Nine Ways to Make Your Routine Work for You

It’s the end of the first month of 2021. And many of us are craving a new routine but remain stuck shuffling from the bedroom to the kitchen to the “office” and back again in this by now familiar lockdown life. It’s easy to think that this is the routine we are stuck with until vaccinations turn the tide, but within these temporary constraints there is actually a lot you can do to feel more in control of your time and to take back that sense of accomplishment you long for.

A good place to start is by thinking about your daily routine and the rituals that animate the ebb and flow of your day. Routines are helpful as they ground us in a pattern for our time that we can expect. Rituals, which carry more intention and personal meaning, can be incorporated into our days and can support us as we undertake challenging activities and very full schedules.

Within the pulse of a well-worn routine, we can leverage rituals to help to improve the performance of ourselves and our teams.

Whether you are thinking about your mornings, your days or your evenings – here are a few observations on routines and rituals based on my experience working to help individuals and organizations understand and optimize their time:

1. There’s no one-size-fits-all all strategy:

Time and our experience of it is hyper-personal. It’s often fun to read about others’ ways of planning their time, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that because your colleague meditates at 6:30 a.m. every day that it’s a fit for you. Pay attention to what would support you, and try not to be guided by the “shoulds” that you get from external sources.

2. Notice your feelings:

Pay attention to what you are envious of, what you enjoy and what you dread. This doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate activities that feel tough right off the bat, but you do need to be aware of tasks that are going to challenge or discourage you in order to design supports to get you there.

3. Consider the cadence of your day:

We all have natural ebbs and flows of energy in our days.

"Our cognitive abilities do not remain static over the course of a day. During the sixteen or so hours we're awake, they change - often in a regular, foreseeable manner. We are smarter, faster, dimmer, slower, more creative, and less creative in some parts of the day than others." Daniel Pink, WHEN

Consider your natural rhythm and how that stacks up against the activities you have in a day. If you find you are drained right after your workday, it is not the best time to design in your new workout. A more realistic approach may be to design a pause or a rejuvenating activity before you shift into the workout.

4. Be realistic:

Distinguish between wishful thinking and your real constraints. We all have aspirations for ourselves in the long-term. The new year is a time where optimism tends to peak and our thinking leans towards the future. Calibrate your aspirations across long-, medium- and short-term goals. If you aspire to run a half-marathon and have yet to start training, don’t expect to be able to run 21km off the bat. More realistically, running at a regular time or developing a system for running is the short-term goal to target first.

Get to the heart of what you are trying to achieve — ask yourself, what are you hoping that this accomplishment will provide you with?

5. Be realistic in the timing of your day, too:

Notice the density of your design. Is there slack in your day to absorb the ripples when things don’t run smoothly? Creating buffers designed to absorb flex is key to reducing pressure and rigidity in your day. Your new routine should create ease and flow in your day as opposed to creating a Rubik’s cube with dozens of little pieces that must fit perfectly together.

6. Notice patterns:

What is the one thing that helps your day go more smoothly? Is it getting up early? Laying out the kids clothes the night before? Doing a workout at lunch? Pre-pandemic, I worked with a multi-talented entrepreneur who found that a leisurely cooking of dinner together with her family served as an anchor in her day, no matter the challenges that came her way.

7. Prioritize:

Feel free to brainstorm expansively. (I like behavioural scientist BJ Fogg’s behaviour swarm model where you brainstorm numerous behaviours that would result in the outcome you are after.) But make sure that ultimately you select one area to transform and know why you are choosing that route. That clarity is incredibly important.

Ask yourself: What is most imperative to tackle? If there was one shift you could make, what would it be?

Dial into your self-awareness and use your pragmatic side to make these choices.

8. Start small:

Traction, over anything else, is the most important change. Numerous studies and in practice, gaining momentum and making progress against your plan is critical to the success of your routine.

“Traction draws you toward what you want in life, while distraction pulls you away”

Nir Eyal writes in his book Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life.

9. Test and iterate and test some more:

Creating enduring change doesn’t come from making one flip of the switch. Entering into your new routine with a mindset of reflection, testing and iteration is key.

If it didn’t work – why do you think that is? What might address or support the change you are undertaking?

The trick is to use what didn’t work to inform your next experiment so that you can make progress against your goals instead of feeling constrained by your routine.