Why routines are important and breaking them is always a bad idea

Well, almost always

Dec 06, 2023

My life is governed by routines. Working out three times a week, arriving at the office precisely at 8:30am - not a minute later, not a minute earlier, going to the supermarket every Sunday to check if they have a deal on toilet rolls and, when they do, buying way too many so I’m stocked up.

My love for routines began during the pandemic. I was home all the time and there was so much - way too much - freedom. I could just…do anything? Anytime? Should I play a round of Ring Fit on the Nintendo Switch before or after doing emails? Do I air fry yet another fried seaweed roll for lunch or buy takeout? Do I want to do yet another zoom happy hour with my colleagues tonight OR just… chug the wine because the world is locked down so nothing makes sense anymore anyways?

The chaos was…chaotic, and so I began to plan. Routine told me what to do and when to do it, and in that restriction came freedom. Instead of opening the fridge for breakfast and eating leftover mac and cheese because how could you not, I’d instead have three pre-made portions of yogurt bowls with bananas and chia seeds waiting there for me. The mac and cheese can SUCK IT… actually jk can have it for lunch? No I cannot because lunch is a kimbab set from the Korean restaurant down the street.

The routines of my day kept me away from my worst instincts. With structure, I was stable.

Having a set schedule every week made life a lot lighter. Making the schedule was easy. Sticking to it - staying consistent - that was hard.

To wake up at 6:30am every day, I’d need to be in bed by 10pm. That makes me really fun at parties. I announce my departure at 9 to nobody’s surprise, leaving my girlfriend Jin behind to socialize on my behalf. She does the extroverting, I do my introverting. I’d miss a lot of drunk nights, but waking up to the sunrise always set my day up for success.

Sometimes, I’d stick to my routines at the expense of my health. No matter what, I go to pilates every Monday morning. But if I’m feeling sleepy? I’ll take an extra espresso shot before class even though extra caffeine will most likely cost tonight’s sleep.

If I’m feeling hungover? Another espresso shot. If I’m still sore from the last class? Take two extra espresso shots. It’s too late to cancel now so just get up and go!

The Rome that is my guns - and booty - didn’t get built in a day, after all.

“You’re going for another morning class? Why would you do this to yourself?” Jin would ask. Even after four years of being together, my stubbornness still baffles her.

Routines keep the cogs of my days turning so that life can happen seamlessly. That’s my favorite. Other times, life conspires to do everything possible to get in their way. That’s the opposite of my favorite. I hate it, and I will go to great lengths to make sure I can keep my routines going, a tendency of mine I saw on full display last Sunday when…something rather strange happened.

Sunday is our flat cleaning and meal prep day. We start with a late breakfast and watch the newest episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. When we’re done, we gather our dirty clothes. We then vacuum the flat to the whirring soundtrack of the washing machine. In the afternoon, we grab some groceries and start preparing lunch boxes for the week, a different home-cooked meal each day to keep us going during our work days.

But last Sunday, she decided to be sick so I was tasked with going out to buy pork buns. Kinda rude but whatever.

So when Jin decided to put up a bunch of random and hand-made paintings and posters, I was confused. These were made for us by our twenty closest friends as gifts for us. Um…ok, fine, but like, can we figure this out when it isn’t Flat Clean Sunday?

And when I looked for Jin’s light blue button down to put into the washing machine, she was wearing it instead. Why was she wearing nice work clothes on a weekend? She knows it’s Flat Clean Sunday, why is she trying to ruin this and why is she getting down on one knee and in front of our pile of laundry on our very unvacuumed floor, asking, “Will you marry me?”

Well, there goes the day.

Jin spent the rest of the day ditching our Sunday routine, piece by piece. Instead of grabbing groceries, she took me to the bar where we had our very first date. A mega detour for rice and vegetables. Then we walked in and those twenty odd friends were waiting inside and they all screamed “SURPRISE!!” and blew party horns and all very conveniently had glasses filled with bubbly. “Can we see the ring???”, asked everyone who was totally in on the grand master plan.

My routines did not stand a chance.

So on Monday morning, I canceled my pilates class and stayed in bed to snuggle with my new fiancée on the cold fall day, to start the new week as a newly engaged couple, to take it all in. Because how often do I get to wake up with a new diamond ring on my finger?

But ugh it was a thorn in my well-oiled routine. I clinked my Kirby mug against Jin’s Zelda mug and we sipped our warm coffee and instead of doing planks and ab crunches we just sat with smiles maneuvering their ways back onto our faces, calling each other “fiancée”, knowing that there’s no one on earth we’d rather ruin our routines than one another, just like this, every day, forever.

Thanks to

Alex Dobrenko`

who helped give this piece humor and heart.

Update log:

📕 Finished Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (affiliate) by Gabrielle Zevin. I immediately want to reread this.
🔍 Reading
Cissy Hu
's Emotional Embracement at work series. Going to try interstitial journaling.
💭 Have tried dream logging a la
Chris Cordry, LMFT
but it's really hard to look at a screen right after waking up. Will experiment with a notebook & pencil.
🦴 Dogsat my friend’s husky over the weekend. It’s my first experience “taking care” of a dog, and he was such a good boy.
🎧 Listened to relationship psychotherapist Esther Perel’s podcast episode with a caller struggling with Emotional Inheritance”. It made me think that if one day I reconcile with my family, maybe we’ll do family therapy. It’s a stretch goal of sorts for now.
🧊 My freezer broke and it threw me off. I learned that I can put out work fires but anything home-related paralyzes me.