6/6/2016 YourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrongQuartz

ROUTINELY HATING EVERYTHING

Your inability to form a routine is a warning

sign that something deeper is wrong
Quora 3 hours ago

Feeling dead inside? (Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar)

This question originally appeared on Quora: How did you overcome your work routine? Dont you feel that your
life is just one in nitely repeated day? Answer by Michael Kilcoyne.

This was my routine before work:

Wake up at 2am in a complete panic.

Fail to go back to sleep for another two or three hours.

Force myself to get out of bed at around 6:30-7ish, because I had

to.

During the subway ride in:

Run through all of the worst-case scenarios that were slowly

playing out in my mind about what would happen if I got red
today/tomorrow.
http://qz.com/692717/yourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrong/ 1/8
6/6/2016 YourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrongQuartz

Imagine all of my potential sales calls ending in: STOP CALLING

ME! PLEASE DIE!

Have an utterly crippling sense of dread overcome me before I even

step into the of ce and make a single call.

Throughout the day:

Fight the urge to vomit onto my desk due to sheer panic.

Force self to make calls because if I dont I will get red.

Make some calls. Eventually, talk to somebody who sounds like

theyre ready to buy.

Completely whiff the opportunity, slam the phone down on your

desk, yell out (or, at least, emote), storm out of the salesroom, head
into the bathroom, and break down emotionally.

Get back out there, make some more calls. At some point, convince
someone to buy something from you behind this mask of bravado
and con dence, even though youre completely panicking.

By the end of the day, settle into a sense of calm because Ive
essentially done my job and feel less scared about tomorrow.

Rinse, repeat. Do that for at least 20-days out of the month. Repeat, month-to-month. Never feel totally
safe or secure. It wasnt exactly a winning formula for a healthy lifestyle.

Routines are only soul-sucking when you hate what youre doing

If youre building things every day and you feel secure and satis ed with your work, I think its only
natural (and healthy) to settle into a routine. (And hopefully that routine doesnt involve panic-attacks.)

And, in fact, having a routine is extremely critical to creating success. As Charles Druhigg, author of The
Power of Habit, writes:

Almost every single species that has survived has the ability to take routines and make them automatic.
That way you have cognitive power to invent spears and re and video games.

So, if you want to create the next Overwatch because youre overwhelmingly passionate about video
games, having a design or development routine will only enable you to do so by clearing all of the bullshit
out of your head and getting you to focus on the important things: building that next app, writing that
next chapter, or recording that next awesome piece of video for your big web-project.

Still, if you like what youre doing, that routine will only enable you to be more creative. And you can
always create better ones, too.

How to create routines that dont suck

http://qz.com/692717/yourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrong/ 2/8
6/6/2016 YourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrongQuartz

1. Dont force it

Sunni Brown runs a creative agency for a living, and even then, she says that shes only creative for about
four hours every day, max, not including the nap that she throws in there. She doesnt force it, either.
When she doesnt feel creative at 6am in the morning, she doesnt force herself into that routine.
Sometimes that happens at 6pm.

2. Get outside and away from people

Im generally the most productive when Im away from people and outside. Sometimes its too hot and I
sweat a lot, so Ill nd a coffee shop far away from everyone and hang out there. Its tough to nd a good
rhythm and routine and break out of your comfort zone if youre constantly stuck in the of ce. Carve out
some time during lunch, or early-morning, or late-afternoon to just be by yourself and focus on shit that
matters to do. Its what some writers call fertile solitude.

3. Do one thing different, every day

If were constantly shuttling ourselves from home to work, work to home, doing the same monotonous
bullshit, it becomes increasingly dif cult for us to do real, creative work that doesnt slowly eat away at our
souls. One simple trick for changing this is to simply implement some sort of change into your daily
routine: eat something different for lunch, go to work differently, try a salsa/cooking class at night,
anything. If you keep doing the same shit over and over again, and youre slowly starting to hate yourself,
thats bad and you need to change it.

Routines help us to automate our lives, so that we can focus our mental energies on real, creative, and
important work.

Still, if you hate your job, and your daily routine sucks, and you feel like youre slowly getting swallowed
up by life, dont blame it on your environment. Because you can change that, too.

