Tag: routine

Efficiency Mode

I was in line at the car wash when the issues started.

First, the Check Engine light turned on. Then the airbag deployment indicator illuminated.

The electronic display near my center console started flickering on and off. And my power windows stopped working.

It was as if my car was having a seizure.

I had a pretty good idea of what was happening. My alternator was failing, and my car’s electrical system was on its last legs.

My car still worked, but my options were severely limited. If the engine were to idle for a few minutes longer, I’d be done for.

I didn’t have the money for a tow truck. And I didn’t know who to call for assistance.

There was but one option. I had to get this hunk of sheet metal to the mechanic while I still could.

The first task was to peel out of the car wash line. Fortunately, I was far enough from the cashier that I could cut away without incident.

But that only started the adventure.

The mechanic was four miles across town, with a maze of city streets in between. I’d need to find a route that didn’t have too many turns. And I had to go just the right speed to glide through every green light without effort. For if I stopped – or braked and accelerated too much – the car might have died on me.

Fortunately, I knew this part of town like the back of my hand. So, the optimal route came to mind instantly.

There’d be one left turn at the next intersection, followed by a two-mile straightway, a right turn, a one-mile straightaway, two more right turns, and a half-mile jaunt down a highway access road.

So, four turns and two long straightaways. With five traffic lights mixed in for good measure.

It wouldn’t be the easiest sequence for a dying car to traverse. But it was a Sunday afternoon, and the roads were half empty. If I made it through that initial left turn, the rest would be attainable.

I turned out of the car wash entrance and made my way to that first intersection, gradually applying pressure to the gas pedal. The left turn arrow was illuminated ahead of me. But I was still hundreds of yards away.

Seconds felt like hours as the traffic light drew closer. Don’t change yet, I begged silently. Don’t change!

The light stayed green.

I barreled through the turn, pressing the gas pedal one more time as I hit the long straightaway.

The next three traffic lights were now my nemesis. I had to clear them in sequence without maneuvering my car too much.

It turned out I’d built enough speed to make that happen. Two miles rolled by without red lights, and I roared through a right turn onto the shorter straightaway.

I was about halfway through that straightaway when the electrical display went dark. As I cruised through the final green light at 40 miles an hour, I saw the speedometer needle go from 40 to 0 and back to 40, before cutting out entirely.

I was still going 40 miles an hour but in a mostly dead car. I had a mile to go and two turns to manage. And I could only steer and decelerate.

I could have given up then. But I’d come so far. I was determined to make it.

I guided the car to the end of the road, my foot hovering over the brake pedal. With the power steering now failing, I turned the wheel with force, making it through the successive right turns without incident. And I let the car glide down the access road until the mechanic shop came into view.

Then I turned into the parking lot and hit the brakes one last time.

I had made it.

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

This bit of wisdom comes from the pugilistic philosopher Mike Tyson.

The boxer infamous for biting his opponent’s ear and for getting a face tattoo might not seem like the best source of life wisdom. But Tyson is right.

We like to think we have a foolproof plan. We thrive under the illusion of control.

But inevitably, our best plans will get waylaid. And our reaction to that unexpected disruption will ultimately define us.

I wasn’t planning on my alternator going out while I waited for a car wash. The power failure hit me like a sucker punch to the jaw.

But I rallied.

I made a contingency plan on the spot. And I executed it nearly flawlessly.

As I reminisce about all this, one question above comes to mind above all others. How was I able to react so smoothly in a flash?

Some of it was experience. I’d just replaced my alternator months earlier, so I knew the warning signs of a power failure.

But much of it was innate. The quick, decisive actions I took were the product of something I like to call Efficiency Mode.

Efficiency Mode exists within all of us. It’s what steers us to the nearest restroom when our stomach starts acting up in public. It’s what shepherds us to safety when the skies darken and thunder booms around us.

