Routines
I’m the kind of girl who likes to know what is going on, where, with who and at what time. I’m not nosy, just a little bossy…. and definitely a fan of routines. Routines keep me sane. Knowing just how much time I have in the mornings to get this and that done and still have time to hit the snooze button is awesome. Having a set work schedule, with the same hours every day of every week, is a great change from my previous fluctuating waitress schedule. Knowing when I’m working out and what I’m doing beforehand is both a time-saver and an easy way to get in and out of the gym successfully. Having Saturday and Sunday off to regroup and recuperate from a long week? Pretty good I guess.
At what point though do routines get in the way of living life? Sometimes I wonder what I could be doing other than completing the same tasks at home everyday, on repeat, over and over. Yet other times I relish the fact that I have a home and a husband to care for, a great job that pays the bills, time off to sleep, eat, work out, play with my pup and write this blog.
It is definitely about perspective (more on that another time!). Routines are a necessary part of my life and so is spontaneity. The latter is something I’m actually quite bad at doing. How hard can it be to do something on a whim? Very hard, actually. Ben and I recently had a conversation about lessening the strictness of our daily routine by mixing it up with trips to the beach, a swim in the pond, a walk to the gas station to buy a cheap bottle of wine and watch the sunset (because yes, Florida sells alcohol everywhere and at any time). All of those things sound so amazing, yet it is so hard for me to do. How is it so hard to drink wine and watch the sun set, you may ask? It isn’t that so much as what gets replaced by it. There are only so many hours in the day and I unfortunately can’t fit in everything that I want to do.
Can I just have magic time traveling powers PLEASE??
How do I successfully maintain the balancing act of creating a meaningful routine that also allows for spontaneous life experiences?
I struggle with fitting my own goals into the tiny, controlling box society says I must live my life within. The society that says I have to workout for so long and it has to be at a gym 30 minutes away; or I can only eat these kinds of foods that cost more than my grocery budget allows; or I have to be a superwoman and do everything all the time and never be upset and always look pretty. Let me tell you, if I look like I just threw my hair up on top of my head without brushing it when I get into the work one morning, it’s because I really didn’t brush it — I slept in because I was writing or cooking extra food or was at the gym late. If I happen to look decent one day, it’s because I didn’t get all the other stuff done the night before!
More often than not, my hair doesn’t get brushed.
It comes down to priorities. No, I can’t do everything. I don’t have four arms and two brains. I wish I did, it would be really helpful. Like how my pup always insists on being rubbed when I write — a third arm would be really useful at the moment.
My priorities will always be my health and my husband. Over everything else. And so I find routines to be helpful in making sure he and I are properly taken care of. Sanity is nice, but knowing my husband can depend on me to care for him, and vice-versa, is really why I follow this daily routine:
-Wake up at 5:30. Get coffee going and let the pup out. Zombie-walk into the bathroom to make some sense of the mop on my head. Once hair and make-up are complete, pour coffee and cook breakfast — always eggs and toast, our favorite! Eat and clean up kitchen (I hate coming home from work to a dirty kitchen!). Put on work clothes, give Little Man a Milk Bone and go to work at 6:50. Work work work work work work work work. Get home at 4:30 and catch up with Ben. Workout from 5 to 5:30. Cook dinner, clean up and make lunches for the next day. At this point, it is normally 7:30ish, so I have roughly 1.5 hours to write, stretch, watch a movie, clean the house, do laundry, bake something, etc. The latest I should ever go to bed is 9 — any later and my morning gets hectic as I usually hit the snooze button too many times.
As you can see here, the last couple hours of my day are usually packed with all kinds of tasks — some more pleasant than others. This is where I get stuck. Of course I’m not perfect so this routine doesn’t always go as I have it written. But it is everything that I need to get done. The only things that are flexible are gym time and hobby time. I often have to pick one each day, which honestly breaks my heart a little.
My biggest regret currently in life is letting time control me to the point where I can’t enjoy my life. Feeling hemmed in by schedules makes me miss out on some really cool stuff, whether it be a rewarding gym sesh, a productive writing sesh, or a sunset walk with my man; I often skimp on these things because my day is already too full.
So my goal is to make the best I can with the schedule I have. I can’t change my work hours or the fact that Ben and I need to eat multiple times a day. But I can change how I see things. I can change my perspective, feel less controlled by life and let myself enjoy the little things. Maybe then I’ll find the time, the moments within the spaces, to do the things that give me joy.
What is your routine? Do you like it or do you hate it? What would you do differently? Let me know, I’m always looking for new ideas!
This post was originally published at www.elizabethlandrum.com