You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

More from Quora:

What are some productive things to do for 15 minutes a day?

What are some skills every 24 year old should know?

How do I get rid of this laziness and procrastination?

CRASHING CONDIMENTS

Is there a better ketchup than Heinz?

Without the shelf space, well never nd
out
Chase Purdy 4 hours ago
http://qz.com/692717/yourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrong/ 3/8
6/6/2016 YourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrongQuartz

Condiments are ripe for disruption. (Courtesy of Sir Kensington's)

The rst step to disrupting the supermarket condiments aisle is to show up on the shelves.

In most American grocery stores, options for mayonnaise and mustard are few. When it comes to ketchup,
its even more scant. Shoppers typically have three choices: Kraft Heinz, Hunts and the store brand. Its a
tightly controlled market, but one small New York company aims to upset the decades-long condiment
stasis.

And it may have a ghting chance.

In ve years, Sir Kensingtons, the brainchild of a couple 2008 Brown University graduates, has carved out
shelf space in boutique food shops, natural food grocery stores, about 200 Safeways and all Whole Foods
Market locations. It will get its biggest opportunity in September, when the brands mayonnaise will be
tested among shoppers in 10 Northern California Costco stores.

If Costco shoppers like it and the big warehouse store commits to ketchup, mustard and stocking the
brand in up to 460 more locations, it will be a game changer for Sir Kensingtons. It will also show that
Hunts and Kraft Heinz no longer dictate Americas condiment tastes.

Its de nitely big, said Jared Koerten, an analyst at Euromonitor. Making that jumpinto the
mainstream aisle is the challenge. Costco can be a huge launching point for some of these brands.

Sir Kensingtons may be minuscule compared to current industry behemoths, but its foray into the
condiment aisle resembles other attacks suffered by giant food companies in recent years. US shoppers
want healthier foods with ingredients they can recognize, and they dont trust big food companies to
deliver. Between 2009 and 2014, smaller US food companies captured $18 billion from the multinational
giants, according to research by Boston Consulting Group.

http://qz.com/692717/yourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrong/ 4/8
6/6/2016 YourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrongQuartz

In response, major companies have changed the recipes of their biggest products. Theyve also scooped
up many of their upstart competitors. General Mills bought Annies Homegrown organic food company
for $820 million; Hormel Foods acquired Justins nut butter brand; Coca-Cola bought Honest Tea; and
Danone now owns Stony eld Farm, to name a few.

Ketchups, mustards, dressings and mayo have enjoyed more stability than yogurt and tea, but companies
such as Sir Kensingtons and Hampton Creek are trailblazing through the condiment market. Hidden
Valley and Wishbone salad dressings have ceded market share to premium brands. And Kraft Heinz
barbecue sauce has been clobbered over the last decade by Sweet Baby Rays, which overtook the giant
brand in 2010 as the top selling barbecue avoring.

Overthrowing Kraft Heinz as the #1 barbecue brand

Kraft Heinz Sweet Baby Ray's
$350 million
300
250
200 Like Stay Connected to Quartz on Facebook
150
100
50
0
06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14

Data: Euromonitor Share

The long term horizon is just more threatening for some of these [big] companies, Koerten said, adding
that Sir Kensingtons growing sales already closely match the trajectories of other successful upstart
brands.

Sir Kensingtons was created by Scott Norton and Mark Ramadan, who dreamed about making the perfect
ketchup while sitting in college classes. After Brown, Ramadan joined a top US consulting rm and
Norton moved to Tokyo to work in nance, but both were nagged by the idea of making a better ketchup.
http://qz.com/692717/yourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrong/ 5/8
6/6/2016 YourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrongQuartz

We had this idea that food in America was changing, and that ketchup and condiments were being left
behind, Norton said.

A Brown University student lls out a ketchup-tasting card. (Courtesy of Scott Norton) (Scott Norton)

At school, they had thrown a series of ketchup-tasting parties for friends to try a hodgepodge of their
tomato concoctions. The pair irted with all sorts of ketchup styles, including a wacky Christmas-
avored ketchup and also one that incorporated Asian ingredients such as ginger and rice vinegar. They
nally settled on two: classic and spicy. The Brown parties were dressy cocktail affairs, but those who
attended recall them as a way to conduct low cost market research.

