Why Have a Routine?

A friend told me she doesn’t have a routine and she can’t understand why I do.  Our lives have been and still are radically different.  Some of us must have a routine while others do not.  We do what works for us.

As a professor, my routine was to list on a yellow tablet at my office desk what needed to be done the next day before I left the campus.  That gave me permission to do whatever I wanted to do when I got home, usually after 7 p.m. 

I also established the routine of going to bed by 10 p.m. because I had to get up by 6 a.m. to get to work by 7:30 a.m.  Despite Daylight Savings Time, I have not changed that schedule.   

I was also a property manager at that time, living in the triplex my realtor ex-boyfriend found for me after my divorce.  Managing that property, dealing with tenants who locked themselves out of their apartment, and being a professor meant adding to my routine.

Having a routine to care for my body and my cats is required.  If I don’t do my yoga stretches, Somatics “Cat Stretch”, and meditation first thing in the morning, it’s highly unlikely they will happen later on.  If I don’t feed my cats on a schedule, I will either feed them too much or not enough; I have to keep track of what they eat, especially now that they are indoor cats.  If I don’t clean their cat box first thing in the morning, I’m asking for trouble.  In my routine, it’s easy to know I did that thing.

I walk every day, at least 30 minutes, even in the snow. But here, it rains a lot, so I walk when it isn’t raining; when it is, I pace in my house, sometimes while talking on the phone.

As a Holistic Health Practitioner, I got the habit of taking many supplements because I knew the quality of our food had gone downhill.  The apple you ate in 1950 had many times the nutrients of the apple you eat today.  Eating organic foods helps, but supplements are still advised because the soil everywhere is depleted.  It’s unlikely you get the vitamins and minerals you think you do just from eating the right foods.  So I established a routine to make sure I took those supplements every day:  start the day with a smoothie to swallow those pills and check them off when I do.

Even after I quit teaching, my routine for Saturday included buying groceries, cleaning my apartment, and doing laundry.  I knew when Natural Grocer and the laundromat were least busy and I routinely went there at those times. 

As a writer, even for blog posts, I have routines.  I write the blog post on Friday, edit again on Saturday morning, and then publish it by 10 a.m. If I’m writing a book, I get in the routine of writing at least four hours/day, beginning after my morning routines of taking care of me and my cats.

I’m not saying everyone should have a routine.  I’m saying how it works for me.

Till next time,

Please be kind to everyone you meet, for we all have our hidden sorrows. ~Tzaddi