Efficiency Mode brings out our best. It narrows our focus narrows and hones our decisiveness. It slows down time and enhances our ability to deliver optimal results.

But there’s a catch.

Efficiency Mode only exists in crisis. It only emerges when our plans have been waylaid. It only thrives when we’ve been punched in the mouth.

This leaves us with a conundrum. How do we handle the non-crisis times?

Do we carry on through life as usual, embracing the mantle of control while capturing only a fraction of our potential?

Or do we long for a rogue wave to knock us down, taking our efficiency into high gear?

The choice is ours.

The TV show Justified features plenty of colorful characters.

But few are as memorable as Bob Sweeney.

Sweeney is the fictional constable of Harlan, Kentucky. An awkward yet pleasant fellow, he’s played by the comedian Patton Oswalt.

Although his job is paperwork-heavy, Sweeney craves the thrill of big-time law enforcement actions. So, he always brings his “go bag” so that he’s “ready to jump” if the action gets heavy.

Many of us who have experienced that rush feel like Bob. We yearn for that next opportunity to use our “Go Bag,” because we know we’ll be bringing our best.

But the times between those times matter just as much.

If we can’t maintain excellence through the monotonous moments — when we can only top out at 80 percent of our potential — our crisis maneuvers will prove irrelevant. We’ll lose more in the balance than we gain in a pinch.

Yes, we need the plan and the ability to deviate from it. We need to throw confident haymakers and to rise from the mat when we take one on the chin.

When we master both, we will truly be in position to make an impact. But it takes a duality of commitment.

I’ve bought in. Will you?

Going to the Well

On the afternoon of July 13, 2002, the door to the visiting bullpen swung open at Jacobs Field in Cleveland, Ohio. Through that door trotted Mariano Rivera.

Rivera had one mission: Pitch a clean inning to lock up the game for the New York Yankees.

But that would prove to be quite the challenge.

For the Cleveland batters Rivera would face had already picked up on something from prior games. All of Rivera’s pitches — his signature cut fastballs — were ending up in the same spot, just off home plate.

As the inning progressed, a litany of lefthanded hitters trudged to the plate and dug their heels into the back edge of the batter’s box.

The batters were too far back to reach pitches on the opposite side of home plate. But it didn’t matter. They knew Rivera’s wouldn’t throw anything out there. All they’d see is the cut fastball on their half of the plate. And they’d be primed to hit it.

Soon enough, Cleveland had loaded the bases. With his team trailing by one run, journeyman Bill Selby strode to the plate.

Selby took aim at several cut fastballs, driving them into the stands in foul territory. It was clear he had Rivera’s cutter timed up.

If Rivera had thrown just one pitch to the other side of the plate, Selby would have been toast. But instead, Rivera kept throwing the cutter, harder and harder.

Ultimately, Selby’s persistence paid off. He lined a cut fastball over the right-field wall for a game-winning grand slam. The Yankees trudged off the field in disbelief while Cleveland fans and players celebrated.

Rivera had gone to the well one too many times.

Mariano Rivera had already built a name for himself before that fateful day in Cleveland.

He had guided the Yankees to four world titles, won a World Series MVP award, and been selected to five All-Star teams.

But after that defeat, he seemed to get even better.

For Rivera started to mix a straight fastball into his arsenal. A pitch he could splash over the other side of home plate if batters tried to cheat on his cut fastball.

Soon, it was virtually impossible to beat Rivera.

By the time he retired in 2013, Rivera had saved 652 games — with about two-thirds of those saves coming after the Cleveland debacle. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame unanimously the first year he was eligible. And he’s widely considered the greatest closer of all time.

Still, even with all that sustained excellence, the great Mariano Rivera had to learn to adapt. For if he’d kept going to the well — firing that cut fastball to the same spot, game after game — eventually other teams would have ambushed him the way Cleveland did. His performance would have declined, and his legacy would have been incomplete.

