Focused Routine vs. Diffused Routine

In a few hours, I’m leaving Miami and heading back to Arizona and I couldn’t be more excited.

Had a great time out here, but without a doubt, I like Gilbert more than Miami.

Huge cities aren’t for me.

But shitting on this dystopian paradise that has great weather yet has a pungent smell of piss occasionally hitting your nostrils is not the point of this post…

I did my best to stay consistent while I was out here, missed my wake-up time once, and went a little crazy with all the insane restaurants out here.

I’m totally cool with that though because we don’t really have many bomb-ass restaurants in Arizona.

We’ve got some good spots and a lot of great steakhouses, but nothing even comes close to what’s out here in Miami.

I only come out here every 4-6 months so it was worth it to enjoy myself a bit, but I’m also looking forward to getting back to a stricter diet when I get back home…

And more importantly, just getting back into my routine.

While I was on this trip though I realized that really we have two types of routines you can follow…

1. A Focused Routine
2. A Diffused Routine

When we’re not traveling, everything is more controlled.

We’re in control of our environment, we know where everything is, we have all of the stuff which suits our preferences and so on…

For example…

I like sitting on my couch during my morning reading.

I like drinking the coffee I drink at home.

I like working out at the gym which is 4 minutes from my house.

I like sitting in my office chair at my desk while using my monitor.

This is the focused routine.

It’s entirely suited to our preferences.

We’re in complete control of it, and we continuously can make tweaks and adjustments to make it better and more efficient.

Every single day we can hit it consistently.

However, when we’re traveling, we’re not in control of all the variables which come with a new environment.

That means we need to make concessions and change our routine up a bit…

However, there absolutely still needs to be non-negotiables.

For me it’s 10-15 minutes of reading in the morning, journaling, writing a post on here, and hitting the gym.

Everything else is pretty much up in the air.

And as a result, your focus isn’t as tight as when you’re at your place.

You have to think about where are you getting food…

Ah man, this coffee isn’t as strong as my stuff…

This chair doesn’t support my back like mine…

I didn’t get as good of sleep because this bed is different than mine…

So on and so on…

You still gotta get work done, but you’re not going to be as optimal as when you’re in your controlled environment.

This is the diffused routine.

Also If I'm traveling, I want to experience a city, I want to be able to enjoy time with friends, so I’m not going to be as strict and focused with my routine…

Gotta leave a little bit of room for fun.

In the past, I used to have zero non-negotiables when I traveled and it always took me about a week or so to get back on track once I got home.

I can already tell that when I get back home today, I’ll be back on track right away.

And it’s solid to know that I’ll be recharged, ready to go hit my focused routine hard.

Trust me, don’t use travel as an excuse to fall off completely.