I love a routine

[hrj]

I sometimes say that I live and die by routines. If I have a routine for doing something, then it gets done. If I don't have a routine (or I depart from one) then anything could happen. This means there are things I do more often than I need to (like checking blood pressure or recording weight) because if I don't fit them into a daily routine, I don't get around to it. But it means that things that need a less frequent routine are sometimes tricky (like theoretically once-a-month housekeeping tasks, such as cleaning the cat waterer).

The daily bike-coffeeshop-write-bike routine is solid (even though there are two days when it's coffeeshop-write-gym instead), but if I need to do something substantial before biking--especially if it involves putting on normal clothes--then it's hard for me to shift myself back to it later in the day.

So on a day like today when I started off with an online podcast interview to record, I probably won't get the bike out. Knowing that, I plan to do yardwork and housecleaning. But there's always the temptation to say, "I make my own rules; I could just take a day off." Except I bought some Alpine strawberry sets a few days ago and they really need to get in the ground...

Comments

[heleninwales]

I have some daily tasks that I do almost without thinking, such as emptying the dishwasher, but if I try to start a new daily habit, I can usually keep it up for a week or two and then the routine falls apart.

[hairmonger]

I write things like "change furnace filter" on the calendar again as soon as I do them. As soon as I wrote that sentence I could not think of any other regular but not weekly things, which shows you why I need to write them down.
(I guess I should write down "check DW" because I'm really slack about that.)

Mary Anne in Kentucky