“I just need to get into a routine.”
A lot of my clients would tell me at the beginning of our work together.
From the executive who can’t repeat 3 workouts. From the entrepreneur whose eating is chaos by Wednesday. From the high-performer who swears they have no discipline, when in reality, they have no system.
Here’s what they all are missing without knowing it: the habit of creating habits.
Or more precisely — your brain’s automations.
Your brain is the original programmer. It builds apps. Push a button, run a sequence, get the payoff, repeat. No thinking required. Energy saved to handle other things in your complex life.
That’s what a habit actually is - your brain’s app to save resources while getting predictable outcomes to handle more with less effort.
Here’s how habits work:
A trigger — something in your environment that signals the brain to activate a sequence of actions. Can be time of the time or something that happens before, something you see or go through.
A routine — a specific set of actions in a specific order.
A reward — the expected payoff. The reason the program runs in the first place.
And here’s the part most people miss to make it all work: repetition.
Without it, nothing automates.
Every time you sit down to write, lace up your shoes for the workout, or choose what to eat — your brain treats it like a brand new decision. Full energy expenditure. Full internal debate. A lot of opportunity to quit.
That’s not a discipline problem. That’s a programming error.
When you habituate something, when you automate it - decisions disappear. The friction disappears. What used to feel like willpower becomes just... the thing you do with no internal battle.
Start simple. Very simple.
One trigger, one routine, one payoff (make yourself feel good, know why you started). Repeat it for a few weeks before you even think about adding complexity. Let the program install fully before you start customizing it.
Because in the high-achieving, many-plates-spinning, many-balls-in-the-air life: the more you have going on, the more you need your essentials running on autopilot.
Want to scale?
Automate more moving parts!
Your sleep, your movement, your nutrition, your writing, your business essentials — these can’t be things you negotiate with yourself every day. They need to be non-negotiables, repeatable non-decisions, so your energy goes to the work that requires your brain.
Automation is the enabler of ambition. It’s the infrastructure that makes achievement and hard things sustainable with more and more on your plate.
Look at your day right now.
Where are you burning decision-making energy on things that should be simple and automatic? What do you need to habituate instead of thinking about it every day?
PS Some people you might know who really get it. I promise you there are a lot more.
Barack Obama wore only grey or blue suits during his presidency. He cited research on decision fatigue, saying he had too many decisions to make to waste energy on clothing.
Steve Jobs famously wore his uniform of a black turtleneck, Levi’s 501 jeans, and New Balance sneakers every single day. He reportedly had hundreds of the same turtleneck made by Issey Miyake after falling in love with the concept during a factory visit in Japan.
Mark Zuckerberg has worn the same grey t-shirt and jeans combination for years, explicitly calling it a way to reduce “decision fatigue” and keep his mental bandwidth free for Facebook’s actual problems.
Albert Einstein reportedly owned several versions of the same outfit so he wouldn’t have to think about what to wear — he considered fashion choices a waste of cognitive resources.
Vera Wang is known to almost always wear all-black, which she’s described as a practical creative choice that removes the morning noise.
Warren Buffett keeps his daily routine almost robotically consistent — same breakfast from McDonald’s (he picks from only three options depending on how the market feels that morning), same drive to the office, same reading schedule. He’s said that protecting his time and attention is one of his most important competitive advantages.
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