I have been obsessing about finding the best work routine for years. I always thought this was a weird fixation, but after reading Mason Currey's book Daily Rituals, I realised that a good routine is a key to creative success. I have since re-read that book many times, and I find it enthralling to discover the various routines that have helped famous creatives succeed every time.

One of the common themes across many of the subjects in Currey's book is the hours they work. None are 9-5, eight-hour days. Rather, most are 4-6 hour work days separated by breaks and exercise. Since the pandemic forced most of us to work from home and have the flexibility of controlling our schedules, the number of people looking to optimize their routines and create more productive days is increasing. My 20-year fascination with work routines no longer seems abnormal, with more people now discussing how to optimize their day.

Let's take a step back. I first started using RescueTime to track my work habits in 2009. RescueTime is an app that sits in the background of your PC and monitors what you do and when. I have now used it consistently for 14 years.

My background is working as a performance scientist, helping athletes maximise their performance. Because of this, one of my interests is the impact of exercise, sleep and nutrition on work performance. In 2012, I started playing with my data to see if my sleep impacted how well I worked. Using RescueTime and an early FitBit, I found that the more sleep I got, the more efficient I was at work, but with longer work days, I became less efficient. None of this is surprising, but it objectively answered some important questions and identified that getting about 7.5 hours of sleep a night was optimal for me. The full article was published by RescueTime here.

Nowadays, I continue to track each minute of my work but rely more heavily on Rize than RescueTime. Rize provides more insights into habits and productivity and has a cleaner user interface.

I love the nerdy side of routines so much that in 2019, I co-founded a company to measure mental performance to get more precision of when I work best. Little did I know this was a bigger job than expected and one that led me to learn more about my work routines than I expected.