​Funny how we stick to routines. A couple of weeks back I was in training and our trainer took our name tags each night so she could place them in a different location the next day so we’d interact with someone new. She wanted us to break our routines.
 
When you think about attending a regular business meeting, don’t most people gravitate towards the same seat? If you attend church and look where everyone sits on a weekly basis, they are most often seated in the same spot. Routine.
 
The past few weeks at our workout facility, new members filter through the weight machines. They’re finding their niche. For me though, they’re forcing me out of my routine.

Funny how that forces you to adjust. Nothing major. Still, you stop, go, “Hmmm, which machine should I grab next?,” then head over there, and must remember to go back to the one you missed.

Maybe it’s that having to come back later issue which gives you that “ever so slight bit of irritation” when someone forces you to break routine. They’re on your turf. You’ve been there over and over for months, if not years. It’s mine, like a personal possession.
 
If I were a smarter man, I’d appreciate the break in the action. Doesn’t that give you the opportunity to meet someone new? Doesn’t it mean you might choose to add a new workout step to your arsenal?
 
Instead it’s more like, “Damn, now I’ve got to wait” or “why didn’t he choose the leg lift station first instead of coming here first?” I think it’s part of the “me first” us humans have about many things.

Yes, we accommodate others. And no, in situations like this we don’t speak up and complain. We go along with the flow, fitting into the next weight station while waiting our turn for the one we really want. It doesn’t mean we don’t wish the guy had chosen to go do sit-ups in another section of the gym so you can finish your workout on time and in same way you have done it over and over.
 
If I were a better man, this would never bother me. In fact, it never should. One of my mental goals is to breeze along in these situations, whistle a happy tune, strike a positive tone, roll with it, and maybe skip that training cycle if it comes down to it.
 
Maybe that is what is meant to happen: Adjust your routine. We are creatures of habit, and if we do the same thing the same way repeatedly, we get the same results.
 
Responding and changing, however small the action is, forces us out of our little comfort zones. That new series of weights you decide to try because the machine you want is occupied by someone else may be just the bump you need to refine the stomach muscles you’ve worked to tighten. Or strengthen your forearms just the way you wanted. Who knows?
 
Embrace the change in routine. That will be my new motto. “Now finish your reps so I can get in there.”

​When you slice the data, you lose the humanity. I don’t think I would have said that five years ago, and certainly not 10.
 
What do I mean by that phrase? Recently I had a conversation with a colleague, who happens to be significantly younger than me. The details revolved around the monetization of so many things we do today, and the tracking that goes on by companies to pay attention to metrics.
 
So much is measured, quantified, sliced, spit out. Then, the powers-that-be decide to institute tools that show exactly what you are doing, when you are doing it, so that systemically every step in a process is calculated. I get it. There’s a push to not waste time or resources. You must be productive. Otherwise you don’t make money.
 
When you select that as your guide though, you’re also losing connections, time spent with customers that helps you cultivate their relationship, and a sense of conviviality in the workplace. In short, data dehumanizes us. It turns everything you do into a calculable event.

That’s chilling if you think about it. And we are going down that path more and more each day.
 
Some of this goes back to Billy Bean with the Oakland Athletics in Major League Baseball. He started collecting massive amounts of data for statistical purposes to figure out new productive methods to measure the abilities of players on the team. “Statistics don’t lie” is the message. But, yes, statistics do lie if that’s all you look at. And that’s the problem.
 
When you focus so heavily on those stats, you forget about who’s a leader in the clubhouse. You don’t recognize there’s a HUGE value in someone who brings his teammates together. And you don’t take into account the practical joker who keeps everyone loose and relaxed so they don’t clam up when they’re in a slump and facing a tough pitcher in a clutch situation.
 
That’s what has infected our lives in so many was as we slice data to measure things. We may get perceived efficiency. But we lose our humanity and that of our coworkers and customers. We are all commoditized.
 
I was talking with a friend of mine about this recently during our morning workout. He was immediately taken with the subject and applied it to where he works: at a hospital. The data charted there mandates that certain things must be accomplished in a specific way.

The important value of a “caring” nurse becomes lost. It is not valued, so the patient doesn’t get the attention of a nurse that he or she deserves.

That’s sad because medical care implicitly should be about that: caring for others. Helping people get better. That’s the goal, and the human touch makes it happen.
 
I started the conversation with my colleague by saying how saddened I was to see how pressed so many of us are today as we try to keep up with data points to show our value. It’s not a good thing, and I’m convinced it’s a major issue that drives stress in almost everyone’s life who participates in a first world economy. We must prove ourselves over and over and over to demonstrate the data’s value.
 
When the data is irrelevant, outdated, or doesn’t measure what it’s supposed to, what’s the value? None. Let’s get back to connecting with others, knitting together, caring about customers, and the financial goals will fall into line. You have to give it time.

​Am I incompetent or have hotel alarm clocks become unmanageable? It seems that every time I’ve been to a hotel the past five years or so, the alarms have become more and more complicated and hard to use. I think the manufacturers want everyone to set their smart phones to wake people up in the morning, so they see how effectively they can confuse you with the alarm clocks they sell to hotel chains.

Case in point: I recently was in a two-week training session and tried the first evening to set the alarm in my hotel room. I prefer the old school, the louder beep to wake me up, versus using my phone. Something I’m used to.
 
I hovered over the alarm, reading through the various functions, unable to even determine what they meant, much less how to operate them. I foraged for the correct buttons, testing one after another, until finally giving up about 15 minutes into the task. Life is too short to frustrate yourself trying to figure out something when the phone is waiting there to take over.
 
All I want is to set an alarm. I don’t want the radio to come on. I don’t need a reset button. Just give some simple commands that say, “set alarm” and “volume,” and that should do it. Really.
 
Instead, this version of a useless appliance included some of the following functions:
 

• Sleep/Snooze Dimmer, Hi/Low (made sense)
• Set/pre/m+ (hmmmm…. What?)
• Aux In/AM/FM, On/Off (something to do with the radio, of course; but who has ever figured out what “auxiliary” means? I certainly haven’t.)
• Hour/TU- Min/TU+ (what the heck? Something to do with hours and minutes and up and down.)
• AL 1Vol-, AL2Vol+ (sounds like there are two alarms; but one can only go up and the other can only go down when you try to change the volume. Forget about touching these buttons.)

It’s easier to give up than to try and figure it out. And I certainly was not going to call the front desk to aske how to operate the alarm. “Hello, I was wondering if you could put someone on the line with me for the next 19 minutes to go through the alarm functions so I can get up on time tomorrow and not spend the night obsessing about whether the alarm will go off in the morning when I want it to, and at a volume that will actually wake me up.”
 
Maybe this is a plan to sell more alarms. Make them seem smart and complicated so hotel chains think they need to offer that to their customers.
 
Quite frankly, I think an intelligent alarm clock maker would go in the opposite direction. The world is too complicated when it comes to directions and paperwork. We want things to work simply and easily. Make it so.
 
That’s what I’d encourage the manufacturers to do: Set yourself apart by giving us an “on” and “off” button. A “set alarm” button. And a “volume” button. Can the rest.
 
If you keep it simplified, the bottom line is you’ll sell more product. And if you’re in the business of selling product (who isn’t?), shouldn’t that be your guide?
 
I don’t know. It seems like there are a lot of companies around these days who want to over-complicate our lives. We don’t need it. Give us the basics and we’ll come flocking.