Routines Control Chaos Not Fun

Wake up, workout, get ready…  I wrote it out over and over again to start everyday on my to-do list.  I wrote it down in the thought that if I saw it in writing it would help me actually get it done.  It didn’t. I still got up too late, floundered around, missed my opportunities and rushed to get anything done.

I can’t even imagine how many trees I’ve wasted writing out to-do lists that never were done.  Not because I wasn’t motivated but the chaos of life just kept getting in the way.  I needed more than a to-do list, more than a reminder on my alarm, more than the guilt that was weighing on me at the end of everyday. I needed to revamp my schedule and figure out something that would work long term and in the face of chaos.

<Enter healthy routines>

I found a few accounts on social media that seemed to have things together. They were working out, cooking healthy meals, raising kids, being successful wives and running business all at the same time. That! That was exactly what I wanted. So I watched closely. I wrote down what I thought their schedule must be from what the shared. I copied what they shared and filled in the blanks with my imagination. I figured out what they were doing and decided that’s what I would do too… like to a T. I was committed to this new healthy lifestyle that I had borrowed off the internet…

It wasn’t until I committed to a healthy lifestyle that having and keeping a routine was something that became a priority.  I realized how valuable it was to wake up and know exactly what to do first. And how great it was to have things throughout the day that kept me on track. I even had a little bedtime routine that would help set me up for the next morning. It was great! Well, sort of great…. actually it was becoming a real pain in the neck trying to force this schedule on myself.

Shortly after it was a priority it became a headache.  I was trying to force someone else’s routine on my life.  I was trying to make my morning look like theirs, my evening look like theirs, my workouts, my meals… my everything was looking less like mine and more like someone else’s and that wasn’t working for me.  It didn’t fit the timetable my family was running on. It didn’t fit the hours that I did or didn’t want to be actively doing something. It was foreign and forced and actually starting to cause more problems than fixing them. I was now the source of the chaos and no one was having fun.

<Enter MY healthy routine>

Time to regroup once more.  What did I want a routine for?  I wanted a routine so that I knew what I was doing, when I was doing it.  Then if something came up I knew exactly how much time I had to deal with extra stuff.  And believe me, four kids, 2 dogs, a cat, a work from home husband and all my own ideas have a lot of extra stuff come up.  

Once I decided what I wanted my routine for then it was time to plug the activities  in that went with the desired goal.  So, for my morning routine it’s all about getting up and getting moving, getting some time just for myself in and doing it in an expeditious manner. I have kids to wake up, lunches to pack, breakfast to make, dogs to let out and then rides to school. It doesn’t leave a lot of time to be sitting around. I also want to be ready for the day by the time the kids are out the door. That way I can be ready to do my own work, be available to do stuff with my husband, react if the kids have a crisis at school or if there are errands that need to be run. My morning reflects all these things because they are important to me.

Instead of getting out of bed with the kids, I get up an hour or so before them.  I have time to drink my water, read my devotion, drink my pre workout and do a little hype dance.  From there I wake up kids and hit my at home gym.  I hug and kiss the littles as the head out the door, drive the other kids to school and then hit the shower.  Ready!! 

Routines are made to streamline different processes.  The best part, you get to decide what works best in your household.  Do you want to do a load of laundry a day?  Or do you want to have one day primarily devoted to washing, drying, ironing.  Do you want to workout in the morning or evening? Do you want to pre-make dinner or do it on the fly? Do you want a day to clean and tidy the house or do you want to add a chore a day and repeat weekly? You can find the same approach to almost anything.  It’s just deciding what’s a priority and making it fit with your other responsibilities and lifestyle.

Here are a few things that successful people incorporate into their daily habits:  Getting enough sleep, getting up early, working out, eating breakfast, naps (my favorite), ditching the commute whenever possible (batching errands) or making it more valuable by using it as time for personal development, taking breaks and using lists.  

This is a basic look at what kind of a routine you might need or want in your daily life; bedtime routine, workout routine, morning routine etc.. The bottom line routines help us control the chaos not limit the fun.  To be perfectly honest when I was discussing my blog topic this week the reaction was less than enthusiastic.  Routines?  Really?  Doesn’t that just get everyone bored?  

Nope!!  The reality is when you have a good routine that fits and is working towards getting you closer to your goals everyday you are excited to jump into that routine daily.  Why?  Because it’s working.  It’s simplifying, streamlining, leaving less wasted time and more productivity in a shorter number of hours.  That doesn’t mean it’s easy all the time but the clarity simplifies and makes things doable. 

Finding some accountability with your routine helps when it’s feeling less than motivated and the support makes you want to press forward and encourage others with what you are learning, doing and accomplishing.   

With a good routine you may even feel frustrated when the uncontrollable happens and you are knocked out of your routine for a day or two.  But you can even try to get ahead of that by creating alternate routines for when kids are home sick, you have appointments, etc…. Routines work and actually free up more time for fun (or the surprises that life brings) because you are getting things accomplished that actually need to get done.  

I now have routines for self-care, caring for the kids, evening routine, dinner routine, bedtime routine.  A routine is any series of tasks used repeatedly to achieve an end goal.  If you are lacking in routines, work backwards.  What goal are you trying to achieve?  What steps do you need to take to make that happen?  What order or combination of people, places or things do you need to have in motion for the goal to be accomplished as easily as possible?     

This isn’t a hard exercise and yet a lot of us struggle bouncing from thing to thing, feeling busy or even overwhelmed, trying to multitask life when really if we could focus on one thing at a time in a particular order we would be solving several issues for ourselves with minimal effort.  

I know you got this!!  

Once you have an established, well-functioning routine you will be shocked at how much more you can get done and the amount of time it all actually takes and best of all, how much you look forward to making it happen.  Look, chaos will come knocking at your door but when you’ve done all you can to get your priorities straight in a routine you can handle what life throws at you more easily.  Ultimately, that’s what we all want; to handle life with grace and style while accomplishing our personal goals.