For years I thought routines were what you built when you'd run out of spontaneity. So I resisted them. I was available to whatever the day brought. What the day brought, mostly, was distraction.

What I Changed

Two years ago I started protecting the first ninety minutes of every workday. No meetings. No email. Just one piece of work that required actual thinking. This made some people briefly annoyed. It changed my output completely.

The thing routine actually protects isn't your schedule. It's your attention. And your attention is the only resource you have that doesn't renew at the rate you spend it.