How to Build a Routine that Works
We make routines too rigid or none at all. But what we need is a balanced one.
Have you ever felt you are not getting the time to do the things you want to do? Your schedule is upside down even though there’s no chaos. The day is over before you even started thinking about the project you want to work on.
On other days, you have full control of your time. You take out few hours to work on your side project. You accomplish a lot and the day is not even over yet.
The difference between the two kinds of days is nothing but routine.
That day when you felt out of control, your daily routine got messed up. You had your lunch at an odd time. May be an urgent task came in and took you off guard. Your sister came to visit, you took couple of hours off your work, and now you are working late night with low energy. You don’t feel so good.
We all have good and bad days. You can’t be productive everytime. Aiming for that is a recipe of discouragement.
But, you want to make sure you have more of good days than bad ones. It’s about the consistency. And that’s where routine help you.
But what is a good routine? What routine should you follow? Will routine make your life boring?
Too much routine is hard to manage
We are often too rigid when we think about a routine to follow. The way you go about it - “I have 16 hours of awake time in a day. 8 hours is my office work. I’ll spend 3 hours working on my side project, 1 hour is dinner, and I’m gonna read for 3 hours. Remaining 1 hour is a buffer.”
This schedule sounds good in theory, but it doesn’t work. You don’t consider situations that just show up and demand your attention.
We are humans. We have friends and family. We have commitments outside our work and side project. That means your time isn’t all yours, and it’s not a bad thing. After all, friends and family make your life worth living.
So the routine you’ve decided on becomes too difficult to follow. Even for a day, it’s not easy without something interrupting it. And if you somehow manage to go through with it on the day you feel in control, it’s hard to do that consistently every day.
Too little of routine is hard to manage too
On the other hand, if you don’t have any routine, then you don’t have time to do the things you want to do.
If you want to work on your side project and you think “I’m going to work on it whenever I get time,” guess when will you find time - never.
When you can work whenever you want, you can work whenever you want.
There are no commitments to work on a specific day or time. “Whenever” means whenever you can. But your monkey brain is smart enough to come up with excuses on why you can’t work when you should be. So when you don’t “feel” right, you can postpone the work for the next time. And since you are not breaking any promises, your brain can easily make you think that it’s fine to not work.
No routine is actually difficult to navigate. It’s like driving on a road without lanes.
Routine has to be balanced
I have gone through periods of having too much routine and none at all. I could never work on the things I wanted to in both the cases.
What now works for me is a balanced routine. Some part of my day is fixed with routine, and the rest of it is open to whatever life throws at me.
My mornings are sacred to me. I have a fixed routine. I wake up early. I make my cappuccino. Then I take the cappuccino at my desk where I sit and write. I write until the office starts and begin my work. I finish my office around 6pm.
When the office work ends, my schedule is completely open. In the evenings, I do whatever I feel like. I meet friends, plan to go out, or play sports. I don’t do office work (with exceptions on some days) in my personal time.
There’s no routine for the evening. That time is reserved for ad-hoc plans. And it works really well. All the plans of going out or meeting friends is made for the evenings - when everyone’s available. In the morning, I have time to myself when there’s little distraction.
Spending mornings on myself also gives me a sense of accomplishment and that I’ve won the day. My day is already a success. It makes the rest of the day easy and satisfactory. I don’t feel guilty for spending time in leisure. I rather enjoy my fun time even more.