How Much Routine Is Good Routine?

Where’s the line between structure helping and 

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how much routine is enough routine. Most of the time I’ve been thinking that more routine is better than less routine. This perspective came from a number of places -

1 — I work from home for the most part, which takes discipline, given all of the distractions that come from working at home. Routine would help me focus on what needs to get done.

2 — Routine helps reduce some of the mental burden of scheduling each day. I’ve read in a number of places that scheduling is one of the most mentally resource intensive activities that we perform on a regular basis. Routine reduces the amount of time it takes to plan each day, if each day is already planned in advance.

3 — Routine helps me implement and stick to new habits. This is helpful to me, since I’m trying to implement one new habit each month this year.

4 — Routine helps provide me with a level of comfort that I’m able to get everything done that I want to get done, since it’s all scheduled in advance. This way I don’t have to keep beating myself up when I’m doing one activity by wondering if I should really be doing something else.

So this is how I’ve been looking at things for a while now. I’d say, for the most part, that sticking to a routine has been pretty helpful from these four perspectives. Lately, however, I’ve been wondering if the level of routine I follow on a daily basis is becoming too restrictive and limiting. As a result, I’m starting to wonder if the routine is becoming a source of stress that actually counter-balances or neutralizes at least some of the benefits of develping and sticking to a routine.

I think that at times, sticking too tightly to my routine causes me to ignore my instinctive feelings and intuition about what should be done next and when it should be done. I’m trying to pay more attention to these instinctive feelings and intuition, helping guide me past certain points in the day, week, and year, particularly when I’m feeling stuck in some shape or form. It seems like sticking to the routine can keep me stuck, if I continue to ignore the instinctive feelings and intuition.

What concerns me about breaking the routine to follow my instinctive feelings and intuition is potentially losing a number of the benefits that the routine has seemingly been providing for me. Once I follow that instictive and intuitive path, what if I find myself so far out there that I need to harness a whole boatload of mental energy to reign myself back onto the track? However, at the same time, I may find that being so far out there is where I’ve needed to be for a while and that the right place to be in the long term could be some combination of where the routine is taking me, as well as this new direction. This seems to be the dilemma.

The answer right now isn’t immediately clear to me. I think the answer, at least for now, is for me to at least expand my perception of what the right path might be, while being mindful of the light that may peek through doors that may crack open on either side of the path that the routine I’ve created sets for me each day. By being aware of those doors, I can at least take a look behind each one to begin exploring the instinctive and intuitive paths that they may lead to, while keeping them open so that they can lead back to the routine that seems to be working, at least to some extent, at that present moment.