Is following a routine, stressful? You will be surprised…

When you are asked "What’s your day like?", you answer, ‘I wake up at 6 AM go for a run, shower, coffee and at my work desk by 7.30 AM’, many a time the reactions or reply ‘oh, how boring….’ I would say we must be very proud of ourselves if we are able to keep doing that at any given situation.

Once you mastered the art of making a routine irrespective of a situation, you are ready to embrace change.

Often people counter the word ‘Routine’ by saying "We are not machines to keep doing the same things over and over again". Most of us get worried when drawing this comparison and then we are all over the place trying to get our hands wet and eventually we get lost in the thick and thin of too many things.

Following a routine is a lifestyle and not a silo which bring with it a 360-degree advantage to all aspects of our daily life. A routine is a solid base that helps us take stock of things when everything around goes haywire, which happens many a time. If we don’t create that base (routine), we have nothing to measure or fall back upon. 

For work:

If we make the effort to clearly define the nature of tasks, where 60% would add up to be routine ones', handling other tasks get so much easier. Think about this, once we have clearly defined the routine tasks, we have already got 60% of our work covered. Energy is finite, we then direct it in the right areas which are the balance 40% and that is the area that calls for new action. With this exercise, how much easier life at work becomes?

For life:

Following a routine is often misunderstood as being rigid.

The goal of a routine is being able to do the same thing with so much ease just like ‘brushing your teeth’ every day. By doing the same thing every day you have trained your mind and body to stay razor-focused, it then grows to become your second nature.

As the saying goes, ‘Change is the only constant’, so how can we follow a routine? Whatever the change maybe we should strive to work around it and come up with a routine. Once you have mastered the art of making a routine irrespective of a situation, you are ready to embrace change. It is the 'sense of preparedness to change' which is the biggest factor to stay on top of things. 

Following a routine is often misunderstood as being rigid. Once you have trained yourself to make and follow a routine, it is also easy to tweak it as and when necessary and still go back. It is the ability to fluidly get work done with ease at any given situation.

A good routine can make any task look simple.

For Day-to-Day 

A good routine can make any task look simple, it is not the task were focus lies, it is on the ease at which we take on the task. For eg: I have this habit of spending 30 mins at my desk at 6 AM for 30-45 mins with a cup of coffee to write my weekly articles. The routine is to sit at the desk at 6 AM and what follows just flows in. 

Following a 'Routine' is a lifestyle, not a silo.

This probably the most popular story. Let talk about a fitness routine, think about the steps to get to a run, or go to a gym - wear your gym clothes, lace up your shows, grab your water and leave the house. If you can do this with ease, running or lifting weights is never the deterrent. The focus should be on the routine - clothes, shoes, water at a particular time and not the real activity. Clothes, lacing up, grabbing water gets 70% of your work done, the rest 30% happens during the run or weights. We tend to focus on the activity and forget the preparedness towards it.

The golden word ‘preparedness’, that's the underlying attitude towards ‘Routine’ .

If you have come this far along with the articles, the next one is going to be about ‘How to create a fun routine with all the right ingredients to make it consistent and lasting’?

Thank You for your time. Happy Reading, and feel free to share and add your thoughts to the comments section