Reboot Your Routine

Turn Daily Rituals to Your Advantage.

One of my favourite podcasts, Maintenance Phase, recently debunked the 10,000-steps myth . Spoiler alert: it started as part of a Japanese marketing campaign for pedometers, allegedly chosen because one of the Japanese characters in 10,000 looks a little like a person running. Who knew a marketing strategy could become a fitness standard?

Hosts Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes point out that while there’s no scientific basis for the 10,000 steps, it keeps us active amidst the distractions of work and daily life. The value lies not in hitting a specific number but in encouraging movement by making it a daily routine.

We’re told over and over that children need structure and routine . Schools provide a lot of this, helping kids feel comfortable and safe. But once school spits us out into the real world, we often struggle to find the routines that help us navigate adult life. The truth is, we still need daily rituals and routines to keep us grounded.

Routines matter

From getting ready for the day to winding down at night or taking a walk over lunch, daily routines are a more forgettable part of our day-to-day than they should be. I recently wrote about the shadow side of operating on autopilot : breezing through our routines without thinking is a missed opportunity to boost our mood.

Gretchen Rubin’s book Life in Five Senses encourages us to make our daily routines more memorable by engaging all our senses.

The texture of your moisturiser or the smell of fresh air during a walk may seem small, but these sensory experiences can significantly enhance our everyday and switching them up now and again can help us re-engage with our activities.

Marketers know It

Whilst many of us might be blurry on the importance of our daily routines, marketers are not. Much of consumer spend is rooted in daily rituals and habits. Morning routines are described by Vox Editor-in-Chief Swati Sharma as “internet catnip” — you can only imagine the amount we’re willing to pay to fuel our obsession.

From daily skincare (US$110 Billion market size) to regular protein shakes (US$28 Billion ) to everyday breakfast food (US$398.1 billion ) the opportunities are sizeable.

But what about later in the day? Even before the evening wind-down routine, we spend on other ritualised behaviours from daily coffee runs to social lunches to special occasion dinners.

Subscriptions and season tickets all tap into our human tendencies to ritualise our behaviours, whether it’s reading the same morning news publication over coffee each day or enjoying monthly trips to the cinema with friends.

We financially support our own rituals and habits every day, and spending is increasingly structured to take advantage of that.

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Reclaim your routine

We don’t have to spend a fortune on skincare and protein shakes to reap the benefits of daily routines. As long as we enjoy the rituals we create and we mix them up now and again, we’re making the most of the opportunity to reset and reenergise.

The challenge, however, is making time. Most of us have a morning and evening routine, but the middle of the day gets forgotten, especially when it’s gobbled up by unexpected “to-do’s” or endless notifications. Here are some ways to embrace bitesize rituals that don’t just bookend the day.

Mark the halfway point: Is your lunch routine lost? Many of us rush through lunch without taking a proper break. If you’re frequently missing this time, make lunch manageable. Try taking a five-minute walk and eating a packed lunch instead of waiting in long lines. If you’re working from home, have a quick meal ready to go.

Embrace the slump: The mid-afternoon slump is real . Instead of pushing through fatigue, consider taking a short walk and coming back to your desk before the final “sprint” of the day.

If you catch yourself thinking, “I have so much left to do today,” that’s the moment to step away from your desk. Take ten minutes to clear your mind. You might find your workload feels lighter or more manageable when you return.

Replace the commute: if you’re working from home, you’ve likely gained a lot of time back without the commute. But you’ve also removed the buffer that separates work from home.

Taking just 5 or 10 minutes to replace that ritual with another (a short walk, a leisurely coffee) can help create important separation and boost your energy at both ends of the day.

The power of routine “in-between moments” should not be underestimated. Whether it’s 10,000 steps or a morning coffee, finding rituals we enjoy is one of the easiest ways to boost our mood and replenish our energy —surely that’s time well-spent.

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