Humans love repetition. We go to the same places, eat the same things, sleep on the same side of the bed and watch the same shows night after night. We love repetition because we find comfort in it. Every one of us has a routine. Even if we don't know it, we have certain tasks that we perform the same way every day. Routine can often be a deterrent to creativity.
In routine, we miss experiencing something in a new way, and the lack of this experience may effect what we can bring to the table during idea generation. Before we can assess our routine, we have to be aware of it.
1. Grab a digital camera. Take 7 photos of things that you do everyday, things that are part of your routine. Take nothing for granted, think about every thing you do and in what order. Even think about how you perform those individual tasks.
2. After documenting this, try to change one routine every day. Even the slightest change in perspective can have unexpected results.
STEVE
here's the breakdown of my daily routine and changes to it. the pictures have a before and after look to them. the left image in each file is the routine.
01 news
the first thing i do in the morning is turn the news on. well no more. it's actually made me happier not knowing what bad news happened over night. if something major happened i know i'll hear about it from someone. like, oh, there's a hurricane coming, ok, thanks.
02 shirt
my job allows me to wear casual clothes. for me a t-shirt is the norm. this week i switched to button and collar causal shirts.
03 dogs
everyone that knows me, knows that my dogs are the love of my life. they bring so much joy. recently i got a divorce. my ex-wife kept the home and i would go over and dog sit at the house. this week i started bringing them to my new home. they love it. and so do i.
04 food
i like to cook, but am usually too lazy or tired after work. so frozen or takeout was my sustenance. this week i cooked almost all my meals. cooking gives me sense of calm.
05 drink
i have the BIGGEST sweet-tooth. and soda is a major vice for me. i noticed switching to water makes the flavors in my cooking more pronounced. yum.
06 tv
love my dvr and tv, but i have stacks of books waiting to be read. taking time each evening to read instead of watching the tube.
07 road
i always ride on the right side of the road, so this week i switched it up a bit. boy was this perspective different. the other drivers were a bit upset.
this exercise felt like a psychological experiment. kinda weird, but fun.
JAIME
- When I'm in REM I'm already dreaming of the first thing I'll do once wake. I know.. it's a gross habit that I just can't kick and it has been on my New Year Resolution to-do list for many years. Sorry the picture is blurry.. I'm guessing it is because I was still half asleep and it was taken pre-sip. Ugh, you see how addicted I am?
- The 2nd daily habit of mine is getting a kiss from Ray. Sometimes I'm still sleeping so this ends up being habit #1 but for the most part it's my 2nd habit. :)
- As soon as I get into work I login to Facebook and tweetdeck to see what my friends are up too and drop them a hello to let them know I'm thinking of them. At this point of the day, I'm also thinking about what I'm going to eat for lunch. If I have a crappy home lunch I'm thinking about my 2pm snack will be to make up this deficiency.
- Between 2-3pm I take a break and eat a snack. This assignment made me realize a lot of my habits are surrounded around food and drink.
- The fourth daily habit of mine is either rushing home to cook dinner, calling Ray to ask him to pick up dinner or meeting up with friends for dinner.
- As soon as I open the garage door this guy is waiting for me. He runs up to me and shakes his curly tail and darts into the house to grab one of his toys. I either take him for a walk or play catch with him. Then he goes into his nightly freak-out mode where he runs in a circle for his tail until he gets so darn dizzy and out of breath he falls to the floor. I have a video of him doing this somewhere I'll have to dig it up and perhaps add this to this assignment he's a crazy-crack-up that makes me laugh out loud everyday. It never gets old for me.
- The day is ended with another kiss from Ray. Nite nite!
After documenting these habits I tried to change habit #6 by taking Hito for a walk in the morning rather then at night. Oh boy, did this send things into a tail-spin for Hito as well as for me. First of all, Hito is NOT a morning dog he's very groggy when I walk up and watch the news and only gets energy in the afternoon well into the night. Anyway, so I took him around the block and we both dragged it seemed like an eternity although it's seriously a 5m block. Changing this little habit to the morning did add a new perspective for Hito and myself. He met a new friend that only walks in the morning and I felt like I had more energy when I got to work. That was awesome!