The ketchups were laid out so that one could blind taste test them, said Woody Schneider, who recalled
attending several of the tastings. Ketchup was seen as a hole in the marketplace that seemed like it could
be lled.

Nonetheless, disruption in condiments, particularly ketchup, is notoriously dif cult. Del Monte attempted
to squeeze onto the shelf alongside Kraft Heinz and Hunts a dozen years ago, but as detailed by Malcolm
Gladwell in a 2004 New Yorker story, even it had trouble going up against the two top tomatoes:

Ketchup a cionados say that theres a disquieting unevenness to the tomato notes in Del Monte
ketchup: Tomatoes vary, in acidity and sweetness and the ratio of solids to liquid, according to the seed
variety used, the time of year they are harvested, the soil in which they are grown, and the weather
during the growing season. Unless all those variables are tightly controlled, one batch of ketchup can
end up too watery and another can be too strong.

Sir Kensingtons founders were not deterred. After reconnecting in 2010, the duo produced their rst
manufactured batch. Since then, the rm has expanded into mustard, mayonnaise and vegan mayonnaise,
giving it greater leverage with retailers.

Just because nobody got the avor balance right doesnt mean it couldnt be done, Norton said.

http://qz.com/692717/yourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrong/ 6/8
6/6/2016 YourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrongQuartz

Sir Kensington's retail-only sales are growing at a rapid clip

Total Ketchup Mustard Mayo
$2,500,000

2,000,000

1,500,000

1,000,000

500,000

0
2013 2014

Data: SPINS (excludes Whole Foods sales data, food service sales and restaurant sales) Share

Last year Sir Kensingtons raised $8.5 million from private equity group Verlinvest and a handful of
individual investors. What started in a college apartment is now an eight- gure company headquartered
at a New York City of ce in the trendy SoHo district, with production operations in Rochester, New York
and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Sir Kensingtons isnt trying to replicate already-popular condiments so much as its trying to best them
by using premium, higher-cost ingredients. Whereas Kraft Heinz uses tomato concentrate (including in its
organic line) and high-fructose corn syrup to sweeten its ketchup, Sir Kensingtons lists tomatoes as its
rst ingredient and organic sugar as its sweetener. In mayonnaise, Sir Kensingtons uses free-range
chicken eggs and sun ower oil; Hellmanns brand contains at least 50% cage-free egg product and
cheaper soybean oil.

Norton and Ramadan price their products between 50% and double the price of leading brands, but
maintain theirs is a healthier condiment. To stand out as a premium brand, they package most of their
products in glassware.

Making a better ketchup is one thing. Getting it on store shelves is another. Kraft Heinz, which did not
return requests for comment, maintains a powerful grip on supermarket ketchup shelves. But Kraft,
perhaps fearful of losing out in ketchup, has lately taken on other condiments. Most recently, its been
distracted by a dif cult yellow mustard war against Frenchs, the powerful, venerable brand owned by
UKs Reckitt Benckiser Group.

That, plus the generally low level of competition in ketchup, has allowed Sir Kensingtons to wedge its
way onto shelves in select locations such as health stores and Whole Foods (which now accounts for 20%
of the brands retail revenue). Its also served at Bareburgers 42 US locations; Gotts Roadside, a small
California chain; Sweetgreen; Epic Burger in Chicago; PJ Clarkes in New York; and its the ketchup youll
get if you order room service at The Wynn hotel in Las Vegas. In all, the brand is sold in 5,000 stores in the
US, Norton said. That number will balloon further if Costco accepts the brand.

Our goal is to be the leading natural condiment brand in America, Norton said.

http://qz.com/692717/yourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrong/ 7/8
6/6/2016 YourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrongQuartz

Asked if he thinks Kraft Heinz and Hunts are aware of his company, Norton didnt skip a beat.

If were not on their radars, then they are asleep at the switch, he said.

The next several years may give way to volatility for ketchup, mustard and mayo, but thats good news for
hungry young brands looking to grab market share and give consumers more choice.

We want to be a household name, Norton said.

http://qz.com/692717/yourinabilitytoformaroutineisawarningsignthatsomethingdeeperiswrong/ 8/8