The fact that Rivera had the open-mindedness to change his approach while at the peak of his game says as much about him as any of the accolades that he racked up. It transformed him from a ballplayer into an example worth following.

Why keep going to the well?

Why keep reverting to the same old pattern, over and over?

It doesn’t make much sense.

After all, we know that perfection is unattainable. If one of the greatest baseball players ever can come up short now and then, why do we expect any better of a fate in our endeavors?

And if insanity is doing the same thing over and over, our affinity for routine might be nothing short of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So, why do we ignore these inexorable truths? Blame two F’s — fear and familiarity.

We fear making a critical error by venturing into the unknown. So, we stick to the familiar, expecting predictably cozy results.

The irony is palpable.

For not only do we often find such assuredness lacking when we follow this approach. But we also are left unprepared when things inevitably go off-script.

This is bad enough when it befalls us individually. But if the issue is societal, it can be downright disastrous.

Recent history is littered with instances of slow and clunky responses to an emergent threat. A blossoming pandemic and a spiraling inflation crisis are but two examples of this.

We went to the well of familiar approaches in each case, only to watch the threat linger and intensify, strangling us slowly like a boa constrictor.

As this has occurred, fear has set in. Certainty has faded away. And a sustainable path forward has proven harder to reach.

The old well has gone dry. It’s time to change things up.

About a year into my news career, a new face joined our newsroom.

Like me, the new hire worked behind the scenes, in an off-air role. Unlike me, he had plenty of big-city news experience.

Things started off amicable but quickly deteriorated.

For the new hire wanted our small, local news operation to focus coverage on developments in the Middle East. And I wanted to cover every arrest and car wreck in the metro area.

The best solution would probably have been a compromise — a mix of Middle East coverage from the network feed and local reporting from our journalists in-house.

But I was too hard-headed to acquiesce to such an agreement. Instead, I kept going back to the well, demanding that local news stay local.

A power struggle ensued, and I emerged victorious. The new hire eventually left the station, and I continued building the nightly newscasts the way I always had.

Looking back, I’m not filled with satisfaction at this development. I’m overcome by shame.

I wish that I had handled the situation better. That I’d been open-minded enough to listen to what my erstwhile co-worker was saying. That I’d leaned in to calls for change in an industry that was all about the unexpected.

Instead, I went back to the well. I demanded to do things the way they had been done before. And all that left me with was a divided newsroom and burned bridges.

In the years since that incident, I’ve tried to be more open-minded. When I’ve found myself going to the well, I’ve asked myself why I was doing so. And if I don’t have a solid answer, I’ve shifted my approach.

There’s nothing preventing us all from doing this. Nothing but ourselves.

So, let’s resolve to be better. To be shrewder. To be more open-minded.

Let’s not allow the tried-and-true to tie us in knots.

It’s time to lean into a fresh approach, and the wonders it unlocks.

The Consistency Paradox

The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. –Warren Buffet

As is often the case, the Oracle of Omaha knows of what he speaks.

Yes, we are creatures of habit. We’re drawn to consistency, like moths to a flame.

In a world that’s all too often unpredictable, routines give us a sense of calm. Habits help us attend to our needs while diffusing the stress that comes from surprises.

This isn’t always for the best. Some habits — alcoholism, compulsive gambling, or drug addiction, for instance — can destroy lives.

Then again, healthy routines can lead to substantial improvements. Exercising can help us stay fit. Cooking can stimulate our curiosity. Getting enough sleep can keep us energized throughout the day.

But these routines only work if we keep them consistent.

The end goal is tantalizing. So, we go all-in.

We watch TED Talks about habits. We read self-help books about healthy routines. We turn ourselves into models of consistency, in hopes of reaping the benefits.

But at what cost?

I am familiar with the seduction of routines. They’ve long been a prominent part of my life.

I’ve gone for a run at least once a week for the last 8 years, for instance. And every week for the last 5 years, I’ve put together a fresh article here on Words of the West.

