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Maintaining Consistency Through Change

The anchor in your storm

The boxes were half-packed when I realized I had no idea what I was doing.

Third move in eighteen months. New city. New project. New everything. My routines had evaporated like morning dew, and with them went my productivity, my creative output, and most of my sanity.

“Consistency through change” sounds like an oxymoron—like “jumbo shrimp” or “deafening silence.” How do you stay consistent when everything around you transforms? How do you maintain momentum when the ground shifts beneath your feet?

The question haunts entrepreneurs, creatives, and anyone whose livelihood depends on sustaining output through life’s inevitable upheavals. After fifteen years of cycling through spectacular failures and modest successes, I’ve discovered something surprising: consistency isn’t about maintaining every routine—it’s about identifying which ones truly matter.

The consistency myth we need to kill

Let’s start by dispelling a particularly persistent myth:

“Successful people maintain the same routine every day, without exception.”

Not true.

Even the most disciplined creators adjust their systems during periods of change. The difference is they understand the distinction between rigid routines and flexible frameworks.

Tim Ferriss, despite his reputation for extreme habits, frequently adapts his morning ritual when traveling. Seth Godin, who’s blogged daily for over a decade, has shifted when and how he writes countless times through life transitions.

The secret isn’t perfect adherence to a fixed system. It’s knowing which elements are non-negotiable and which can evolve.

The identity anchor technique

When everything changes, anchor yourself to who you are, not what you do.

Consider this framework:

  1. Identity markers: Core activities that define who you are
  2. Supporting systems: Routines that enable those activities
  3. Environmental elements: Physical and digital setups

Most people get this backwards. They try to recreate their exact environment first, then rebuild routines, hoping their core work will eventually follow.

This approach fails spectacularly during transitions.

Instead, identify the 1-3 core activities that define your professional identity. For me, it’s writing 500 words daily, regardless of quality. For you, it might be coding for an hour, making one sales call, or spending 30 minutes in deep strategic thinking.

Everything else can shift. Everything else will shift.

The minimum viable day

During major change, simplify ruthlessly.

I learned this from a programmer friend who moved countries while maintaining a complex client project. When I asked how he managed it, he laughed: “I designed my minimum viable day.”

The concept is powerful: What’s the smallest version of your day that still preserves your identity as a creator?

Mine looks like this:

That’s it. Four elements, requiring perhaps 2-3 hours total. When life goes sideways, I abandon everything else without guilt.

Your minimum viable day might include:

Notice what’s missing: email, meetings, social media, news, complex planning systems, elaborate workouts. These can return when stability does.

Technology as consistency infrastructure

For digital creators, technology can serve as consistency infrastructure during transitions.

Here’s how to leverage it effectively:

1. Create portable focus environments

Focus modes in modern operating systems aren’t just notification filters—they’re portable work contexts. Design custom Focus modes for your core identity activities:

These settings sync across devices, creating consistent conditions regardless of physical location.

2. Automate environment transitions

Automation apps can trigger entire work environments with a single tap:

I have a “Writing Mode” shortcut that opens my editor, queues instrumental music, sets a 35-minute timer, and displays my current word count goal.

3. Leverage ubiquitous capture

A digital note-taking system becomes invaluable during transitions. Create a “Rapid Capture” note pinned at the top, accessible from your phone, watch, and computer.

When insights arrive—and they will, often triggered by change itself—you have frictionless capture points regardless of context.

The transition journal protocol

Change generates data. Capture it.

During my most recent move, I developed a simple journaling protocol that revealed patterns I would have otherwise missed:

Morning questions (3 minutes):

Evening review (5 minutes):

This isn’t feel-good journaling—it’s practical intelligence gathering. Pattern recognition emerges rapidly, allowing you to adapt your approach daily rather than weekly or monthly.

The temporary systems mindset

Sometimes you need temporary systems that you’ll later abandon—a truth most productivity experts won’t acknowledge.

During major transitions, I’ve used:

The key is framing these as deliberate, temporary adaptations—not failures of discipline.

Tell yourself: “For the next 14 days, while this transition unfolds, I’m intentionally using this modified approach. After that period, I’ll reassess.”

This prevents temporary adaptations from becoming permanent compromises.

The consistency spectrum

Consistency exists on a spectrum, not as a binary state.

Consider these levels:

Level 1: Identity consistency You maintain core activities that define your professional identity, even if everything else shifts.

Level 2: Output consistency You produce similar volume and quality of work, even if methods change.

Level 3: Process consistency Your workflows remain largely intact despite environmental changes.

Level 4: Environmental consistency Your physical and digital environments remain stable.

During major transitions, aim for Level 1-2 consistency. Don’t beat yourself up for temporarily sacrificing Levels 3-4.

Strategic inconsistency

Sometimes the most consistent thing you can do is be temporarily inconsistent.

This paradox hit me during a particularly chaotic project launch that coincided with moving apartments. My normal writing routine was collapsing daily due to unpredictable interruptions.

Rather than maintain a failing consistency, I embraced strategic inconsistency: three days of writing nothing, followed by one day of immersive creation when circumstances allowed.

The output remained consistent. The process did not.

Seth Godin calls this “streaks versus batches.” Some work benefits from daily consistency (streaks), while other work can be batched effectively.

During transitions, consider what truly requires daily attention and what could be temporarily batched without compromising your professional identity.

Practical implementation

Let’s translate these concepts into immediate action steps:

  1. Define your identity anchors
    • What 1-3 activities must continue for you to maintain professional identity?
    • What’s the minimum effective dose of each?
  2. Design your minimum viable day
    • Script the essential 2-3 hours that preserve your core functions
    • Eliminate or delegate everything else temporarily
  3. Create portable triggers
    • Set up focus modes that travel with you across devices
    • Build environment shortcuts that launch your ideal work conditions
    • Establish ubiquitous capture points for insights and ideas
  4. Implement the transition journal
    • Set up morning and evening check-in prompts
    • Review weekly to identify emerging patterns
    • Adjust your approach based on data, not emotion
  5. Embrace strategic inconsistency
    • Identify what must happen daily versus what can be batched
    • Create clear conditions for when batch work will occur
    • Communicate these parameters to collaborators

The hidden opportunity in change

Change isn’t just a threat to consistency—it’s an opportunity to rebuild it more intelligently.

Every major transition in my career has forced a reevaluation of workflows that had silently accumulated unnecessary complexity. The disruption revealed what was essential and what was merely habitual.

Your current systems likely contain elements that:

Transitions provide the perfect disruption to identify and eliminate these elements—but only if you approach change mindfully rather than frantically attempting to recreate the status quo.

Remember what matters

At my desk sits a handwritten note that survived three moves, two relationship endings, and countless professional reinventions. It reads:

“The work outlasts the circumstances.”

When everything shifts—locations, relationships, projects, technologies—this remains true. The work you create today will exist beyond the chaos of this transition.

Consistency isn’t about rigidly adhering to systems. It’s about ensuring your essential creative output continues—sometimes despite your systems, not because of them.

This perspective brings freedom. It allows you to adapt without guilt, experiment without fear, and maintain what truly matters while releasing what doesn’t.

The next time change arrives—and it will—remember that consistency lives in you, not in your circumstances.

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