasure in the fact that no one has tried to kill me in over a decade. It’s a more peaceful way to live.

But we can learn things from IA drills. IA drills were set up to have the most probability of success when things were really bad.

Why don’t you set up your life and execute and/or practice your own IA drill daily or more often?

I actually have one I’m doing very well, my morning routine. And in the morning it’s an IA drill because I roll out of bed, grab my clothes for a bike ride that I stagged the morning before, and head downstairs to the bathroom.

In the bathroom I do my thing, take a progress picture, weigh myself, change into my bike clothes, and head out.

I grab a glass of water, already staged, and a water bottle, already staged, and head to the garage to ride my Zwift trainer for 20 to 30 minutes.

After that, it’s back to the kitchen for another glass of water, to make coffee while I’m changing out of bike stuff and into shorts to read. I finish making the coffee and sit down to read my 10 pages.

When the 10 pages are done I look at what needs to be done for the day and head upstairs to take a shower and shave and get dressed for work. I give my wife a kiss as she is waking up to start her day and am out the door for work.

The days that I do my routine go way better than the days that I skip my morning routine.

And for any of you that think I can go to work any time I want so you couldn’t do something like this, I’m up at 5 am and at work by 8 am. If I can do it, so can you.

It is worth it.

Now I’m working on starting a morning routine at work and a nightly routine to wind down and get more done. It works in the morning, I don’t see why it can’t work everywhere.

What about you? Do you have a routine for things? Do you set up your routines as IA drills that you do without thinking?

Set a routine and follow it for 75 days. You’re life will improve.

Ben Branam

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