Routinizing Burdens Out of Existence

Routines and Habits

I'm very far from being a disciplined person. I tend to be spontaneous and due to that has had difficulty in the past in establishing routines and habits. In spite of all that, reading the first few chapters of the Atomic Habits book during my long departure flight from Kuala Lumpur to Amsterdam convinced me of the value of routines and habits.

First, the book posited that to achieve greatness or to substantially improve oneself, it's not necessary to have a big leaping change in one's life that is costly or time-consuming to do. What is necessary is making a bunch of small changes that on its perhaps can only make life one percent better. The book then advocates routines as one of the way that those small (but many) changes could be implemented.

Second, and this is what truly convinces me in the value of routines and habits, is the fact that once established, we will do them automatically as it becomes our second nature. Because of that, doing them no longer becomes a chore that takes up mental or physical burden, it's just something that we do. I always find myself being overwhelmed in my life with things to do or task to complete, to the point that I wish there is another me to whom I could delegate tasks that feels more like a mindless chore while I focus on the endeavors that are actually interesting and exciting. Thus, when the book sold routines as a way to essentially move those sort of chores out of my conscious mind, I was immediately sold.

Not long into my study at University of Toronto, I decided to implement a habit to eliminate from my routine assignments that I have from my mental head space: reading the assigned readings and case study of IMI303 (Technology Strategy), the lab for CSC324 (Principle of Programming Languages), and the lab for CSC347 (Introduction to Information Security). The class for IMI303 is on Friday, and we're meant to have read the assigned readings and case study before the class to be able to discuss them during the class. Thus, I made it a routine to go read them and take important notes out of them on Sunday (I also have to finish reading them and taking notes on Sunday). The lab for CSC347 usually drops on the weekend (though often times it drops on Monday) and is due on Wednesday, while the lab for CSC324 drops on Monday and is due on Friday. I then made it a habit to always finish both labs by Monday and submit them on that same day.

I mostly able to follow through with the routine above with only very few exceptions due to extraordinary circumstances. What I find is that indeed making them a routine stopped me from needing to really think about them outside of the time that I've allotted to them. Without the routine above, I would likely have to often scramble in the middle of the week over those three task not being done yet and needing to arrange a time for them to be done. But because they're already handled by a routine, it's almost like I'm no longer burdened by them. This particularly matters for IMI303 as the requirement to read the assigned reading and the case study is the bulk of the burden for the course (there's only one group assignment throughout the semester), which means eliminating that burden through the above routine effectively brings me closer to the academic load of only taking four courses and not five, freeing me to do many other useful things.

Separating the Spaces to Work and Rest

One other thing about Atomic Habits that I took away was the necessity to separate the place meant for me to work and the place meant for me to have fun. The book said that separating the two ensures that when you're in the former, you'll actually work and not get distracted. To that end, I designated parts of the Mississauga campus strictly for working and others for playing. The eating space at the center of Davis and Deerfield Hall became a resting place where I'm supposed to have a rest, such as eating lunch while watching a good Youtube video. All of the other spaces in the campus building became a workspace, even the one immediately next to the two aforementioned resting space.

This worked great. I felt a lot more productive than I had been before in Bandung, where my dorm room was both a space to work and rest. However, I also designated my on-campus dorm room at UTM in Erindale Hall as both a space where I could either work or rest. I made it that way so that I could still do my work even if I'm unable to go outside of Erindale Hall to the other campus buildings. When the temperature started to drop and I became less able to go to the other campus buildings, I spent more time in my dorm room which neutered the benefits of separating my work and rest space since I can do both in my room. In retrospect, I should've designated my dorm room as strictly a resting space, while any one of the conference room at Erindale Hall (that residents of Erindale Hall could use freely) is designated as a working space where I could work if I cannot leave the building.