Lately consistency is the thing everybody is talking about when creating a routine and trying to achieve goals. Of course staying consistent will normally lead to results, but the results and the journey might lose their meaning, if the goal you’re trying to achieve becomes the only thing you’re interested in. This is something I learned this summer, as I took the whole season for myself to start this blog and “create the perfect routine”. The first half of the summer I kept myself busy with my ideal routine, but I didn’t prioritise rest enough and that led me to a burnout.
Eventually, I decided to take a couple days off, but then I never really felt like going back to the routine I had been following. Now I’m at a point where I’m trying to figure out a new routine that balances being active and getting all my responsibilities done, but also resting and having fun. In this post I’ll share my thoughts on how to create a supporting routine to make life easier, not harder.
Creating a routine
A routine is meant to make life easier by removing decision making from the smaller tasks. However, nowadays people are creating very performative routines maybe for aesthetics or just because they think that’s how you’re supposed to live to become successful. The first step in creating a routine, in my opinion, is to think about what is really important to you.
For me, for example, that means, I have simplified my getting ready process a lot in my morning routine. I don’t feel like a 10 step skin care or makeup routine brings me that much joy every day, so I prefer to keep them simple with just a couple of skin care products and drawing my eyebrows and wearing mascara. That leaves me time to make myself a nice breakfast and stretch a little bit, or just enjoy a slower morning.
I think, it doesn’t matter how many steps you have in your routine, what matters is, do the steps help you or drain you, and can you execute them well. Choosing a few steps and completing them well might give you a better experience in your day to day, than being exhausted by forcing yourself to get through a long list of tasks you picked up from someone else’s routine.
That doesn’t mean you have to give up on the whole task, it just means you can simplify it, like I described above. I still like getting ready, it makes me feel productive and it helps me start my day, but simplifying the process of it, has made it a lot more maintainable and enjoyable for me. And of course, some days I like to put more effort into it, if I’m feeling like it – and that brings me to finding a rhythm.
Avoid burnout by finding a rhythm
Life comes in phases and it’s a very useful skill to learn how to adapt to that. In my experience routines change all the time. There are some steps that stay the same almost every day of your life (like brushing teeth first thing in the morning), but it’s okay to create new routines when you get tired of the old ones, or your day to day schedule changes and the old routine is impossible to maintain.
That applies to a situation where you aren’t even used to having a routine yet. When you are creating a routine for the first time, it’s trial and error. You learn what you like and what serves you by trying. You might have an idea of what a perfect routine looks like, but you can’t know if it’s actually perfect for you without trying it. And if you notice the routine to be too exhausting or too simple, it’s okay to make changes to it.
A routine doesn’t have to be repeated similarly every single day or week. I myself have recently finally gotten into cycle syncing. I knew what it was, but I didn’t care too much about it, even though I had noticed that my energy levels drop a lot in my luteal phase (the phase before menstruation). I still tried to get through the same daily routine with less energy and that combined with me struggling to go to sleep early led me to the burnout I mentioned.
Now that I take rest in consideration, I don’t force myself to do the same routine every day. For example, I try to make sure to at least go for a walk and stretch a bit daily, and now after my burnout, I will slowly work myself up to get back to working out in the high energy phases of my cycle, but I won’t try to go hard every day. I talk more about this in my post How to Make Movement a Daily Habit. In a nutshell, I incorporate rest in my daily routine, and I prioritise it even more on my low energy days.
Key takeaways
- Creating a supportive routine and letting it be flexible is more likely to allow consistency to actually happen, than trying to stick to the same routine every day.
- A personalised routine you actually like instead of following a task list that doesn’t matter to you is a lot easier to maintain and will lead to a happier life. (:
- Accepting energy level changes and allowing your productivity level to change accordingly will also lead to a more maintainable and enjoyable day to day. Create a rhythm where your daily routine can look a bit different in each phase of the rhythm.
- Feel free to try new things and get rid of old things. Allow change and keep developing your routine to fit the life you have at the moment. Your routine doesn’t have to stay the same for months or years, keep changing it to make it serve you in the moment.