Your life is not boring enough and that’s why you feel so drained. Here’s how to develop a process that will free up your time so you can thrive.

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I eat the same things for breakfast and lunch every single day.

A big bowl of protein oatmeal with protein powder, chia seeds, lots of berries and some peanut butter melted over the top for breakfast that fills me up for hours.

My lunch is typically a big grain bowl with tons of protein (chicken, beef, steak, or whatever meat I have around the house) over grains like farro, with butternut squash, vegetables, kimchi and avocado. This meal fuels me until dinner.

Eating this way removes any decision fatigue from my day.

I don’t have to wonder what I’m eating. It’s automated.

Instead, I can focus on delivering high quality work, being a present dad to my kids and relaxing knowing that I’m eating well-balanced meals that I enjoy without much thought.

I made my life as boring and routine as possible

My workouts are boring. They’re a steady rotation of push-ups, pull-ups and squats with lots of mobility and some conditioning sprinkled in.

My evenings are boring. I go to bed at the same time every single night.

My mornings are boring. I’ve got a little silent alarm that wakes me up at the same time each day. And that’s when I jump into my slow morning ritual (more about that here).

I make my day-to-day life boring on purpose.

But I never get bored of it.

Truth is, setting up my everyday life to be as boring and routine as possible has provided more opportunity for excitement, for play and more opportunities for personal growth.

If you’re ready to level up your fitness, career, and personal life, it’s time you started embracing the power of boring routines.

Today, you’re going to learn why this is so powerful and how you can develop your own boring systems so you can win.

Let’s get into it.

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Your pursuit of excitement is killing your progress

People love unique, rare and exciting.

I worked in television news for almost a decade.

What made the headlines of the 6 p.m. newscast were crime, politics, intense sports moments, celebrities, tragedy and war. None of these things would be considered boring.

Quite the opposite.

These kinds of headlines are exciting, rare and unique. And they make for great entertainment.

The job of the nightly newscast is to grab your attention … and keep your attention with captivating stories, video and updates.

If you get too bored you’ll change the channel.

Let me give you another example.

Every day, there are about 45,000 commercial flights domestically (per the FAA). That’s over 16 million flights per year.

About one in every 810,000 flights ends in tragedy.

Tragic endings make exciting headlines.

The millions of routine landings are not “juicy” headlines. They’re boring.

We get so caught up in that shiny object, the fancy app, the fad diet or crazy new trend.

You can get dizzy trying to keep up with the next best thing.

It leads to overwhelm. Then you get anxiety because of the overwhelm. And you quit. Back to square one again.

When it comes to productivity, habit-building, getting healthier, and creating systems into your day, boring is where you want to be.

Skip the dramatics for now.

Instead, it’s time to develop a process.

A process that will allow you to consistently show up even on the days when you don’t feel like it.

Because in our breakneck pace and burned out society, there will be a lot of days when you simply don’t feel like it.

Boring routines don’t make you boring

Quite the opposite, actually.

Building systems and creating your own process are the first rungs of the discipline ladder to improve at just about anything.

Being consistent with “boring routines” increases the likelihood that you’ll actually accomplish the many things you’ve been saying you wanted to do in the first place.

Take a step back and notice how celebrities, CEOs, influencers and successful entrepreneurs will brag about how their “boring routines” are a major part of their success.

Eating healthy is boring.

Vegetables can taste like grass married dirt. That pizza is much tastier than my daily grain bowl. I’d much rather house a big plate of pancakes instead of chowing on some oatmeal.

But a boring diet leads to better energy.

Energy that helps me stay above water when I’m drowning in parenting and work.

Reading is boring.

It takes time. You need discipline to keep going back to your reading habit.

The environment has to be peaceful and quiet enough so you can absorb what you’re reading.

And you need the patience to slog through a thick, meaty book that might take days (or even weeks) to finish.

But a boring reading habit leads to so much knowledge accumulation. You learn new and interesting things that help you become a smarter, more well-rounded person.

Going to bed every night at 10 p.m. is boring.

I’d love to have the energy to stay up like I used to do back in my TV News days and watch some of the west coast sports events that play into the late nights.

