What Post-Grad Life Taught Me About Routines

When I graduated this past summer, I had no idea what to do in the future.

Being at college for four years I developed a set of habits. This includes setting up schedules to fit in everything from classes, work, studying and parties (of course). These schedules made me follow a specific routine throughout each year of my undergrad career. However, I would often change these routines, either because I didn’t feel like studying or wanted to binge-watch on Netflix (often these would go hand-in-hand).

After graduation, I realized that my life had no direction. I didn’t have a job set up, I had a million things I wanted to do running wild in my head, and most importantly, my routines will be gone. All my academic, social, and work routines were gone once I was handed my degree.

Flash-forward to a week later, in Zurich, where I still felt like I had no idea what I was doing. Traveling throughout Europe certainly distracted me, but I was still anxious about my future. Whenever I would check social media in the morning, I would often see someone I knew making a “happy to announce I accepted a position at _______!”. Over-thinking about each little “announcement” spiked my anxiety a little bit, even when on vacation. It didn’t help that I went to an overly-competitive school; colleges within the Greater Boston Area were notorious for the competition within each school, from Harvard to my alma mater Boston University. However, traveling made me realize to stop being so down on myself and get the ball rolling, which meant one thing; the routines need to come back.

Once I got a writing tutor position at the local community college over the summer, I started to establish a morning routine. Wake up by 8 AM, get breakfast, make a half-assed lunch, go to work, head back from work, dinner, work out/Netflix/full-time job searching/procrastination and bed. This sounds boring as hell, to be sure, but what a lot of people don’t realize is that routines generally keep you sane. Gone were the nights where I would stay up until 3–4 AM, pre-gaming on weekends and working on last-minute edits to papers. Most importantly, gone were the constant thoughts about not achieving after graduation, as now a clear routine has changed my mindset.

There are things I still need to improve on that routines cannot fix. There are bigger problems in the world that no routine can fix. But establishing a regimen to follow almost every morning after graduation certainly helped my stress and anxiety, even if they are caused by the littlest thing.

According to Northwestern Medicine and common sense, routines lead to better sleep, lower stress levels, and better physical health. I realized that a lot of my post-grad stress was due to the sudden lack of routine. Even in college, my “routine” was based around stress and anxiety, trying to make deadlines while balancing a work-life balance and internships. While this may be a little thing to think about in the grand scheme of life, establishing a routine to follow every day helped me better myself.