Routines, the one thing we know about them is we can’t seem to keep them. Sure you might get a good thing going, but at some point you will always find yourself straying away from them and that is not a bad thing. You should not consider your routines hard and fast ways to stay on track; too many of us do this and stress ourselves out because we think we are falling behind.
Even we do it, keeping task lists on our phone with reminders and checking things off as we get them done throughout the day, week, month and even year. Now don’t get us wrong, routines are a great way to be productive and build a sense of stability to our day to day. We just can’t let them run our lives.
Managing the Hustle
One of the best parts of routines is setting aside time for all the various aspects of our lives to prevent any one of them from dominating the others, like work or relaxing on the couch watching Netflix! Chores must get done, but all the other more intangibles like reading, spending time with family, meditating and trying new things just need to make it in there. No need to set milestones and specific goals right away. Just set some time aside to do them. It is amazing how much this can help you feel more at ease and well prepared to take on the week.
Keeping Up with your Routines
Give yourself flexibility, don’t force yourself to do something every day. Start with weekly or monthly and then move towards more specific goals that are not time based like hitting a strength goal while working out and not how often you work out. This will help you from going overboard in any one area of your life and feel like you are trying to cram everything in.
So challenge yourself to add new routines into your life and achieve some of those far out goals, but take a flexible approach getting there, because the worst you can do is burn yourself out too soon before you have a chance to get there!
P.S., Finding a buddy to do it with doesn’t hurt either! #Accountability