The Value of Routines
Woohoo! School is back!
I’d love to be able to say that I’m spontaneous, go with the flow, carefree; someone at ease with juggling school holiday kid-wrangling with work and life admin … but I most definitely am not!
Don’t get me wrong. I’m fun, flexible, and creative … but only once all my ducks are in a row. You see having routines help me be these things. They give me the headspace to be more of who I know (and like) myself to be.
And school holidays throw out my routines. Half of me feels like I’m on holiday too and so stops doing the life admin, essential but boring stuff (things like meal planning, groceries and cooking), while the other half of me is trying to work and output as usual but with less time and ability to concentrate.
Routines get a bad rap as predictable and boring. After all, a routine is defined as “a sequence of actions followed regularly”*. I’m sure most would agree that getting ready for school and work in the morning is tedious and the same people would surely also agree that they are a set of necessary tasks, unable to be avoided.
So it comes down to how you approach the tasks - and that is where the real value of a routine lies. Not having a routine means you risk feeling stressed and overwhelmed trying to remember all the things that need doing before getting out of the door. Having a routine means you do the thinking first, develop your routine, and then approach your morning from a place of calm.
My routines are a set of deliberate actions taken to ensure that I can achieve the things that are most important to me. It is important to me to be calm and able to think clearly, to be present for my family and clients, and to have the headspace to decide how I respond to situations.
I have 3 main routines to support these outcomes:
a morning routine,
an exercise / sleep routine, and
a work routine
These routines help me to reduce stress, to enhance my health and wellness, and to manage my workload and commitments so that I am calm, present and deliberate in my responses to others.
One of the best ways to set your own routine (and stick to it), is to ask yourself the following questions:
What am I doing currently? (make a list)
How do I feel now?
How do I want to feel?
What (on this list) is essential / provides me value?
What doesn’t serve me? What can I let go of?
What is the best approach for me to take?
Using these questions to set my own morning routine I identified:
That I was trying to do a lot of different things in the time between waking up and getting out the door for work or school drop off. These ranged from the tasks associated with getting ready for the day to more general household chores (i.e., laundry, watering garden, writing grocery list), to life admin (i.e., paying bills, responding to invites), and work emails.
I felt stressed and short-tempered and my brain was working over-time tracking what still needed to be done. My adrenalin was pumping and my ability to problem solve and think about things from someone else’s (normally my daughter’s) point of view was very limited.
I wanted to feel calm and organised. I wanted to start the day in a positive head space.
The essential things to get done were actually simple and far fewer than I had realised. So long as we were washed, brushed, clothed and fed we were almost all the way there. A packed lunch was the only other essential task.
I identified that I was trying to do too much in the mornings. I recognised that my efforts to be super efficient by ticking off lots of tasks (and so ‘getting ahead of my day’) wasn’t actually efficient at all. I was making mistakes and I was making myself stressed. I was starting the day feeling harried and that wasn’t feeling good or helping me meet my work goals. I was also taking on many chores independently rather than divvying them up with my husband.
I decided the best approach to take was to work out how much time I needed to do the essentials in the morning and then add a 15 mins buffer. I worked out the order I wanted to do things in (i.e., come in from my walk, make Libby’s lunch box, wake her up, make breakfast, have a shower, get dressed, brush teeth and hair, apply sunscreen, pack bag and go).
I can tell you, it’s soooo much nicer to be able to leave the house smiling, feeling calm and focused. Routines all the way!
If you’d like to contact Rebekah about creating your own deliberate routine, email her at rebekah@thebacktoworkcoach.com
*Google dictionary