Perhaps the only thing I really gleaned from this article is how brands apparently play such a key role in this man's habits.
Macbook air, textmate, Octopus card, Fitness First, Red Bull, Volvic, iPhone, Gmail, Caffe Habitu. All of these were jarring to me as a reader, as the article would read more naturally with generics--laptop, text editor, charge card, gym, energy drink, water, phone, email, coffee shop--with no loss of meaning. Many of these brands are mentioned 4 times or more during half a dozen paragraphs.
Whether intentional, it demonstrated the power of good branding; get inside someone's head, make them associate good habits with your brand, and you will become part of their daily ritual. They no longer 'go to coffee shop', they go to Caffe Habitu. It's not buying a bottle of water and hitting the gym, its "purchasing a Volvic in the 7/11 then doing the 3 minute walk to Fitness First". They don't check email, they check gmail.
A related takeaway from this blog post is the inherent "bragging rights" people feel when they stick to a habit. This guy doesn't just get up in the morning, it gets up at 5.50am people. Now that's early! Now it's time for 12 reps at 30kg at Fitness First as I knock down my redbull after crushing some sick bugs on my macbook air at the crack of dawn working in the cloud at my webapp startup.
Premium brands do the same, and it's part of the reason for the consistent brand-dropping here. People don't have phones they have iPhones, not because they are ubiquitous (like hoover became the vacuum) but because people must differentiate normal phones from their phones, due to the premium pricing they paid. And by using the new product as part of a habit (like your iphone is an integral part of a morning workout), it becomes more justification for the purchase.
The Red Bull and Volvic seemed particularly out of place to me, especially in that he made buying them one at a time a part of his daily ritual. Maybe he wakes up in the morning with a compulsion to throw his money away at a 7/11 instead of getting a 12-pack from the grocery store? Instead of filling his own bottle from the tap and drinking coffee for his caffeine like normal people who don't attach brands to all of their routines?
I don't know the exact price of Red Bull or Volvic, but at $5 a day and 260 weekdays in a year he'd be spending $1,300/year.
Thanks so much for this, it's definitely something I need to improve on.
My aim with the post was to be extremely detailed, in order to try and emphasise how many different aspects have become habitual. Clearly, the way I ended up being detailed was to use brand names. Now you mention it, it makes sense. I remember writing "bottle of water" and thinking it will have a better effect if I make it more specific, hence "Volvic". Now it makes a lot of sense that I could actually be more detailed in many other ways and still achieve the same effect.
This is great learning, and something I'll try and improve next time!
I really don't think that the brand name dropping is much about status or cost, it's about products he recommends for those tasks because they are the best. Most of the products he mention cost pretty much the same as the competitors anyway.
I think it has to do with how you see creating your own products too. Are you trying to make a product that would be indistinguishable from the competitors, or one that's so good that people mention it by name?
> I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I'm 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I'll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.
Great post on the benefits of habit-forming. I've certainly found something similar in my own exercise experiences.
On a more humorous note, the first portion of the piece reminded me of this gem:
"I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I'm 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I'll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion. "
The one piece of advice I curated from the many articles I read and have put into practice is: "Make it easy".
I moved all the things I need to exercise into one place, streamlined the entire process, and reduced the mental inertia it takes to do things that are good for me.
Part of it is simplifying the process, the other half is making it a habit. I'm also a fan of picking some rationalizations.
For stopping caffeine - every time I drink Coke I'm just thirsty for water, and should just drink water.
For the gym - every time I've ever gone to the gym I feel good when I get home and don't regret going.
For food - I'll enjoy this for 5 seconds and won't even remember it by tomorrow, but it's got the caloric value of 30 minutes of exercise.
The other way to look at it is "resign yourself to doing it." It's amazing how easy thing become when you just decide they must happen. I made the decision that I don't go to work until I've gone for a jog in the morning and it's amazing how much easier/enjoyable it becomes.
The disclaimer is I work where I can be into the office a little later in case I have a late night. But the main point is once you convince yourself you're going no matter what, suddenly your lizard brain has a hard time saying no.
While I recommend exercise, and know that the kind of routine described here can be a very useful tool, doing this all the time seems absurd to me. Humans have managed to remove almost all natural physical stressors from their lives, but then we figure out we need "exercise", and set about to find a half hour activity that optimally affects some fitness parameter. This local optimization can easily become a stressing madness with constant driving here and there to move your muscles in extremely boring ways.
I think, for cardiovascular workouts, it's a much better solution to try to hack your commute into a run / bike ride, if that's possible. You get to use that time twice, since it is both commute and exercise, and this kind of multitasking actually works well. Sure, the workout may not be as "efficient" (locally) as doing everything under perfectly controlled conditions, but this is really not the main concern unless you are inte competing.