Much has changed during that time — my job responsibilities, my home address, my orbit of friends and acquaintances. But through this evolution, my routines have kept me grounded. They’ve provided a clear path from then to now.

Yet, the recent global pandemic threw me for a loop. The world dramatically changed at its onset. And like many, I struggled to adapt.

While there was a temptation to retreat in the early days, I dug in. If anything, the stress and uncertainty spurred me to double down on my existing routines.

For example, I ramped up my exercise regimen to four days a week — all while moving my workouts outdoors. I set up a meal prep rotation, with new staples such as Slow Cooker Sundays. And instead of solely writing an article here each week, I also kept a daily account of my life in quarantine.

There was a method to my madness. Accelerating my habits would give me a semblance of control over the uncertainties of pandemic life. Staying consistent with my routines would help me bridge the pre and post-pandemic worlds.

At least that’s what I told myself.

But the pandemic far outlasted my quarantine. And with the world in an extended state of flux, my consistency began to turn into a crutch.

As friends and family tried to connect with me, I turned them down in order to prepare another homecooked meal. I cut back on my sleep time to make room for my writing habits. And I even tried to run on four inches of snow, just to keep from going a week without a workout.

Consistency had gotten me through a major disruption in my life. But it also blinded me to the situation at hand. And it prevented me from moving forward.

The best ability is availability.

This adage has practically become gospel in any industry that relies heavily on teamwork.

The premise is simple. Someone with raw potential alone can amaze. But if they’re only able to showcase those talents here and there, their long-term impact will be muted.

Reliability is at a premium in our society, whether we’re playing ball or bringing our lunch pail to the construction site. From our earliest days, we’re taught the virtues of consistency. We’re urged to do things the right way, over and over again.

There are some virtues to this doctrine. It’s helped us rebound from significant setbacks. And it’s allowed us to set a standard that can endure across generations.

But the reliability mandate also pins us under a substantial weight. It leaves us to wilt under the strain of legacy.

As our society innovates and grows, the old patterns we once espoused lose much of their muster. Yet, we recognize that those very patterns — our habits and routines — are what got us to such an inflection point. We are fond of those memories, and we’re hesitant to cast those patterns off.

This is The Consistency Paradox. It’s the recognition that the same rigor that helped make us great can keep us from becoming even greater.

The Consistency Paradox is what’s made But that’s the way we’ve always done it such a powerful retort. The Consistency Paradox is why pledges for changes in behavior patterns so frequently fall short.

And as the pandemic dragged on, I found myself running headlong into The Consistency Paradox.

I was opening myself up to a gauntlet of my own creation. But in doing so, I was closing the door to new opportunities.

When is the right time to change course?

This is the question that we must grapple with when it comes to routine.

In my case, establishing consistent habits was critical early in the pandemic. It allowed me to fill the void that emerged when the world shut down.

But those same advantages soon became liabilities. As the familiar faded out of sight, so did the significance behind my routines. I became nothing more than a misguided soul standing defiantly against the wind.

I had believed that dogged consistency would spare me the worst outcomes of the pandemic — serious illness, economic hardship, and a sense of disillusionment. But even with my supercharged exercise, cooking, and writing habits, I found myself reckoning with crippling anxiety, strained social ties, and divergence from rational thought.

I eventually changed my ways. I dialed back on my routines and allowed a measure of randomness to return to my life. Even with the lingering shadow of the pandemic, I’ve been happier since making that shift.

But I wish I could have seen the light earlier. If I had spent less time chained to pointless routines, how much better off would I be now?

I’m sure I’m not alone in wondering this. The Consistency Paradox is a subtle anchor, dragging us down without making us aware of our dire circumstances.

It takes some extreme introspection to free us of The Consistency Paradox’s smothering embrace. And introspection is not something we’re all that great at.

Even so, the time for excuses has long passed. We can do better. We must do better.

