The Importance of Routine

My main goal in life is to end the dull and mundane routine of facing a long commute each morning to a job where I spend most of my waking hours to work for someone else, getting home with just enough time to do a few chores, eat dinner and sleep.  I had started to hate the word routine and wanted my life to be more spontaneous but I recently learnt that it is not routine itself that is a bad thing, but what the specific routine is.

I plan to go to the gym at least twice a week whenever I can fit it in, sometimes at the weekend, sometimes in the evening.  But recently I have not been for some time.  If on the other hand I were going Karate classes that were every Tuesday at 7pm then I would have no choice but to schedule my day and my week around those classes to avoid missing them.  With my current Gym schedule everything else takes priority and that means that by thinking I can always go tomorrow or the day after instead I now go only infrequently.  In reality I should schedule the Gym every Tuesday, the chores can wait until tomorrow, I can try to see my friends or family other evenings where possible and my own health and enjoyment now that it is scheduled becomes the priority.

I think many people who don't work, both the rich and the poor often find that without a routine and nothing to do all day and all week they can often end up depressed or reliant on drink, drugs or excessive quantities of bad food to keep going.

When I eventually escape from cubicle prison I will need to keep busy at least 4 days a week by scheduling gym sessions, learning new skills or training for challenges, investing, charity work et... Just sitting at home relaxing every day will not really allow me to enjoy my freedom any more than someone at home all day on benefits.

I am going to develop a series of schedules, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly that will constantly be reviewed to make sure they are of benefit to me.

Each morning I wake up, spend 10 minutes in bed.  Get up spend 10 minutes watching the news, eat breakfast, get back to the news.  Wash up the breakfast dishes and last nights dinner, often going back to the news before getting in the shower and off to work.  I often end up seeing the same news items more than once so it is really not that efficient.

My new schedule is to keep my brain active.  Each morning I will juggle, do one Sudoku puzzle, play one game of chess, one game of Tetris and one game of Scrabble.  This might sound like it is a waste of time and not that helpful but I personally believe it will improve my mind power and get my brain working for the rest of the day.  It certainly can't be any less productive than my current routine.

I will see how long this takes each morning and I then plan to add in some exercise, press-ups, sit ups, yoga/breathing exercises maybe even a morning walk/run.  I may do exercise one morning and brain exercise the next or I might even have time to do everything each morning.  But with any new habit the hardest part is starting.  I plan to start small and keep it easy for myself.  Then I will gradually make things a bit harder, I think if I try and do too much too soon I will end up going back to old habits.

I would like to mention www.zenhabits.com in regard to this post.  I have been a reader for some time and think there is some great advice on new beginnings.  The author has accomplished some amazing things in the past few years despite having a large family and for the most part a full time job.  Starting small and doing something you can later build on is better than doing nothing.