Walking desks are a similar kind of hack, even if I find them a somewhat perverse use of electricity.
For muscular workouts I haven't yet found anything that would function as well as the gym, but with less life-overhead.
Octopus card: The Octopus card is a rechargeable contactless stored value smart card used to transfer electronic payments in online or offline systems in Hong Kong.
I've heard countless times that if you're going to start exercising and stay with it you should compete -- for most people that means running and running races on the weekends once in a while or even training for a marathon.
I've done this in the past and I always overtrain and race too early. I have a bad race and stop training shortly after that.
I've found a much more effective way: Between my wife and I whoever is in the gym less in any given week has to pay the other person on Friday -- around $50. There is still competition (neither of us want to admit to losing) but there is also a very tangible penalty.
The combination is an excellent motivator and neither of us have missed a single day since we started it. It's similar to having a partner (a partner got me through 3 years of weight training in college) except that you don't have to work out at the same time, which is much better for busy people.
Competing is definitely not necessary to stick with exercising.
I haven't participated in a race since around '93 or '94, we're talking 2 races that I've done - both Bloomsday runs in Spokane with family.
My current normal week has me at the gym every day and twice on Wednesdays. I do strength training 2-3 times and I usually run over 110km. The only person I compete against is myself.
I hate going to the gym, and I hate working out. But I much prefer having a BMI of 23.4 than the 40+ I used to be at. It's not fun, but once you get used to it and consider it a necessity, you can stay with it.
Of course, I'm not suggesting that everyone work out as much as I do. --A rather innocuous visit to the doctor earlier this month ended up with a blood test that showed a severe iron deficiency. So now I'm taking 300mg of supplements a day for at least 2 months... And that much iron tends to have a bit of an effect on my digestive system, although the opposite of what the doctor warned me about.
I mostly compete with myself. I am trying to do better now than I did earlier.
It helps that progress in my main forms of exercise (indoor climbing, weight lifting) is easy to measure, and relatively straight forward to drive at my level.
I also dable in dancing, where I am still so awful, that progress is easy to gauge. And mixed martial arts, where the whole point of the sport is some form of competition, even though sparring doesn't see you go all out.
I've had the same experience with competition and I'd say a lot of other members of HN would too.
Competition is too much of a motivator for me and my competitive personality. As soon as a competitive element is introduced to exercise it completely takes the fun out of it.
I would give slightly different advice: sign up for races, but don't compete.
I like having a race booked because it gives me a reason to get out and run even when it's cold and rainy: I want to be ready.
On the other hand, I've stopped caring how I do relative to other people. I go run the race. Sometimes I just run it for fun. Other times I'm working to beat a previous time. But either way, I keep in mind that my main goal is fitness, not victory.
Between 1979 and 1987 I ran quite a few marathons, with the odd shorter races, and a few ultras scattered in. Since the fall of 1987, I've run exactly two races, a 5K each of the last two years. My fitness goes back and forth, but I've seldom failed to keep running on the weekends, and taking long walks.
My experience with over training was that it gave signals that could be ignored only willfully.
Competition can be a great motivator--the thought of an upcoming bike race has been enough to get me up early or out riding in the rain on the days when it didn't sound like such a good idea.
But if you aren't wired for competition, consider companionship. If you run, joining the right weekly running club can do wonders for your motivation.
two small things bug me about this. 1. Why is he buying a single can of red bull and a single bottle of water from 7-11 every day? Why not buy in bulk and keep at your house? 2. Is there really much advantages to drinking red bull before a workout? I know there are advantages to caffeine, but I am not convinced red bull is the healthiest way to deliver that caffeine.
As someone with perpetual difficulty maintaining a 24 hour-based sleep schedule, when I see these "my routine" posts I'm always most curious about their sleeping habits.
These people don't go out and enjoy nightlife, staying up until 3am since that would put you off kilter for a few days in a row with this kind of schedule.
I wrote a post last year on my sleep ritual, this is actually a key part of me being able to do the morning routine. I'm still following it almost identically to how I describe in the article: http://joel.is/post/5303723252/creating-a-sleep-ritual
Curious about what exactly? Like the author, I also have a very rigid early morning schedule centered around exercise. I get up at exactly 5.45, go to the gym at 6.00, etc. It definitely helps me maintain a more regular sleep and work schedule, which used to be a problem for me.
I was going to post something similar. I cannot stand letting my life fall into any sort of repetitive routine. I exercise, but I vary type, locations, duration, time, and everything else.
When I find myself doing the exact same thing every day I think of it as grinding towards the grave without ever doing anything original. Life is full of new experiences, unless you are just placing one foot in front of another for 2 hours a day on a treadmill while watching a screen.
It's a pretty dim view of a lifestyle others love but I don't care of it at all. I guess I guess love chaos too much.
