Routines
Routines in our daily lives have multiple benefits, including encouraging healthy habits, improving productivity and academic success, improving independence and confidence, enhancing social skills, developing emotional resilience, improving time management, reducing anxiety, managing stress, and creating connectivity.
Yep, that is a long-winded list that could go on even more. Routines can benefit any area in your life where you would like to improve or grow. So, the next question then is, how do routines magically free you up to develop more creativity and growth?
When you implement a new routine, several things happen:
1) You remove decision fatigue
Increased clarity and consistency, not focusing on what to do next
2) Train your brain to start focus mode faster
Trained the brain on where to focus to improve concentration
3)Protect your priorities from distractions
Similar to boundaries, requiring less willpower
4) Turn efforts into habits
Intentional focus turns into habits through repetition, and improvement is seen in practice over
motivation
5) Create measurable progress
Repeated daily and weekly results are visible, improving skill and confidence
6) Stabilize focus during stress/fatigue
Create a structured default path to follow even when stressed or fatigued.
7) Align your actions with long-term goals
Create a path to join intent with outcome through repetitive focus on goals
A mentor once suggested that, between semesters, I read or learn something new that was not school-related when I was in one of the earliest classes in my master's program. I took up her advice, and four years later, it is a part of my routine.
The first routine to develop out of this was reading a new book between each semester that was neither school-related nor fiction. My reading list has grown exponentially, and I look for new topics and books to order so I can read them between semesters. This routine has led me into multiple themes and genres, and I am constantly on the lookout for a new read. I am now visualizing the office of my dreams because I have run out of room on my bookcase, desk, and shelves.
Another routine that has developed out of this is a daily gratitude journal, personal journaling, a year of daily Stoic journaling, and now morning pages. Each one has built on the other, and now my morning routine has evolved into still writing all of those while my three furry companions are in my lap, or instigating playtime while I write.
What is a routine you have that helps you in life?