So let’s treat routine or habit the way we do caffeine or sugar — as something that’s most useful in moderation. Let’s maintain some spontaneity in our lives. And let’s approach the uncertain future with the same zeal with which we recount the sepia-toned past.

Consistency can lift us up. Let’s not allow it to drag us down.

Order of Operations

PEMDAS.

I still remember the day I first saw those strange letters on the whiteboard. I couldn’t have been more than 12 years old, and I was fully perplexed.

There I was, sitting in a middle school Algebra class, and there was no math. Just a bunch of letters — letters that didn’t even spell out a real word.

What on earth was going on?

Moments later, my teacher decoded the mystery. PEMDAS was simply an acronym for the mathematical Order of Operations.

When faced with a complicated math problem, we should solve the area in Parentheses first, the teacher explained. Then, we should resolve the Exponents. After that, we should take care of anything that needs to be Multiplied and Divided. And finally, we should handle everything that must be Added or Subtracted.

The teacher then wrote a jumbled math problem on the board, making quick work of the tangled mess to show us how to use the power of PEMDAS to our advantage.

“This is critical,” the teacher exclaimed. “You will need to know this principle to solve the problems in this class.”

My confusion turned to righteous indignation.

Up to this point, math class had consisted of conquering straightforward tasks. What’s 150 divided by 3? What’s 4 to the third power? I did what was asked of me to the best of my abilities, and that was that.

But now? Now I was expected to just do all this work on my own, just to make a problem solvable.

It didn’t seem fair to me. Why was I being asked to jump through all these hoops? To understand and apply these obscure rules about what to do when?

This is so pointless, I fumed inwardly. I’ll never have to use this in real life.

Oh how wrong I was.

It was not just another work day.

I was cooking lunch with several colleagues at the Ronald McDonald House — part of my employer’s volunteer initiatives.

As lunchtime approached, I took my place on the serving line. My task was to open a sandwich bun, put it on a plate, fill it with meatballs and pass it to a colleague — who would help fulfill the next part of the meal.

With sanitary gloves covering both of my hands, I prepared for the mass of people entering the dining room.

I quickly developed a routine for making sandwiches. My left hand would pry the bun open, while my right one would add the fillings.

While I did this, several other colleagues cooked more food behind me. This way, we made sure we fully covered the lunch rush.

Things were going smoothly at first. But once the new batch of food was integrated into the serving line, everything went haywire.

Suddenly, my rhythm was off. My hands no longer instinctively knew what role to play. And I lost track of what I was doing.

At one point, instead of filling a sandwich bun, I handed the empty bun to the person I was serving.

My colleague quickly stepped in and filled the order. But she gave me a hard time about it for the rest of the day.

As I reflected on what went wrong, my mind drifted to somewhere I hadn’t expected. It went back to PEMDAS.

For my experience on the food line was like a math problem. My hands were the operators and the plated sandwich was the output.

It was a simple equation, until the new batch of food was introduced. Suddenly, there was more information than I could process in real-time.

With a line of hungry patrons, I couldn’t just call Timeout to solve the suddenly more complicated math problem. So I powered through — and made some boneheaded errors.

My words from decades earlier had come back to haunt me. Order of Operations was indeed quite present for me in real life.

My serving mishap story is not unique.

Order of Operations is critical in nearly everything we do.

We rely on a proven routine, both for survival and for cultural acceptance. There is a sequence to things — a pattern we’re inclined to follow. And there are consequences for severing ties with that sequence.

This is not only true on the assembly line. It’s true in all corners of life.

If we don’t shower and brush our teeth each morning, we grace our loved ones, friends and co-workers with a foul stench. If we don’t properly prep our meals before cooking them, we waste a perfectly fine dish. If we take items from the shelves at the store without rendering payment on the way out, we break the law. And if we get intimate with someone without consent, we break the law and obliterate trust.

Whether we’re creatures of routine or change artists, we must remain vigilant to the power that Order of Operations holds. We must do what we can to avoid utter chaos.

