When is it time to change your routine?
Most of us know that having routines is good for us. Even those who resist every effort to establish routines often wish they could change, if my coaching clients are to be believed. Yet we also, culturally, denigrate routine. The word itself can even have a negative meaning, synonymous with boring, predictable, pedestrian.
For every piece of advice you read about establishing and sticking to routines, you’ll see another telling you how important it is to “shake things up.” Is there some perfect ratio of routine to chaos that we need to cultivate? Or a time limit we should set on any given routine?
As a lover of habits and routine, I’m reflecting on these questions ahead of moving and changing career paths. What parts of my daily routine do I want to keep? Which ones should go? Are my routines shoring up my happiness? Or getting in the way?
This morning I stumbled upon a thoughtful discussion of the new Wim Wenders film, Perfect Days, by Tomiwa Owolade in The Guardian. Owolade writes:
The protagonist of Wim Wenders’ transcendent new film Perfect Days wakes up each morning and follows the same ritual. He makes his bed, trims his moustache, shaves, waters his saplings, and gets a can of coffee from a dispenser just outside his apartment before he enters a small blue van to head to work as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. […]
Martin Amis’s narrator in London Fields said: “Who else but Tolstoy has made happiness really swing on the page?” Wenders makes happiness really swing on the screen in Perfect Days. And the reason why Hirayama is often so happy – why he so easily and charmingly breaks off into a smile throughout the film – is the sense of constrained routine in his life.
Owolade goes on to say: “Too much choice is not a good thing.” Indeed, this is why I use routine to avoid decision fatigue and the anxiety that can come from seemingly limitless options. But routine isn’t just about avoiding being overwhelmed. It can also be about a deliberate approach to growing a joyful life.
The words “joy” and “routine” aren’t typically used together. Routine is about stability, comfort, habit, ease. Joy is about release, spontaneity, thrills, surprise. At least, this is what these words often connote. But perhaps the joy of routine should be taken more seriously.
If we just sit around and wait for the surprising, spontaneous type of joy to crash into our lives, we could be waiting a pretty long time. What makes this joy special is its rarity. However, we all deserve some joy every day. In order to get it, we have to cultivate the joy of predictability, and engineer a little predictable joy. In other words, we can find pleasure in routine itself, as well as making sure that those routines have some joyful bits built in.
This means recognizing that the point of routine isn’t just to make us more efficient and productive. In fact, it doesn’t have to be about that at all. Routine can exist to ensure that we get enough of the stuff that makes us happy, whatever that is for you: time to interact with others, time to move your body, time to enjoy a cup of tea, time to read, time to watch some birds.
It’s not always easy to do this. What I’m struggling with right now, though, is figuring out how to know when my routines need to change. A little Marie Kondo-voice in my head is saying, “When they no longer spark joy!” Okay, Marie, thank you for that. :)
Sparking joy (or not) might be a good metric. I’m also wondering whether some of my routines are keeping me cocooned from new experiences. I like to do a little exercise and then get some housework done on Saturday mornings, for example, but this means I didn’t sign up for a new yoga class at that time. Objectively, I know the fireside yoga would be really nice, but a part of me gets anxious at the prospect of shifting my habit and the ripple effects this might have across the weekend.
This isn’t really a big problem in the grand scheme of things. However, it speaks to that trickier question of how to balance useful routine with space for new opportunities, and when to break down an old habit to make way for something different.
My move in a couple of months is a moment where I could wipe the slate clean of my old routines. Anything seems possible! I could become a farmers market regular (not likely, but technically possible). I could completely flip my days, coaching in the morning and writing in the afternoons. I could sign up for things that will get me out of the house more often and away from my beloved HBO Max subscription.
I’m trying to keep in mind the fact that moving won’t make me into an entirely different person (the fallacy of metamorphosis). Still, when life affords the opportunity for a reset (my theme word of the year, FYI), it seems wise to take advantage of it. As I head toward 50 in 2025, I’m aware that the remaining decades will bring more closing of possibilities than opening. Maybe it’s time to find out if there’s been a secret Sunday morning antique hunter in me all along.
How do you decide when to change your routines? Do your routines ever hold you back? Is routine joyful? Feel free to share in the comments. xo
What I’m reading: Hoping that my library hold on the 3rd book in Andrea Penrose’s Wrexford and Sloane series comes through this week! Fun and clever Regency-era historical murder mysteries.
What I’m watching: I’m planning to check out Constellation on Apple TV. I like Noomi Rapace and I like a space thriller.