Curiosity is basic for us researchers, it leads us to keep asking, advancing and thinking, but like so much workload, we are still curious or we have become routine, what is your opinion, how do you feel?
Routine, in my experience, leads to higher levels of productivity but lower levels of creativity. Sometimes, when routines are broken creative thought emerges. Though...
Routine may be understood as something we do on a daily basis, but it doesn't mean it has to be boring. People tend to use the terms "routine" and "boredom" interchangably or as synonyms when they are not. We (researchers) can be "curiously routinary" or "routinarily courious". One thing doesn't exclude the other.
I'm think the danger you allude to isn't caused by routine practice but by routine methods of thinking. Routine practice can allow for mandated times of free and unbound thinking, for ideas to incubate and experimented on with little time constraint, particularly when it is sanctioned by your culture and managers (see 20% time at Google for a working example).
Routine methods of thinking tend to be caused by stress, such as overbearing timelines or unempathetic workplace cultures. Such aversity tends to produce repetitive and uninspired results as we look to familiar and comfortable responses to challenges. Amusingly, this is combated by the aforementioned mandate of unimpeded incubation time as part of your routine of practice.
Hope this helps
Certainly, scientific curiosity is one of the characteristics of a successful researcher
Best Regards Catia Cillóniz
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