How To Build A Routine That Works

Routines can be valuable tools to reduce stress and decision fatigue. Learn how to make a routine that will work for you.

Routines can be a powerful tool with many benefits. They can help reduce decision fatigue by limiting the number of choices you have to make and are shown to reduce stress. A strong routine can also promote healthy habits and leave you feeling more in control of your time. 

However, this tool is often underutilized. There are countless examples online of routines that are aesthetic and social media-ready, but that are unrealistic for most people. This may leave having a good routine feeling unattainable for you, but it doesn’t have to be.

In this article, we will discuss how to build routines that are effective for you.

Your Current Routine

You may not be aware of it, but you probably already have routines in your day. Most people have a list of things they do every morning, for example, like brushing their teeth and getting dressed. 

Before you can build a routine you like, you need to start by looking at the routines you already have. Once you are aware of what routines you are already following, you can decide what you want to keep and what you want to change.

List Your Current Routine

First, think about what routine you are trying to build. Are you working on a morning routine, a work routine, a bedtime routine, or something entirely different? 

Once you’ve identified the routine you want to start with, create a list of the activities you already do as part of that routine. Your routine might be slightly different from day to day – that’s okay! List whatever you usually do or usually try to do.

List everything you can think of, regardless of how silly it seems to list or how you feel about it. This step is about looking honestly at your day without judgment. Once you have this list, we can move on to evaluating it.

Evaluate Your Current Routine

Now that you have a list of everything in your current routine, we can figure out what is working and what isn’t. 

If something in your routine is ‘working’, it should be something you can consistently do and that helps you in some way. If part of your routine is an hour-long workout that you never do, then it isn’t working even though it may be helpful. Similarly, spending an hour on social media every morning might be consistent, but it isn’t helpful. Each step should be something you consistently do and something that adds value for it to be included in the ‘working’ category.

Everything that doesn’t meet the requirements for the ‘working’ category should go in the ‘not working’ category. When you’re identifying things that don’t work, there are a few other factors to consider.

The first is one we have already discussed: Does this step help you or add value to your life? Watching TV for several hours after work or spending an hour on social media in the morning will usually be considered ‘not working’ with this question, while cooking a meal or brushing your teeth would be considered ‘working’.

The second thing to consider is whether that step adds more stress than it needs to. For example, getting dressed is important, but it can still be labeled ‘not working’ if you have a panic attack about it every morning. 

Finally, think about what you want your life to be like. Things that don’t align with that goal should probably be put in the ‘not working’ category.

Once you have each step in your routine sorted out, you can identify what you want to change.

Identify Changes

Now that you have a clear picture of your current routine, you can decide what you want to keep and what needs to change. Anything you identified as working for you should stay; the things that weren’t working should be addressed.

Looking at the items in your ‘not working’ list, decide which steps need a few changes and which steps you want to remove entirely. 

If you choose to change a step rather than remove it, think about where that change needs to happen. For example, part of my morning routine is to get dressed, but I was getting overwhelmed every morning by trying to pick out an outfit. 

In order to make this step in my routine work for me, I made a change at night to start picking out my clothes for the next day. When you’re considering what changes may make your routine more effective for you, it’s okay to include things that would need to happen in other parts of the day.

The changes you make don’t need to be big; they just need to help solve the issue. 

Along with looking at things to remove or alter, you can think about things you want to add. In the end, you should have a list of things you want to change in your routine, either by adding, removing, or changing a step. Now, you need to implement them.

Tips For Implementing Changes To Your Routine

Routines tend to be automatic, which makes them difficult to change. These tips will help keep you on the right track as you work to build your new routine.

#1 – Start Small

The idea of making one big change that fixes everything can be hard to resist. However, such large changes are usually hard to keep up once your initial motivation has faded. Sustainable changes start small.

Look at your list and find an item that you can incorporate into your routine without much effort. If you are modifying or adding a step, this change should take less than 2 minutes to do. If you are removing a step, start with a step that you aren’t very attached to and that you will find easy to stop.

Once you’ve identified the change you want to start with, begin adding it to your routine. You can add more changes as you get used to them. I don’t recommend making all of the changes at once, as such a big overhaul can lead to internal resistance and procrastination once your initial motivation subsides.

#2 – Track Your Progress

As you start implementing these changes, it can be helpful to keep track of your progress. This can help you identify what changes are working well and which ones might need further revision. 

One approach to doing this is “don’t break the chain”, in which you mark down every day you successfully implement the change. After a few days, you should have a small row of successes. Your goal from then on is to not interrupt or break this row, which requires you to be consistent every day.

This approach can be helpful, and I recommend using it if it resonates with you. I rarely am able to do something every day forever, so I instead set a target for how often I want to succeed in implementing the change. Usually, this number is 70%. 

As long as I do what I intended to do 70% of the time, I can feel good about my progress. This gives me wiggle room for when something goes wrong or I am unable to do what I had hoped, and it helps prevent me from being overwhelmed with guilt. You can choose a frequency that feels right for you, as long as it is achievable.

#3 – Forgive Yourself

No matter what your goal is, there will be days when you mess up. It takes time to adjust to a new routine. A key part of navigating this change is to forgive yourself when it doesn’t turn out the way you hoped.

This compassion is an important part of any effort to change your life. Beating yourself up for missing a step is demoralizing and can cause you to give up the change entirely, which doesn’t move you closer to your goal.

Instead, acknowledge that it happened and decide to start again. Messing up once does not mean you are doomed to never change. Forgiving yourself will help you stick to your new routine.

Repeat

After you’ve had your new routine for a while, review it. I usually wait about a month after implementing a change to do this so that I have plenty of time to get used to the new routine.

When you decide to review your routine, just follow the steps outlined in this guide again. Hopefully, you will have fewer things that you want to change this time around. 

Repeat this process until you have a routine you are happy with. Don’t be afraid to change what your overall goal is; the routine that best suits your life will change over time.

Conclusion

Building a new routine can be hard and is often intimidating. It takes time, and things won’t always go as planned. Using these steps, you will be able to slowly build a routine that works for you!