DAWN
I'm lame, so I only came up with three things to change. (Tho' now that I re-read the exercise, I probably should have at least photographed 7 things, even if I only changed 3. Oh well.)
Here are my three:
Photo 1: My computer at work. Yes, that's my desk; yes, it's always that messy; no, the thing I changed was NOT to clean up. When I come in to work, one of the very first things I do is boot up the computer and check 1) email; 2) Facebook and 3) Twitter. I usually end up spending the next 2-3 hours sucked into the void, never getting around to tackling tasks on the to-do list, because something a contact says on FB or Twitter leads me to contact them, or a story someone mentions leads me off to research something else...so the thing I changed was to go ahead and check ONLY email and respond to anything urgent there. Then I spent the next two hours finishing "to do" things. I alllowed myself to read news sites that pertained to PUBLISHING (industry) news only. This went somewhat OK. I felt like I was more caught up on backlogged work.
Photo 2: The other "first thing" I do when I come in is to make or get coffee and proceed to drink about 2 mugs worth (which is probably 3-4 liquid cups). I resolved to cut out the morning coffee. I started on Tuesday and replaced with tea. Broke down at 3PM w/ a headache and got myself an iced coffee from Longs. Wednesday, "convinced" by husband we should get bagels for breakfast...which meant I "needed" something to wash it down with, and since I was across the street by Honolulu Coffee, I "should" support local and bought coffee from them. Thursday I sucked it up and made it through the day, but thought maybe I might've been infected by swine flu and felt crappy. Realized later that it was not swine flu. Just feeling crappy. On Friday I had an obnoxious morning meeting, and therefore felt that any project that deprived me of coffee in preparation for that meeting was a bad idea. All in all, changing this aspect of my life was a bad idea.
Photo 3: My alarm clock. Normally, I set it for around 7:40 and proceed to hit the snooze for anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. Then I haul ass to get ready, organized and out the door. I also get annoyed at husband b/c he's sitting around in a chair, "brushing his teeth" and staring out the window. As he points out, he really is USUALLY ready by the time I am, but I feel compelled to tell him to hurry up b/c he's just sitting there! So rather than change the time of the alarm, I just actually got up when it went off. By the time I was dressed, hubs was getting up and I got to spend a half-hour on the computer messing about, which I don't usually get to do. Not a bad change, but I still hate getting up.
MARISA
This week was a special week...I didn't really chose 7 things to change, I ended up changing just one thing and by changing that one thing it snowballed into changing a whole lot of things!
What was that one thing you ask? I have joined the elite ranks of a MOPED DRIVER!!!
All this time I've been carpooling to work with my boyfriend and it worked out well, however, if I had an appointment or meeting Aimee after work to go running, or whatever outside of going to and from work to home, it called for some scheduling with George. It also didn't save much gas as sometimes he worked late so he'd pick me up, take me home and go back to work.
Here are the things that changed because of my 1 change:
- Moped...I'm riding a moped
- Because I'm riding a moped, I need to wear a helmet...which means, no cute hair, and because it's hot in there, I get to work like I sweaty pig.
- Because I'm riding a moped, there are no cup holders. I usually make my own morning beverage (some sort of tea), but I've had to switch to sharing coffee in the morning at work with the boss...
- Because I'm riding a moped and I'm kinda short...I can't wear my cute shoes to work. I have to wear sneakers, and then bring a change of cute shoes with me...
- Because I'm riding a moped, safety first (hence the helmet and sneakers), so I don't wear my cute dark sweater, but a bright red hoodie so everyone can see me.
- Because I'm riding a moped I can't use my big cute bag, I've downsized to a smaller more utilitarian bag that will fit in the seat compartment.
- But because I'm riding a moped, I have a new found sense of freedom!
I found that during this exercise that though I like cute things, I'm so proud that I'm not proud to go to work uggers just to have freedom (^_^)! Save the cuteness for the weekend, cause dood who am I being cute for at work? I work in a windowless office downtown with just my boss, who usually has meetings or is out of town manning the CA office.