For the costs of chaos can be fatal — either literally or through social exclusion. To survive and thrive, we must find some order in a world that’s naturally frayed.

Order defines the boundaries of connection. And connection allows us to achieve far more together than we can alone.

Even as technological advances break down established barriers — from processes to communication challenges — this principle remains as true as ever. While the tech systems we rely upon today are more efficient and expansive than ever before, there is an established protocol to each of them — both for coding them and for using them.

Order of Operations reigns supreme.

As it turns out, the day I saw the word PEMDAS on the whiteboard might have been the most consequential of my scholastic life.

It opened my eyes to a critical framework. One that could help me for the rest of my life.

Yet, I believe it could have a similar effect on all of us.

The more we are aware of the invisible processes that drive our habits and routines, the more we can use them to our advantage.

This selective mindfulness can keep us centered, coherent and consistent. These qualities can help us provide even greater value to those we impact.

So don’t mock PEMDAS.

It might be a clunky acronym, but it’s also the key to something profound.

The Everyday Evolution

I don’t like change.

That’s a bit of an odd statement from someone who relocated three times in a seven-year span, but one filled with truth.

Some people get a rush from a constant stream of new adventures; I’m more comfortable with the tried-and-true routine.

But life doesn’t care about my comfort zone. My own biology doesn’t care about my comfort zone. And, to a certain extent, my mind doesn’t care about my comfort zone.

So I’ve made some big changes. My address, time zone, employer, career, sleep schedule and hobbies have all transformed in the past decade. To a certain degree, my temperament has too — I’ve come to embrace my introverted nature without becoming a hermit, come to embrace the serenity of silence at certain points during the week and come to find a balance between the times when I’m locked in and kicking back.

But most of these changes have been reactive. I had to adapt in order to play the hand I’d been dealt, regardless of how I ended up at the table in the first place. And a reactional change is more about self-preservation than self-improvement.

There ain’t much shame in survival, according to Darwin. (The Donner Party notwithstanding.) But there’s little to be gained from it.

So in the past year, I’ve pivoted. I’ve decided to make change a proactive part of my life.

It started with a reactive decision. Noticing that my wallet was empty but my fridge was full of beer one evening, I decided to cut beer from my grocery list — for good. Suddenly, another thought popped in my head, unprovoked: While I’m at it, why don’t I also commit to eating out less often?

Soon, I was bringing my lunch to work 4 days a week, and preparing meals at home every weeknight. Not coincidentally, I gradually stopped eating all fast food.

Next up was Dr Pepper. I quit that — and all other soft drinks — cold turkey about 8 months ago, followed by other sugary drinks like sweet tea, protein shakes and Gatorade. Eventually, I purged sugar itself — aside from the occasional donut at the office or slice of pecan pie at a restaurant.

At the same time, I increased my workout load, committed to taking multi-mile walks on weekends and even added fruit and vegetables to my diet.

And food wasn’t the only part of my life that changed. I cut back on traveling, going to sporting events, shopping and other thrill-seeking events — committing much of that time and energy toward initiatives like Words of the West, fitness, cooking and self-education.

A lot of wholesale change, all inspired by one choice to stop buying beer.

Now, you might think that replacing so many things I like with those that I was once ambivalent to would be a soul-crushing experience. But you would be dead wrong.

I feel better than I ever have. I’m lighter, stronger and more energized.

Why? Because I haven’t changed. I’ve evolved.

The changes I’ve made have rekindled old interests — such as the art of cooking — and inspired new ones, like an active lifestyle. Swapping out old habits for new ones allows me to continue my drive for self-improvement, while maintaining the balance of routine.

This evolution is ongoing. I’m sure as the weeks, months and years go by, I will keep proactively finding ways to make my life healthier, more productive and more efficient.

You can do this too. If you’re on the fence about making changes in your life, get at it!

Evolution is an everyday process. Grab the bull by the horns and let it ride!