The Freeing Power of Routines
We are all looking for ways to become more productive and make the most of the limited time we have. One of the best ways to free up your time is to embrace routines.
Why Routines
Routines, no matter what their focus, provide structure to our lives and help us develop logical approaches for handling what life throws at us. As we live in a world where information overload, burn out, and stress are all high, routines can help alleviate all of these. According to research, routines that are predictable and repetitive reduce anxiety and help us calm down.
Routines also help us build coherence, a critical part of how we find meaning in our every day lives. Meaning is made up of three key parts: significance, purpose, and coherence. While routines are often not significant, they do have a clear purpose and provide coherence — the qualities of being logical and consistent.
When we engage in routines, we are freeing our brain from a number of factors that can impact our productivity, our emotions, and our behaviors. Routines can also help address the following:
- Decision fatigue: When every day is a slew of endless decisions that need to be made, we can easily get overwhelmed. When we reach a state of feeling overwhelmed, the tendency is to engage in “fight or flight” behaviors to halt the feeling. Routines help to reduce the number of decisions we have to make or help to structure our approach to decision making, making it more logical. When you know what actions you will take directly after waking up — brushing teeth, taking medication, taking your dog for a walk — you know what items you need to have at the ready for the start of your day.
- Stress: Closely related to decision fatigue is stress. When you don’t have routines in place, everything you do becomes harder or more time-consuming. For example, having a routine of preparing for the next day — laying out your clothes, making sure your cross-trainers and workout clothes are ready, having a glass of water to drink right when you get up — can alleviate considerable stress.
“When people don’t have a routine or structure to their day it can cause increased stress and anxiety, as well as overwhelming feelings, lack of concentration, and focus” — Rachel Goldman, Ph.D. NYU School of Medicine
- Emotions: When everything feels like it is challenging you, it is easy to get upset, frustrated, or anxious. Routines help regulate your emotions, freeing up your mental headspace for those things that are the big challenges.
- Habit formation: Routines are close cousins to habits. Adopting a new routine and consistently practicing that routine will lead to habits that you no longer have to think about performing.
My favorite reason for goals is that while it is helping reduce decision fatigue, stress and regulate my emotions, my routines are accelerators for my goals. If you are going to live your best life and Become the CEO of You, routines are a must.
“The coherence of an ordered life also lays the groundwork for the pursuit of larger goals — and thus the equally important aspects of purpose and significance.” — Samatha Heintzelman, University of Missouri Psychologist
Types of Routines
You should consider adopting a routine for common experiences that you have in your life. These are common items like:
- Getting ready in the morning
- Cooking meals
- Beginning or end of the workday
- Exercising
- Family time
- Personal development
- Preparing for bed
For me, I have routines for all of the items above as well as daily reading, weekly wrap up, and weekly prep. We’ll be diving into each of these more the rest of this week.
Routines can also be beneficial for situations that frequently cause you stress. For example, I’ve adopted the daily habit of writing as part of my Smashing Keys challenge and have been writing for the last 45 days. What I haven’t done is gotten together a consistent routine for my writing. I just sit down and write when I have free moments. While this initially worked, I am finding myself frustrated — my notes aren’t in one location, I get easily distracted, and it ends up taking me longer and longer to get my writing done.
Why We Bail on Routines
One of the key barriers to adopting and sticking with routines is that people feel that they’ve boxed themselves in and no longer have freedom because of the routines they’ve put in place. Why is this?
Activities that become routines begin to turn into habitual behaviors. For example, spending the time after dinner watching a TV show. While some routines are extremely advantageous they can also leave us feeling out of touch with ourselves and/or others. This is because habits are a series of cues and actions that are done without us thinking. This autopilot mode removes us from engaging emotionally in the actions and, as a result, can at times lead to boredom and or a feeling that we’ve lost time.
Routines also cause us to engage in behaviors that protect us. Over time these self-protective behaviors can start to do more harm than good as we are no longer experiencing novelty which can help us feel more engaged and connected with our lives.
If you are having feelings of boredom or of losing time in your day, don’t make the pendulum swing to throwing out all your routines. Instead recognize that some of your routines need to be changed up by adjusting the approach, but not necessarily the actions we take. For example, you may always go in the same direction on your walk as part of your morning routine. The simple act of choosing a different direction can alleviate the boredom by giving you new things to focus on. You are still getting in your morning exercise, but now you are giving your self more emotional experiences.
Another strategy to avoid routine boredom is to engage in gratitude and mindfulness. Taking time to celebrate moments of gratitude helps you appreciate the events — big and small — that have made your day good and/or different.
Mindfulness also gives us the opportunity to reflect and build self-awareness. When you practice mindfulness, you develop the ability to separate who you are from the thoughts that you have and cultivate better control over yourself. If you are new to mindfulness, I recommend checking out sites like Headspace or Muse, or following people like Jay Shetty, Dr. Dan Siegel or Deepak Chopra.
Doing Routines Right
Routines can be made from anything that you do, but it is recommended that you adopt routines in several key areas:
- Health and mental wellness: Integrate routines that are going to make it easier for you to engage in healthy practices. These could be things like routines for preparing for bed, weekly meal prep, or preparing your workout clothes and workouts in advance.
- Work effectiveness: Adopt a routine that sets you up for professional success and out of activities that don’t add value. For example, creating a routine for how you start or wrap up your workday can help you be ready to take on the big challenges.
- Personal development: Embrace routines that help you become the best version of yourself. These can be routines around reading, listening to podcasts, or working on hobbies.
With routines, also remember to be playful, flexible, and mindful with your routines. Playful in that you embrace different strategies to mix the makeup of your routine, flexible in adjusting your routine to suit the day (for example, 5-minute stretching instead of 20 minutes), and mindful in reflecting on the value your routine brings to your life.
If you’re new here…
We are on a journey to helping you Become the CEO of You so that you can become the best version of yourself. Over the course of the month, we’ll cover knowing yourself, creating goals, adopting mindsets, embracing habits, and practicing self-care. You can find all the posts in our publication Living to Learn. You can also find my random musings on my personal page here.