The thing about rituals like this one is that they don't even feel planned anymore after awhile, they just happen. Once their somewhat automatic it frees you up to think about other stuff while you're performing them.
Even though he has some routines, there are still challenges and creative parts inside of these routines and the routines just make it easier to get into these tasks.
I love all of these posts that discuss exercising and coding at x time. Wake up, code, exercise, rest of day. But I would LOVE to see a post where the person involved has at least one child under the age of 5. It changes everything. You can't just be out of the house at X time, ready to do your exercise - because Junior has to be fed, changed and taken to school.
(Disclaimer: I have 2 kids, I manage to exercise each day, but it definitely comes at the expense of other things).
I am in the same situation. Two kids, 3 and 1, one more on the way. I had to start taking a long lunch to go to the gym. Thankfully I have the flexibility to work a little extra in the evening after the kids are asleep. I find it a lot harder to tear myself away from the desk in the middle of the day and go work out.
For those looking for an easy way to begin forming new habits, I'd definitely recommend professor Fogg's "3 Tiny Habits" guide. link - http://tinyhabits.com/.
Absolutely! I have an evening routine, and it's key to achieving the morning routine. I need 7-8 hours of sleep or I'll burn out within a few days and fail with the routine one morning. I'm still following it pretty much how I describe in this article from last year: http://joel.is/post/5303723252/creating-a-sleep-ritual
Instead of all the Red bull crap, just start doing some Pranayam and Meditation for 5 to 10 minutes. All your other dependencies will drop off, I promise
[+] [-] heyitsnick|14 years ago|reply
Macbook air, textmate, Octopus card, Fitness First, Red Bull, Volvic, iPhone, Gmail, Caffe Habitu. All of these were jarring to me as a reader, as the article would read more naturally with generics--laptop, text editor, charge card, gym, energy drink, water, phone, email, coffee shop--with no loss of meaning. Many of these brands are mentioned 4 times or more during half a dozen paragraphs.
Whether intentional, it demonstrated the power of good branding; get inside someone's head, make them associate good habits with your brand, and you will become part of their daily ritual. They no longer 'go to coffee shop', they go to Caffe Habitu. It's not buying a bottle of water and hitting the gym, its "purchasing a Volvic in the 7/11 then doing the 3 minute walk to Fitness First". They don't check email, they check gmail.
A related takeaway from this blog post is the inherent "bragging rights" people feel when they stick to a habit. This guy doesn't just get up in the morning, it gets up at 5.50am people. Now that's early! Now it's time for 12 reps at 30kg at Fitness First as I knock down my redbull after crushing some sick bugs on my macbook air at the crack of dawn working in the cloud at my webapp startup.
Premium brands do the same, and it's part of the reason for the consistent brand-dropping here. People don't have phones they have iPhones, not because they are ubiquitous (like hoover became the vacuum) but because people must differentiate normal phones from their phones, due to the premium pricing they paid. And by using the new product as part of a habit (like your iphone is an integral part of a morning workout), it becomes more justification for the purchase.
[+] [-] wlesieutre|14 years ago|reply
I don't know the exact price of Red Bull or Volvic, but at $5 a day and 260 weekdays in a year he'd be spending $1,300/year.
[+] [-] joelg87|14 years ago|reply
My aim with the post was to be extremely detailed, in order to try and emphasise how many different aspects have become habitual. Clearly, the way I ended up being detailed was to use brand names. Now you mention it, it makes sense. I remember writing "bottle of water" and thinking it will have a better effect if I make it more specific, hence "Volvic". Now it makes a lot of sense that I could actually be more detailed in many other ways and still achieve the same effect.
This is great learning, and something I'll try and improve next time!
[+] [-] rythie|14 years ago|reply
I think it has to do with how you see creating your own products too. Are you trying to make a product that would be indistinguishable from the competitors, or one that's so good that people mention it by name?
[+] [-] amurmann|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cruise02|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterwwillis|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FelixP|14 years ago|reply
On a more humorous note, the first portion of the piece reminded me of this gem:
"I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I'm 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I'll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion. "
[+] [-] trout|14 years ago|reply
I moved all the things I need to exercise into one place, streamlined the entire process, and reduced the mental inertia it takes to do things that are good for me.
Part of it is simplifying the process, the other half is making it a habit. I'm also a fan of picking some rationalizations. For stopping caffeine - every time I drink Coke I'm just thirsty for water, and should just drink water. For the gym - every time I've ever gone to the gym I feel good when I get home and don't regret going. For food - I'll enjoy this for 5 seconds and won't even remember it by tomorrow, but it's got the caloric value of 30 minutes of exercise.
[+] [-] bialecki|14 years ago|reply
The disclaimer is I work where I can be into the office a little later in case I have a late night. But the main point is once you convince yourself you're going no matter what, suddenly your lizard brain has a hard time saying no.
