On Routines: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
by martinhoward
Routines are a great way to get things done consistently and over long-term periods of time. It’s like brushing your teeth—you do it as part of your morning/night routine and don’t really give it much thought. Whatever negatives they may have (and we’ll get to that in a second), you can’t argue with the simple reasoning that they simply work when you want to get things done.
The Good
If you want to do something consistently over and over through a certain period of time, setting a routine is a great way of going about it. Want to get fit? Set up a schedule to go to the gym. Want to read more books? Set aside the time to read an hour every day. Want to save some money? Bring your lunch to work every day.
Easy, right? Sure, as long as you stick to the routine. And that’s the beauty of routines—once you get them started it’s very easy to keep it going.
The Bad
It’s Boring. Let’s be frank here, bringing the same old lunch to work every day (which I do) gets boring really fast. Does it achieve the goal of saving money? Sure. Is it exciting? No, it’s very very dull.
If you’re not a fan of repeating the same thing over and over, then this kind of routing wouldn’t work for you. If you want to work out, you have to actually stick to the routine, which doesn’t work well for people who want to be more spontaneous or feel trapped when they have something scheduled out ahead of time.
The Ugly
You can fall into a rut. This is what I’m struggling with right now. When it comes to creative endeavors like writing, routines are your enemy. They will lull you into a sense of “getting things done,” when in reality all you’re doing is wasting time and killing your creative cells.
Sit down every day at the same time and “try” to do come up with something great to write will absolutely kill any chances you have of writing something worthwhile.
Setting aside the time to write every day and leaving that window open to new things, however, could work. But I often find myself falling right back into a rut of writing the same old boring stuff over and over again.
Not good. Very ugly.
What Say You?
Routines are great for things like exercising and saving money, but not so good for creative pursuits like writing. How do you deal with this struggle of getting things done consistently without falling into a rut?
March 3rd, 2009 at 6:20 pm
[...] same exact lunch every day sounds like torture. But I like the taste and it’s become an easy routine for me to follow. It may not be worth it to some people, and even I’ve thought of changing it [...]
September 5th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
[...] tired. I don’t have to go to work until 7:45, but I’m awake anyway. Why? It’s become a habit to get up and write, which I’m doing right [...]
November 19th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Hi, I don’t have a website. I thought I could find some tips on writing on your site. I have. On Routines, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, I think that our mind -set has a lot to do with feeling bored with a routine. I think we must enjoy what we do in our routine. I enjoy cleaning my home; I’m very organized and like a routine. If I dredded cleaning my home, I wouldn’t do it routinely. I don’t clean my house for anybody else, I clean my house for me. Because I clean my house for me, I am ok with no one saying anything. Another nice gift is everyone that comes to my home enjoys it. The people who live with you also benefit from it. For me, It’s a WIN WIN for everyone. ATTITUDE TOWARD WHAT YOU DO IN YOUR ROUTINE IS MOST IMPORTANT.