The power of routines

Routines are great.

I love them. They give my day, or even my week, structure. I know what to do when. That makes it easy to have a rough idea how much I can accomplish every day.

In that sense I miss the old way of watching tv.

You know, before streaming became a thing.

The shows you were watching would release one episode a week. You knew exactly what to watch on any given day. As you went through the tv schedule, your week progessed.

Everything that happens at a specific time becomes an anchor point. Your class schedule at school, regular meetings at work. Tasks you do on specific days.

All that fell away when I started as a freelancer in 2017. My work day began when I woke up, and ended when I went to bed. There was no structure to eating or resting.

It was fun for a while, and then it became very exhausting.

Everything around us is structured

The day has a morning, noon and evening. The year has seasons. The moon has phases effecting us.

We are wired to be a part of it.

The structure of the days, months and seasons is predictable. Right now, at the end of August, we know days will get shorter. The air will get cooler, leaves will fall and soon frost and snow will again cover the ground.

This predictability gives us stability.

Stability again provides a sense of safety, and of belonging.

Recently I read a study about the power of weekends and joint vacations. Everyone loves their free time, but people are happier when they can share this free time with friends and family. Weekends are important, because you know you can go out and venture with others. The same goes for summer holidays.

For years I worked with people that embraced hating this structure.

Working at odd hours, and never taking weekends or even weeks off made them proud. We all functioned like this. In the end, I missed being able to hang with my friends on a Saturday. I longed for a week away from my computer.

So I restructured my life, educated my clients and took back weekends.

I established routines that would benefit me.

Don’t start too rigid

When I was still working in an office, my mornings were one long routine.

Get up, shower, eat breakfast, put on make up, make the bed, head out the door. You could time it. Everything took the same amount of time every single day.

After not having any routines for a long time, this approach was impossible.

I had to start small with just a few fixed chunks.

Start with the obvious

Get your calendar out and drop in some fixed events.

Maybe it’s lunch, or dinner with the family. It could be your yoga class, or your kid’s swimming lesson.

Work from there.

Here is a tip to avoid stress in your day:

Make sure to plan for enough time to get to these appointments.

If class starts at 5.30pm and you need to leave at 4.45pm, then the 4.45 should be on your mind all day long.

This is your deadline. Protect those times with your life.

Make it a regular thing

I like it when things happen at the same time, on the same day, for weeks.

I fall into a rhythm where I just attend these events. There is no need to check the calendar all the time. I just know what’s next.

The things to look forward to will magically drag you through the days and week. If you have something fun planned every day (even if it’s just a Netflix movie) you don’t have to only the weekend to look forward to.

Or the next vacation to pine for.

Review regularly

Some of our routines we stick to out of habit. We forget to check in if they are actually adding to our lives.

For the longest time I had a cleaning schedule. It became stressful to keep up with it, just for the sake of keeping up. So what if I did clean when it was needed?

When the routines stops yielding the results we want, it might be time to mix it up, or do something else entirely.

And sometimes you have a week where all has to go out the window.

This week I moderated a virtual class every day from 10.30am to 7pm. This rendered all routines useless. Dinner had to be prepared and eaten later. The sauna needed to happen earlier, or be dropped entirely.

Even my 9-5 sleep schedule was hard to keep.

I loved it, as it challenged me to review all my routines.

Which ones stick after this week, and which can I let go of or replace with others?

The same happens when we go on vacation. We embrace the freedom from our regular lifes. No schedule to keep. But after a few weeks most people look forward to going back to work.

Everyday life with it’s routines has it’s perks.

So whatever your situation, whether you work or not, have regular hours or not, find something meaningful to add to your days.

Doing things regularly keeps you sane, and human.

xo, Yvonne

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