[Cracking Resolutions] Weapon 1 - Developing a Routine

Do you know what words I dreaded the most from my mom growing up? It wasn't "have you done your homework" or "why are you so messy?"

What I disliked the most was "what do you want to eat today?" She would ask me this question every morning.

"I don't know, mom! I'll eat anything you cook." I would reply.

"What do you like?" she would ask again. No, it's not the same question. She changed 'want' to 'like,' somehow always tweaking a word or two to make it OK so she could repeat the question.

"I don't care! Just give me anything!" I would answer with a little exacerbation.

"No. What do you want?" She would change the word from 'like' back to 'want' to make it OK to repeat the question the third time.

It usually ended with me picking the same thing I had yesterday. And she would tell me to pick something new, and I would get frustrated and tell her to stop nagging me, and she would tell me how ungrateful I was. I was already tired from the choosing and arguing before my day had started.

From the look of it, I should have felt great about being able to pick my food. That's freedom, is it? But the reality was that I had no interest in making that choice. Whether important or trivial, making choices takes brain power, which I wanted to reserve for something that's more worthy… like whom I should hang out with school that day, or how I could get away with not doing homework.

Interestingly, I've never tried to figure out why my mother kept asking me these same questions in the first place. Perhaps she also disliked making that choice, so she would continuously attempt to delegate that obligation to me.

Freedom is great... until you have to use it all day every day

In western society, the one thing we value more than anything else is freedom - the freedom to do whatever, to say whatever, and to vote for whomever you want. That freedom works amazingly well for art and innovation, but not so when it comes to productivity. That’s because complete freedom means our mind has to painstakingly make decisions on what to do next frequently. Indeed, researchers have discovered that our executive functions are a limited resource, which would deplete throughout the day as we engage in making choices.

To combat decision fatigue, legendary innovators like Steve Jobs would develop a routine to wear the same clothes and engage in the same morning activities so they can reserve their brainpower for making more important choices.

And developing a routine has become the most important weapon in my journey to conquer New Year’s Resolutions so far this year.


At the beginning of the year, I wrote an article on my 2021 New Year’s resolutions. Because New Year’s resolutions are notoriously impractical and soul crushing, all I wanted to find out was if the act of sticking with and achieving ambitious New Year’s Resolutions is even possible.

When I started, it quickly confirmed my suspicion: it was really, really hard, because of one problem: my free-flowing lifestyle wasn’t conducive to achieving with multiple goals throughout the day.

As an entrepreneur, I had the freedom to set my own schedule. It sounded beautiful in theory but was hellishly chaotic in reality, especially when trying to hit multiple goals. Throughout the day, I had to continually deciding what to do next. By the end, I was not only exhausted from all the choosing, but also wasn’t hitting the goals at all. My night would descend into pleasure-seeking/pain-avoid behaviors, such as watching TV or surfing the web late into the night while eating unhealthy snacks. These behaviors would impact the time and mental state I would get up the next day, and the circle of hell would continue. I just wanted to give up. To get my Tesla Model X, I knew something had to change.

To get this, I need a change

Then the much needed change came: I developed a routine the first time in my life, in order to hit all my goals without having to think what to do next.


Here is my routine:

Every morning, I would have business meetings and run errands from 7-10 am. Then I would drive for 45 minutes to a mostly empty parking lot overlooking the Pacific coast.

During the two-way commute, I would listen to loaded audiobooks and podcasts (habit goal #6: listening to books for 300 hours) to get into the inspired and creative mindset.

Once I arrived, I would park my car in front of the ocean and spend the next 4-5 hours writing (habit goal #1: 1,000 hours of creative work). The beautiful view of the ocean is like a continuous injection of creativity into my brain. Who needs a corner office when you can drive a car to wherever you want and work there all by yourself?

At 6 pm, I would get home, have dinner and chat with my parents (habit goal #9: spending 100 hours with parents). Afterward, I would watch and talk sports with my sons (habit goal #8, spending 500 hours with kids).

After the kids go to bed at 9 pm, I will take a walk with Tracy (habit goal #7: exercise for 6,000 minutes) and talk about the day. After that, I will watch a movie or just hang out.

At 10:45 pm, I will set the goals for the next day (habit goal #3: set daily goals for 200 days), charge my phone in the bathroom (habit goal #4: charge phones out of reach), and get in bed by 11 pm (habit goal #2: go to bed at 11 pm. I changed the goal from "getting up at 5 am," I will explain it later).

Now, the combination of action-based new year’s resolutions plus the daily routine is gloriously effective. I can go through the day while automatically accomplishing my goals. I didn’t have to think. I can simply do. It’s like playing Pac-man, I would seamlessly eat the dots while going through the day. I would preserve my mental energy in making writing choices… such as what’s the next phrase to use here. Do I want to be informative, narrative, sarcastic, or self-deprecating? Now that’s an important choice worthy of killing some brain cells over.


After the day is over and when I hit all my targets, I know I’ve had a good day, no matter what others or even my own feeling at the moment is attempting to persuade me otherwise. I feel liberated, productive, and guilt-free.

With a routine, this is what a day feels like

Based on what I learned from my project so far, I encourage all of you to experiment with the following:

1. Think about the outcomes you want to accomplish in 2021 - the amount of money you want to make, the type of projects you want to finish, and the kind of relationship you want to build. I know it’s February (or whenever you are reading this). It’s not too late! You can still think about these outcomes in the next 11 (or 10, 9, 8…) months. Or it could be just the outcomes for the next month.

2. Based on these outcomes, think about what kind of habits are required to accomplish these outcomes. Make these daily actions your New Year's Resolutions, and use a spreadsheet to track them religiously. If there is one hack that's making my resolutions fun and achievable so far, it's the fact that they are trackable actions.

3. Develop a routine that would hit your resolution goals throughout the day. When Phil Knight gave Nike the iconic marketing phrase – Just Do It, I am sure he meant the determination to achieve athletic heights. But I believe that phrase is even better to describe days governed by routines. Without having to think, without having to choose, you can just do it.