Balancing Routine and Exploration

The balance of routine and exploration has been hugely powerful in my life. It has also been something of a super power over my career.  Let me explain how my weird brain thinks about these concepts and perhaps how it might help you as well.

Routine is safe.  It can bring you back on track.  It is discipline following processes that you know work.  It is a known.  

Exploration on the other hand is good for unknowns.  It is good for innovating, learning and growth.  

Too much exploration with lack of structure is hard for humans to handle.  We fall prey to bad habits or addictions.  It also means everything is in flux with no foundation to measure against.  However, too much routine means less growth and learning.  For me, the past several years have been an education in mastering this balance.

Learning From Lack of Routine

A few years back I had just wound down a startup and took a few months off.  I followed no structure and kind of did whatever I felt like in the moment.  It seemed fun at first because I was so starved for a break.  However, it quickly led to bad habits, erratic meal times, a poor sleeping schedule and feeling yucky and semi-depressed.  I learned from this.

A bit later when I decided to stop working for others for money and to start working for myself for happiness, I took a different approach.  I knew to be mindful that this would mean a total disruption in my lifestyle.    

Replacing Structure    

A traditional job and lifestyle provides lots of structure that gives one purpose, a sense of accomplishment, team camaraderie, etc.  If I was going to live outside of that, I needed to replace that structure while also exploring and iterating on some areas of my life.  This time around, I built up some habits centered around a mental image of a race car and I also created an initial daily routine.  This routine would be my foundation and then I would also pursue some adventures since I was not beholden to an 8-5 job.  I created a list of over 100 little adventures and dreams that I could choose to pursue.

Iteration with Process and Exploration      

The first few months of living this life outside of the maze were spent testing the prototype that was my plan.  I quickly iterated based on the new information of experience.  My daily plan immediately proved too structured and I revised it to include more flexible blocks of time in my routine.  I changed my workouts and changed when during the day I did different things in my plan based on feedback from my body.  Over time, I abandoned my race car metaphor all together as it reduced in providing value as I got better at my new lifestyle.  As habits become stronger, routines become less necessary.  Things have changed quite a bit over the last few years but routine and exploration have been my guide.

In a way, I think of this like a balance in my life.  If I start to feel unsteady or lacking discipline to follow through on goals that I have laid out, then I apply more process to bring me back on track.  However, if I feel stuck in a rut and need leadership to cut a new path, I apply more exploration.

Routine and Exploration In My Career

One of my greatest career strengths has been having strong innovation mindsets paired with an understanding of when and how much process to apply along the way.  Isn’t this just exploration and routine?  It has taken me from engineer, to project manager, to program director and startup CEO.  Too much process can stifle innovation or needlessly bog down a lean and fast moving team.  However, too much disruption or exploration without structure can be just as detrimental.

Startups and developing new products are both creative and disruptive by nature. It is part of innovation. However, if you are disrupting everything about your business, it is a recipe for failure. Disruption means novelty, which means risk. Hence, it is also prudent to have structure and to innovate only where necessary to meet your business goals. While processes and routine may seem like the enemy of the “think different” rebel ethos of startups, they are actually teammates. Together they hone in on a minimum viable product and then make it a reality through very efficient use of limited resources and runway. In a way these lessons for startups are analogous to lifestyle design as well.

Routine, Exploration, and Financial Independence

Over my entire career I was following one basic routine.  That routine was to spend far less than I earned and to invest the difference.  Heavy application of this allowed me to safely offset some risky and explorative things such as working at and starting startups.  Over time, this one solid routine has now compounded to the point that I can afford more exploration in my life than ever before.

Routine, Exploration, and the Journey

Exploration is going out on a limb and discovering.  It is adventurous.  It is learning and bringing back insights for growth.  Process is what keeps me from going out on that limb too far or gives me a safety net if that limb breaks.  Process is known and it is safe.  It is routines with proven outputs that come from given inputs.  Without process, too much is in flux to have a foundation to measure progress against.  However, without exploration there is no growth or learning.  I make mistakes and falter. I always will. However, knowing when to apply more routine or more exploration is what keeps harmony for me. This has been my career, my life, and in some ways my story of financial independence as well.