[+] [-] jorleif|14 years ago|reply
I think, for cardiovascular workouts, it's a much better solution to try to hack your commute into a run / bike ride, if that's possible. You get to use that time twice, since it is both commute and exercise, and this kind of multitasking actually works well. Sure, the workout may not be as "efficient" (locally) as doing everything under perfectly controlled conditions, but this is really not the main concern unless you are inte competing.
Walking desks are a similar kind of hack, even if I find them a somewhat perverse use of electricity.
For muscular workouts I haven't yet found anything that would function as well as the gym, but with less life-overhead.
[+] [-] greggman|14 years ago|reply
Does Mark Zuckerberg work out? How about John Lasseter?
It honestly doesn't seem fitness has any relation what-so-ever to success but I'd be happy to be proven wrong with actual data rather than anecdotes.
[+] [-] mhb|14 years ago|reply
Octopus card: The Octopus card is a rechargeable contactless stored value smart card used to transfer electronic payments in online or offline systems in Hong Kong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card
[+] [-] joelg87|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbenjaminsmith|14 years ago|reply
I've done this in the past and I always overtrain and race too early. I have a bad race and stop training shortly after that.
I've found a much more effective way: Between my wife and I whoever is in the gym less in any given week has to pay the other person on Friday -- around $50. There is still competition (neither of us want to admit to losing) but there is also a very tangible penalty.
The combination is an excellent motivator and neither of us have missed a single day since we started it. It's similar to having a partner (a partner got me through 3 years of weight training in college) except that you don't have to work out at the same time, which is much better for busy people.
[+] [-] tallanvor|14 years ago|reply
I haven't participated in a race since around '93 or '94, we're talking 2 races that I've done - both Bloomsday runs in Spokane with family.
My current normal week has me at the gym every day and twice on Wednesdays. I do strength training 2-3 times and I usually run over 110km. The only person I compete against is myself.
I hate going to the gym, and I hate working out. But I much prefer having a BMI of 23.4 than the 40+ I used to be at. It's not fun, but once you get used to it and consider it a necessity, you can stay with it.
Of course, I'm not suggesting that everyone work out as much as I do. --A rather innocuous visit to the doctor earlier this month ended up with a blood test that showed a severe iron deficiency. So now I'm taking 300mg of supplements a day for at least 2 months... And that much iron tends to have a bit of an effect on my digestive system, although the opposite of what the doctor warned me about.
[+] [-] eru|14 years ago|reply
It helps that progress in my main forms of exercise (indoor climbing, weight lifting) is easy to measure, and relatively straight forward to drive at my level.
I also dable in dancing, where I am still so awful, that progress is easy to gauge. And mixed martial arts, where the whole point of the sport is some form of competition, even though sparring doesn't see you go all out.
[+] [-] mahyarm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmccomb|14 years ago|reply
Competition is too much of a motivator for me and my competitive personality. As soon as a competitive element is introduced to exercise it completely takes the fun out of it.
[+] [-] wpietri|14 years ago|reply
I like having a race booked because it gives me a reason to get out and run even when it's cold and rainy: I want to be ready.
On the other hand, I've stopped caring how I do relative to other people. I go run the race. Sometimes I just run it for fun. Other times I'm working to beat a previous time. But either way, I keep in mind that my main goal is fitness, not victory.
[+] [-] cafard|14 years ago|reply
My experience with over training was that it gave signals that could be ignored only willfully.
[+] [-] nswanberg|14 years ago|reply
But if you aren't wired for competition, consider companionship. If you run, joining the right weekly running club can do wonders for your motivation.
[+] [-] ballstothewalls|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baddox|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mahyarm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joelg87|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] psykotic|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eru|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cieplak|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cema|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rfugger|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tsagadai|14 years ago|reply
When I find myself doing the exact same thing every day I think of it as grinding towards the grave without ever doing anything original. Life is full of new experiences, unless you are just placing one foot in front of another for 2 hours a day on a treadmill while watching a screen.
It's a pretty dim view of a lifestyle others love but I don't care of it at all. I guess I guess love chaos too much.
[+] [-] dmor|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bemmu|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrschwabe|14 years ago|reply
http://mixergy.com/cheat-sheet-how-to-use-the-power-of-habit...
Its true, this habit stuff is powerful.
[+] [-] ari_|14 years ago|reply
(Disclaimer: I have 2 kids, I manage to exercise each day, but it definitely comes at the expense of other things).
[+] [-] jdbernard|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ahmadss|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] milliams|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] candre717|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] esrauch|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codemac|14 years ago|reply
I feel like there was a tiny bit of prep work before you could just wake up and run in a circle :D
[+] [-] joelg87|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] njx|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wcchandler|14 years ago|reply