How do you feel about routines? I think the thought of routines can be polarizing. Some people love routines and some people despise them. A lot of people thrive on routines and others prefer to live without them because they feel too confining.
I believe routines can actually help us. They can help simplify our days and create more peace in our lives. By utilizing routines you create more space in your life for what really matters as well as accomplish what needs to be accomplished. When we don’t have routines we can run out of time each day and leave things undone. This will cause stress the next day and then even more the following day.
examples of routines
You may already have a few routines in place and not even realize it. For instance, I bet you have somewhat of a morning routine. Mine looks like this:
- Get up
- Take the dog outside
- Feed the dog
- Make tea
- Spend time in the Bible
- Start a load of wash
- Make breakfast
More or less, this is how my morning looks. There are days where it changes a little and that’s okay. I don’t think routines have to be rigid and scheduled out minute by minute – but I do think it’s extremely helpful to develop different daily routines to accomplish the tasks at hand.
Some other examples of routines may include:
- Your meal planning – which I’ll talk about more later.
- Your daily work schedule – maybe you focus on one thing each day. For example: Monday is for going through emails, Tuesday is for new projects, Wednesday is for following up on ongoing projects, etc.
- Your laundry schedule – I wash our clothes on Monday, towels on Tuesday, dish towels and rags on Wednesday, our clothes again on Thursday, and sheets on Fridays. I try to have the laundry done during the week (one to two loads a day) so I’m not doing laundry all weekend.
- Your chore schedule – I’ll talk more about this one below as well.
As you can see there are many routines that you can incorporate into your daily life. Let’s talk about how they can help you.
Benefits of Routines
- Less Stress – Routines can help create a pretty seamless and stress free way to accomplish your daily tasks. When you have a routine you don’t have to think about it – it becomes second nature. You also will be reassured that everything will be accomplished and you won’t always feel like you are playing catch up.
- Efficiency – Routines can also help you become more efficient with your time. If you have built in routines for different aspects of your day to day life you will be more prepared and have a better handle on your tasks. You can then focus on one thing at a time – which always makes us more efficient.
- Accomplish Big Tasks – When you have a big task – breaking it up into smaller tasks is very helpful. By creating a routine with these tasks you will moving the process along. For instance, I want to write a book. I have written quite a bit of it, but it is going to take quite a bit of work to finish it. I’ve put a routine in my schedule to write part of my book each Wednesday morning for an hour. Little by little it will be finished. If I didn’t fit this into my routine, it would never be worked on.
- Better Overall Health
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Having less stress, feeling a sense of accomplishment and not getting behind will help you sleep better, eat better (because meals are planned) and stay healthier. (incorporating exercise into your daily routine will also help you stay healthy – more on this below).
How to start incorporating routines
One great way to save time and stress is to come up with a meal planning routine. In other words, pick a theme for each day of the week and stick to it each week.
This makes meal planning go so much faster. Here is an example:
- Monday – Meatless
- Tuesday – Tacos
- Wednesday – Wild Card (Leftovers or freezer meals)
- Thursday – Fish
- Friday – Take out
- Saturday – Homemade Pizza
- Sunday – Soup or Crockpot meal
I also pick one day a week that I meal plan. It is usually on Thursday. This works best for me because I can make a grocery list and either plan to pick up groceries over the weekend or have them delivered Monday morning for the week.
Meal planning saves you money too! With a weekly plan and preparation you won’t have to resort to take-out meals multiple times a week which can add up.
Another routine example is to set up a chore schedule so you aren’t always feeling overwhelmed with all that needs to be done:
- Monday – Mop the floors
- Tuesday – Dust
- Wednesday – Bathrooms
- Thursday – Kitchen – although I also wipe the counters down and do dishes every day.
- Friday – Vacuum
- Saturday – Monthly tasks – like cleaning out the fridge; washing the windows; or vacuuming under the couch cushions.
- Sunday – Empty trash cans
You can also create a workout routine for your week like this:
- Monday – Walk and weights
- Tuesday – Yoga
- Wednesday – Walk and weights
- Thursday – Yoga
- Friday – Day off
- Saturday – Long walk
- Sunday – Day off
As I mentioned earlier, creating these routines will become second nature and you will greatly reduce your stress as well as save time and money!
If you are someone who doesn’t typically like routines I hope you have a better understanding of how they can help you and you may be surprised how much you like them. Make it fun, include the whole family and come up with routines together.
This is just another way to create more peace in your life!