Routines

Routines mask disaster. You think if you’re getting up in the morning, putting on clean clothes, going to work, eating from time to time, and watching some telly that everything’s under control. – Marian Keyes

Routines are a good way to mask reality. When you are busy with the minutia of life, it’s easy to miss the big stuff. If time slips by you, and just about every night you think to yourself, “It’s that time already?”, then perhaps you are a victim of routines. There are two ways to get yourself out of control of routines in order to help you see reality and base your Future upon it. First, you stop all routines. Second, you make new routines.

You may not think that you have a routine, but you probably do. Do you go to bed the same time every night? Or every work night? You know what a work night is. It’s like a school night, only instead you have work in the morning. You may be thinking, “I try to go to bed by 9 every night, but I never do. Of course I don’t have a routine.” Nope, sorry, but that excuse just isn’t going to cut it this time. You don’t think you have a routine because you aren’t following the routine that you have planned, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t doing things the same way over and over again. How often do you get take out or delivery because you come home exhausted after work, or you just forgot to defrost something? Not making dinner could be a routine for you. Yes, not doing something can be a routine. Not making that phone call, not getting to bed “on time” (who’s time? What time is it that you’re not getting to bed on?), not eating breakfast because you overslept your alarm. Oversleeping your alarm can be a routine as well.

What do you do about it? First, you can shake up your routines by abandoning them. This does not mean go out and do whatever you like. The dog still needs to be fed, someone has to watch the kids, and you do need to go to work in the morning, so you really ought to get some sleep. But if you always watch TV on Wednesday nights, this Wednesday, don’t. If you usually miss your bus on the way home because you were doing one more thing at work, have it wait until the morning. If you buy canned peas because you believe they’re good for your family, but they say they’ll mutiny if they have canned peas one more time, make something else. Buy something else. There are other things that have nutrition, too. Play a board game in the middle of the week. Go out for a walk before bed time. Do your grocery shopping late at night. Get to work early. Move your alarm clock so that you can’t hit the snooze button any more. Change things up a bit and see what happens.

If your family worries for your mental health, tell them you’re trying a two week (or however long) experiment, and that they can just bear with you for a little while. The laundry will still get done, people will still get to soccer practice, and the groceries will still be bought. Things are just going to happen a little differently for a while.

You may find that you notice different things. Because you aren’t busy with whatever at the usual time, you may see things with new eyes.

The second way to get out from under your routines is to make new ones. Sounds silly, I know, but some of us don’t work so well without routines. Things keep getting done “tomorrow”, but tomorrow never comes. With routines, you choose when those things get done. The trick is to choose your routines, not just let them happen to you. Not making dinner is a routine that a good number of people have. Most of them don’t choose, though. They think it just happens. No, it doesn’t just happen. It’s their routine, even if they didn’t choose it. Choose your routines, the ways that get things done in your time. By choosing your routines, you not only choose the timing of the things you do, but the things you do. Being late is something that you do, not something that happens to you (most of the time). Morning commuting traffic is the same most every morning, so if you’re late every morning “because of traffic”, the truth is that you’re late because you refuse to face the fact that traffic is that bad in the morning and you’re just going to have to leave a little earlier. If you choose to face this fact and choose to leave a little earlier, being late is a routine that you destroy.

Go easy, and add a little bit to your routine at a time. Getting a good night’s sleep is a good place to start. If you hit the snooze button all the time, change your alarm to the later time you really get up. That way you won’t be woken up every ten minutes during the last bit of sleep and can get more rest. If there is something that you always forget in the mornings, take care of it in the evenings, so you don’t have to worry about it as you go to sleep. If there’s a chore or a task that you typically do just before going to bed and it always delays you, do it earlier. If you can’t do it earlier, do the rest of the evening earlier and move up your “just before going to bed” time. There are many things you can do to change how well you sleep, when you go to bed, and when you get up. But do it slowly, and don’t worry if you backslide now and again. It happens. Just pick yourself up and do it again. Fail better, as a previous post said.

If your new routines don’t work out for you or if your life changes in such a way that they become strangling rather than freeing, change them. You are entitled to change your life in the way that makes it easier for you to live, provided you hurt no one else.

Don’t let your life become routine. People controlled by routines, especially ones they don’t even know they have, do not Create the Future. They let it happen to them. Be a Creator.