Making And Breaking Routine
Your approach to routine determines your approach to your work and life. An effective routine can help structure your day for success, while an ineffective one can hurt everything from productivity to job satisfaction. By the same token, being too rigid and inflexible about your routine can cause problems as well. If you must always do the same things every day in exactly the same way, you may be less open to taking on new opportunities and upgrading your skills and techniques.
How do you do the things you do? Before you can decide if changes are needed, you need a good idea of what you’re doing now. Think about how you go through your typical workday. Do you impose structure, or do you prefer a more organic approach, letting the day unfold and deciding what to do as you go along? There are pros and cons to either—the key is figuring out which method makes your particular job easier, and which holds you back.
It’s possible that the best style for you is a combo. Perhaps you like to stick with a standard agenda for meetings to give them structure, yet you like to keep your mornings open to schedule as situations arise. But it’s also possible that if you aren’t feeling as productive as you’d like, your work life could benefit from introducing more routine.
What makes a routine work? Figuring out an effective routine is to a large extent individual. But there are certain elements that can help anyone trying to work smarter. We each have certain times of day when we are at peak energy level. During these times, work flows more easily, and our thinking and decision making feels sharper. If you are unaware of when your peak times are, keep a record during the week as you work. Note how productive you feel at certain times of the day, and which times your energy seems to wane.
You might also be able to extend this to things you do outside of work. For example, some people who exercise prefer to begin the day with a workout, while others prefer to do it after work or during their lunch hour. Experiment to find out what times work best for you. Once you have this information, you can use it to set a routine that maximizes the times that you feel best doing certain activities.
When should you break your routine? Once you’ve figured out how to make your day run more smoothly, the next challenge comes in knowing when it makes sense to put your routine aside. There are times when it pays to be more flexible to roll with things rather than sticking to a script.
For tasks that require greater creativity, you may want to set your routine aside and let your juices flow. One caveat, though, is that routine can create a structure that allows you to focus on letting your thoughts loose. For example, if you know you have a certain amount of creative work to do every week, you might try scheduling it for your peak energy time of day.
If you’re a morning person, you might want to block off from 10am to noon each day for creative tasks. But within that timeframe, give yourself free reign. There’s no need to impose structure on how you will access and develop your creative thoughts once you’ve structured the right time to call them forth.
Practice with some different types of schedules, or lack of them. Before you know it, you’ll be making routine work for you, not against you.
