Are You trapped in a Tick-Box Life?
Wake up at 5 AM (get up you lazy swine). Gulp down a pint of filtered water. Meditate for 10 minutes (oh do shut up intrusive thoughts). Affirmations in the mirror. Journal your gratitude (thanks for erm sunshine? my iPhone?). Read for 10 minutes. Wim Hof breath-work (or is he cancelled now?). 20 minute prison workout. Ice cold shower (brown fat innit). Make your bed. SAD light. Powdered greens shake. Supplements (whatever Huberman is grifting). Get outside. 10 mins of sunlight directly into your retinas (go on, stare straight into the sun). Coffee 90 minutes after waking (science!). Pomodoro intervals. Stand every 25 minutes (silent killer!). Inbox zero. Hit your macros (protein Tupperware warrior). Eat the frog. 10k steps. 15-minute book summary (you’re so efficient). Batch-cook. Meditate again (do it better this time). Plan tomorrow (more of the same). No red light. Or blue light. Or whatever. Read again (non-fiction only). Be grateful again (you’ll think of something). Go to sleep. Now (you’ve got to be up at 5 remember!)
WATCH THE VIDEO TO HEAR ME READ THE FULL BLOG POST OR READ IT YOURSELF BELOW. OR JUST FEEL PRODUCTIVE BY BOOKMARKING IT FOR LATER (AND NEVER GET TO IT)
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Well done. You did it. You’re in the high-performance club.
A lived template of the ideal day, mapped out and delivered with to-do list perfection. A life, measured in boxes and ticks.
Well done again.
You’re a human spreadsheet.
- when AI figures out how to add text properly (homodo/wim shower/groottoms!), designers are in terrible trouble
You truly excel. (Weak spreadsheet pun that added little to the blog post but I left in anyway).
But while you’re ticking things off, something else is ticking away.
Tick. Tock. Tick.
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
- I had a million dollar idea ages ago to start a chain of Star Wars themed food premises called ‘Admiral Snackbar’s.’
Trapped in the tick-box
As usual, Admiral (sn)Ackbar is right. It’s a trap.
A routine trap for a routine life.
Don’t give in to the ‘dark side’ of the tickbox.
The problem isn’t the routine itself—it’s when you start believing the routine is the answer. As if nailing the perfect day will automatically lead to the perfect life.
If only it was so simple.
What you need to remember is - the routine isn’t the end goal—it’s just the scaffolding. It’s there to support the messy, exhilarating process of building your unique life—not replace it.
But if you’re not careful, the scaffolding becomes the thing. A seductive trap wrapped in a comfort-blanket of productivity porn.
Polished but hollow. Efficient over effective. A calendar full of checkmarks but empty of you.
Ticking off your list keeps you busy and full - pecking away diligently at your routine like a pigeon in a science experiment, pecking for a food pellet. Those pecked/checked boxes can give you a lovely dopamine pellet reward, and even an intravenous hit of identity (I’m a meditator! I optimise my life! I’m the Ice Man! I am efficient! I’m in the 5 AM club!).
But that’s usually at the expense of something more meaningful.
You’re handling life, but are you living it?
Well? I’m asking you. Are you?
“If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it’s lethal.”
Sleight of Hand: The Tick is a Trick
Tick. Tock. Tick.
The boxes get ticked. The clock ticks faster.
And somewhere along the way, the tick becomes a trick.
What starts as a helpful framework becomes a system you can’t escape—a performance you’ve perfected but no longer control. The gurus and influencers make it look easy: Master the morning routine of winners! Follow the 10 habits of high performers!
But what they’re selling is an illusion of control—a sleek, monetizable framework that promises safety from the chaos of uncertainty, creativity, and real work. It’s a magician’s sleight of hand. The box-ticking makes you focus on the surface—the list, the structure, the shiny process—while you lose sight of what’s missing:
The ACTUAL EDGE these routines are meant to provide!
