Rethinking routine, productivity, and presence

I return to London after the hush of half-term, eager to slip back into the currents of routine, yet finding the re-entry turbulent, resistant. Like a body once in motion, now paused, struggling to remember the steps of a well-memorised choreography. It’s March, and the routines of a new year have supposedly settled—or have they?

I observe this with a quiet ache. It is, after all, the nature of discipline: its fragility, its demand to be rebuilt time and time again. Lately, I have been attending a course led by two great coaches (British Gemma Gilbert and American Greg Faxon) where a gathering of entrepreneurs from both sides of the Atlantic attempts to architect the perfect week—a blueprint for balance or an illusion of control. The course’s outcome is to leave with a designed framework for a “perfect week” as an entrepreneur—a way to structure one’s business. I find myself half-enchanted, half-bemused by my redemptive attempt to draft a schedule, to follow it with near-religious devotion, as if by adhering to structure, I could will my business into permanence, my life into meaning.

And yet, I recognise the fallacy. The falsehood surprises and seduces me—that by carving out time, by creating predictable weeks, I might tame the unpredictable, and steer the chaotic into submission. But do I truly want that? My most treasured weeks are the ones that unravel unexpectedly, where life enters unbidden, reclaims its power over me, and reminds me of a greater hand at work. Still, the mind craves patterns, the heart seeks rhythm, and the body longs to rest in something known. We are wired for predictability, even as we ache for freedom.

There is, of course, value in structure, in the rigour of shaping time. But only if it serves deeper flexibility—a creative adaptability that allows for order and wildness. Stability should not be a cage; it should be an undercurrent, something that steadies rather than binds. To hold too tightly, even to one’s creations, is to lose sight of the very essence of creativity itself.

Why do we obsess over schedules?

I have been left wondering, why we obsess over schedules when the world moves to a perfect, ancient rhythm. Seasons shift without our intervention, the body hums to its own biochemistry, and the moon waxes and wanes whether we watch it or not. And yet, we insist on carving time into boxes, as if the mere act of organising it might shield us from the vast uncertainty of being alive.

Perhaps this need for control stems from something deeper—our historical subjugation to the demands of others, the ever-looming expectations of systems larger than ourselves. We rebel, seek autonomy, become freelancers and work remotely, believing that the “free” and “remote” will somehow set us apart. And yet, even then, we find ourselves shackled by new iterations of the productivity curse. Relentless needs to measure, monetize, and prove our worth through output. Are we, I wonder, merely echoes of an industrial cough, expelled from the lungs of a machine that no longer serves us? How did the cold calculations of industry become the metric we judge our self-worth?

And then, social media. A place where attention is currency, presence is pressure, and silence is mistaken for absence. But I believe that attention—true, intentional attention—is an act of creation. And like all acts of creation, it carries an ethical weight. What we choose to notice shapes what we come to know. What we refuse to see, we erase from existence.

I hold my routines lightly. I allow them to adapt to the shifting terrain of each life stage. They are not compulsions but companions, and their purpose is not mere efficiency but expansion—the broadening of my understanding, the deepening of my connection to self, others, the world’s quiet mysteries. What good is a schedule if it leaves no space for the unknown? What good is a day if it is merely an endless march of tasks, an unthinking procession of obligations?

The noise exhausts me: the ceaseless scrolling, the manufactured urgency, the insatiable hunger to be seen, heard, followed, and liked. Lately, I have found solace in silence. Not the absence of sound, but the presence of something deeper—the silence of theatres, galleries, libraries, and churches, of the breath held between the closing curtain and the eruption of applause. A silence that binds, unites, and makes sacred communion between us.

And perhaps this—this state of unity—is where real change begins. Not in the noise, not in the feverish grasping, but in the quiet, collective wondering: Where are we? And what must we do?

Art and creativity

Art and creativity have a role here, a role beyond mere expression. We work with what we have—our talents, our limits—and craft is the practice of pulling that talent into the light, honing it, tilting it, seeing what it can become. And yet, I wonder: do we give our talents the time they deserve? In a world where value is measured in revenue, success is so often defined by output, how easy it is to neglect the things that do not immediately serve the machine. But if we abandon our gifts, we rob ourselves and the world. And I am not sure, in these times, that we can afford such losses.

So the question is not: What is the most productive thing you can do?

But rather: What talent must you turn into your craft? What gifts lie unwrapped within you? What beauty are you forsaking in your surrender to the industry’s demands?

We all need a compass, something steady to navigate by. Not just in the easy times, but when the seas are rough—when betrayal stings, work vanishes, and grief enters uninvited. In those moments, when the mind races and panic grips, remember Jack Kornfield’s words: “No one can harm you as much as your own untamed thoughts. And no one can save you as much as a quiet, clear, composed mind.”

Breathe. Even with the weight of the world pressing in, breathe. And ask yourself, in the hush between thoughts: What is my highest intention?

With that single question, you reset your course. No matter the storm or uncertainty, the compass of your heart will find its true north again.