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| Barack Obama's secret weapon? Routine | Barack Obama's secret weapon? Routine |
| (7 months later) | |
| In order to manage the challenge of being president of the United States, Barack Obama hits the gym at 7:30 on the dot every morning, and wears only blue or grey suits in order to cut down on non-vital decisions. "You need to focus your decision-making energy," he told Vanity Fair. "You need to routinize yourself." | In order to manage the challenge of being president of the United States, Barack Obama hits the gym at 7:30 on the dot every morning, and wears only blue or grey suits in order to cut down on non-vital decisions. "You need to focus your decision-making energy," he told Vanity Fair. "You need to routinize yourself." |
| You can see it makes sense, this routinising, but it's not easy. The trouble with a routine is you have to keep doing it, and my own efforts to routinise my existence have come to nothing. I go to the gym even earlier than Obama – I'm there at 7 – but I don't go every day, and I keep switching days. When I don't go I get up two hours later. | You can see it makes sense, this routinising, but it's not easy. The trouble with a routine is you have to keep doing it, and my own efforts to routinise my existence have come to nothing. I go to the gym even earlier than Obama – I'm there at 7 – but I don't go every day, and I keep switching days. When I don't go I get up two hours later. |
| Although we both work from home, my commute is shorter than Obama's: his is 70 yards, and includes a ride in a lift; mine is just nine yards, incorporating half a flight of stairs. My wardrobe decisions do not spring from having a vast wardrobe, but that doesn't make them any less perplexing: dress now, dress later, or play it by ear? I also have twice the sock choices of most people, because there's no need for me to wear matching ones. I do try to wear the same trousers every day for at least a week, on the grounds that all my important stuff (keys, phone, money, scraps of paper, dog waste sacks) is already in the pockets. I can't waste time decanting my life into fresh trousers; I've already wasted that time elsewhere. | Although we both work from home, my commute is shorter than Obama's: his is 70 yards, and includes a ride in a lift; mine is just nine yards, incorporating half a flight of stairs. My wardrobe decisions do not spring from having a vast wardrobe, but that doesn't make them any less perplexing: dress now, dress later, or play it by ear? I also have twice the sock choices of most people, because there's no need for me to wear matching ones. I do try to wear the same trousers every day for at least a week, on the grounds that all my important stuff (keys, phone, money, scraps of paper, dog waste sacks) is already in the pockets. I can't waste time decanting my life into fresh trousers; I've already wasted that time elsewhere. |
| There is some semblance of order to the day – coffee, feed cat, do sudoku, walk dogs, embark on work avoidance subroutine one, more coffee – but I am beset by an inability to prioritise decisions. I can, and will, spend an hour trying to decide whether or I should spell it "routinize" or "routinise" – the latter seems more proper, but then it's not really my word to mess with – before deciding that it's somebody else's decision. | There is some semblance of order to the day – coffee, feed cat, do sudoku, walk dogs, embark on work avoidance subroutine one, more coffee – but I am beset by an inability to prioritise decisions. I can, and will, spend an hour trying to decide whether or I should spell it "routinize" or "routinise" – the latter seems more proper, but then it's not really my word to mess with – before deciding that it's somebody else's decision. |
| A copy deadline is usually the only roadblock in my day, and I generally come up against it with some force. After that I only have to decide which emails not to return – it's normally all of them – until eventually it comes time to choose between wine and beer. I usually set aside an hour in the evening to worry about all that I have failed to achieve. | A copy deadline is usually the only roadblock in my day, and I generally come up against it with some force. After that I only have to decide which emails not to return – it's normally all of them – until eventually it comes time to choose between wine and beer. I usually set aside an hour in the evening to worry about all that I have failed to achieve. |
| I need to get more presidential about my decision-making. If only I had one overriding responsibility – like a button that triggered nuclear armageddon, say – it might help to concentrate the mind. | I need to get more presidential about my decision-making. If only I had one overriding responsibility – like a button that triggered nuclear armageddon, say – it might help to concentrate the mind. |
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