You don’t meditate, eat frogs, or wake up at 5 AM just for the sake of it. These routines are tools, meant to sharpen your mind, your focus, and your decisions.
They’re supposed to give you an edge—a way to outpace the competition, the chaos, or even your own complacency.
But somewhere along the way, we lose sight of the why. Meditation becomes about ticking a box. Waking up early becomes a badge of honor. “Inbox Zero” becomes the goal, not the clarity it’s meant to bring.
Oliver Burkeman puts it perfectly:
“The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control… and when the fully optimized person you’ve become can turn, at long last, to the things life is really supposed to be about.”
…and that’s when the trap snaps shut.
- hello…anybody…little hand?
Forget the Tick Box—Find Your Edge
Hi, I’m Kris and I’m a tickaholic.
But I’m in recovery. After years of perfecting my to-do lists and routines, I at last realised that ticking someone else’s boxes wasn’t giving me the life I wanted. It’s why I’m so focused on helping others find what truly matters now.
So, what’s the alternative?
It’s not about burning your to-do list or ditching structure entirely. Routines are useful—they keep you sane, focused, and ready to take on the day.
But they’re not the work.
They don’t create meaning. They don’t build a life worth living.
One problem is time—the unforgiving x-axis we all must accept. Real progress is slow, messy, and hard to see. And when the results don’t show up quickly, ticking boxes feels like the only way to prove you’re moving forward.
And that’s when the trap tightens again.
You get seduced by other people’s signals of success—their perfect morning routines, their “non-negotiables,” their bestselling advice.
You copy their blueprints, thinking they’ll lead to your breakthrough.
But all they do is replace the hard questions you need to ask yourself with someone else’s answers.
It’s not your life you’re building—it’s theirs.
Millions of copies of books like; How to Win Friends and Influence People, Getting Things Done, and Think and Grow Rich have been sold. But how many of their readers end up influencing anyone, growing rich, or even just getting things done? Not bloody many.
The allure remains. The boxes get ticked. The best-sellers get read. The four-hour podcasts get played.
But none of it guarantees a life that’s truly yours.
We don’t need bigger to-do lists—we need bigger ideas.
And the biggest idea of all?
The part of you that can’t be templated or downloaded. The raw, messy, uncopyable core that will never show up in someone else’s “ultimate guide to success.”
That’s the only thing worth building your life around.
Your edge is the combination of strengths, quirks, and hidden levers that crack the code to your full potential. And they exist across every dimension of your life - Upstream, Downstream, Inward and Outward. They’re…
Your Personal Edge: Knowing thyself - including embracing and weaponising all of your glorious flaws, building your mental fitness, and refining your mindset.
Your Thinking Edge: Detonating stale thinking, shifting perspectives, and getting upstream to deliver positive ripple effects downstream, in your decisions and actions.
Your Business Edge: Uncovering and acting decisively on high-leverage opportunities, reframing challenges, finding asymmetric results.
Your Idea Edge: Finding creative edges and unique combinations, to truly stand out.
So that’s what you must set about uncovering.
Let your daily routine enhance your edge, not replace it.
I would say this - but I also believe it to be true. It’s hard to do this alone. You can’t see your own blind spots.
You don’t know what you don’t know.
That’s why I started Brain Tapas™. I can be the catalyst to help you find, sharpen, and leverage the edges only YOU have.
Because when you sharpen these edges, you stop living someone else’s version of success.
And you can start living your own.
If you’re done ticking someone else’s boxes and ready to sharpen your edge, let’s talk.
THANKS FOR READING STRANGER. NOW YOUR TICK-BOX BRAIN IS TRAPPED ON MY FREQUENCY I’M GOING IN FOR THE KILL. THIS IS THE PART WHERE I TELL YOU TO BOOK A FREE DISCOVERY CALL. BECOME A BRAIN TAPAS™ CLIENT. FIND YOUR EDGE. FULFIL YOUR POTENTIAL. DON’T OVERTHINK IT. UNDER THINK IT - AND JUST CLICK THIS BLOODY TEXT.