But, I know that by going to bed at a regular time, I’ll give my mind and body adequate rest to wake up the next day ready to crush and be successful.

These are all some of my boring routines. They all help me perform at my best. It’s time that you develop more boredom in your day, too.

You need to create boring routines

Just like my meals are planned to optimize my day, every aspect of my routine serves an actual purpose: to free up more time for me to enjoy more areas of life.

In order for this to work, you’re going to have to get comfortable with being bored while you settle into your new habits.

As you start repeating the systems over and over your proficiency in those systems gets easier.

While I eat the same breakfast and lunch just about every day, I do like a bit more variety with my dinners.

I cook the majority of the meals in our house and have a rotation of about 10 different meals that I could prepare in about 30-40 minutes.

At first, I only had about three different dinner ideas and each took about an hour.

Over time, I got faster. Now I can make all 10 or more dinners without even referencing the recipe.

I got better at the process and developed my own dinner-making skill. It’s through the structure of my boring routine that unlocked more freedom to get creative.

That’s the beauty of repetition.

Now look, I’m not dumb.

I know that if you get too bored with your routine, you’ll lose interest and quit. Here’s how to prevent that from happening:

Avoid the boredom by focusing on the development of your new craft

I’m a minimalist when it comes to my fitness.

My workouts are drilled down to the absolute essential movement patterns that allow me to get the most efficient full body workout in the least amount of time.

Each session is only 20-25 minutes and includes variations of the standard push-up, pull-up and squat or lunge.

This doesn’t get boring for me because I’m not focused on just cranking out reps or in losing weight. Instead, I’m focused on the skill of calisthenics. I’m practicing for excellence.

I want to be the 75-year old dude at the playground calisthenics parks here in New York City that shows all the young fellas how I can execute a bunch of perfect pull-ups.

I’m not talking about sloppy, half-reps with a bunch of kipping and flailing around, I want as close to flawless form as possible.

This keeps me interested in my practice.

It’s a long-term goal to work towards.

Learn the foundations and fundamentals of your new skill or practice.

Don’t just do it to check off the box and move on. Celebrate the little wins along the way as you get better at performing.

This will keep you interested as you continue to Level Up your progress and get more proficient at a skill.

If I was to suggest a few daily routines that everyone should incorporate into their day, I’d start with what I call the WISE Framework—Wellness, Improvement, Social connections, and Enjoyment—to structure my day for balance and growth:

1 Daily habit for Wellness

Make sure you’re exercising every single day. You should have a strength-training regime that you practice regularly and a daily walking habit at minimum.

1 Daily habit for Improvement

This can be learning new things by reading more or taking a digital course, even hiring a coach. Developing new skills for your profession or career (or even learning how to start your own business).

1 Daily habit for Social connections

We’re all lonely and staring at social media instead of FaceTiming a friend or loved one. Make it a point to have one meaningful connection with a human (ChatGPT does not count).

1 Daily habit for Enjoyment

Do something (even if it’s small) for fun every single day. Not because you want to burn calories, but because it’s fun.

I play video games just about every afternoon as I wrap up my work before I pick up my kids from after school.

Become that person that falls in love with the boring routine

Think about the process.

When you want to get into better shape, you’ll need a routine.

You’ll need a routine that allows you to get quality sleep, improved nutrition and a workout regimen that allows you to make body composition progress.

If you want to improve your career standing (or start your own business), you’ll need systems.

You’ll need systems (routines) that allow you to plan better, learn more and level up your skills.

All of this is possible.

But no one is coming to save you to do it.

Hoping this is all of the sudden going to happen one day is not going to make it magically happen on its own.

You have to make a choice, a decision that you’re going to act on.

And that action starts by developing a powerful routine or system that allows you to stay consistent so you can get shit done.

Yeah, it might have to be a little boring in order to make it happen. 

I hope you found this useful. If so, I’d appreciate it if you sent this newsletter to one person you think would benefit from my writing today.

And if you’re new here and enjoyed this newsletter, I’d be honored if you subscribed for more at this link.

And as always, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

I answer all of my emails at pete [at] petecataldo [.] com … Hit me up with the subject line “boring routine” and I’ll answer any questions you have to make this work for you.

Until next time,
Pete