3 easy routines to improve your daily flow
I am a creature of habit. When I’m at my best, I rely on my daily routines to keep me in a healthy rhythm. I find that settling into simple, natural routines - building on existing good habits and gently phasing out negative ones - helps me find an inner stability and steadiness.
“But Emilee,” you say, “I hate routines. They’re boring.” That’s fair, friend! It’s easy to think of routines as boring, because they’re predictable, they’re the same every day, they’re routine. But I invite you to try to reframe that for yourself: routines are the building blocks for creating the day you want to have! A routine is like a line of code that automates an entire system, shifting your brain into “I got this” mode and saving you time and energy. This doesn’t mean that routines have to be a mindless, robotic, going-through-the-motions thing; my routines have become almost meditative. My body knows the drill, taking me through these routines, and since I don’t have to think about what I’m doing, I can instead appreciate what I’m doing.
Routines also help cue your body & mind to what’s coming next. Do you have trouble sleeping? Developing a calming nighttime routine over time will help cue your body: “a yoga session and herbal tea? I know this routine. Must be almost time to sleep.” Eventually, your body will even start to produce melatonin in response to these cues, making it easier and easier for you to fall asleep when you want to. Do you lose track of time in the morning and find yourself rushing out the door every day? Automating your morning, so that you’re doing the same thing at the same time every day, will help you tune your internal clock to a more accurate time and take away that rushed feeling.
So how do we do it? The first step in establishing a new routine is to notice the ones you already have. Spend a couple of days just paying attention to how you move through your day. When you wake up, do you immediately head for the bathroom? Or do you spend a few (or fifteen) minutes in bed scrolling on your phone? Do you have a coffee ritual? Is there something that, if you skip it in the morning, your whole day feels a little bit off? If any of this sounds familiar, then congratulations! You already have a routine. You probably already have one or two that you go through every day, even if you aren’t aware of it. So take a little time to notice those, and write them down.
Now we want to build on those routines. Let’s say you wake up every morning and immediately head for the bathroom, where you pee, wash your hands, splash water on your face, and brush your teeth. This is something you do, automatically, without thinking, every day. This is a routine. Now you can take a behavior you want to add into your daily routine - say, stretching for five minutes - and stack it onto your existing routine. This is called habit stacking by some and behavior chaining by others, but the idea is the same: use the automated systems your brain’s already built to make adopting a new habit easier.
The hard part? Remembering the new habit! The key here is to give yourself gentle reminders and remove barriers as much as possible. Stick a post-it note on your bathroom mirror, keep your yoga mat or a printout of stretches & poses right outside your bathroom door so you can’t miss it when you walk out. You want to design your environment to facilitate your habits as much as possible.
An important key to designing habits and routines that stick is identifying your why. If you throw random habits into a routine because you think you should be doing those things or you saw it on someone’s “that girl” morning routine on Instagram, you won’t stick to it. You have to know why you’re doing something, or you’ll always be able to justify not doing it. Why do you want to start running? Is it because running energizes you and improves your stamina, or because you have a vague idea that you want to be healthier and running was the first thing that popped into your mind? If you wake up in the morning and don’t feel like running, telling yourself “Running is good for me” isn’t going to do it. “If I go for a short run, it’ll put me a better mindset for the rest of the day and it’ll be that much easier for me to run again tomorrow,” on the other hand, might get you out of bed and into your running shoes. ID your why—it’s a built-in motivator.
The last key? Patience. I know it’s tempting to want to just stack all your new healthy habits into your routine, but if you overload with too many at once, none of them will stick. Take two weeks to develop and repeat a habit before trying to add a new one. We’re playing the long game here, building healthy routines and crafting an ideal day that works for you. Sometimes your routines will get thrown off (as a mom, this happens a lot), but if you’ve taken the time to really ingrain those habits and routines, it’ll be that much easier to get back on track.
To recap: if you’re looking to design new habits and routines, follow the keys:
Notice the routines you already have.
Habit stack/behavior chain wherever you can.
Give yourself gentle reminders.
Remove barriers & design your environment.
Identify your why.
Be patient with yourself.
If you’re looking for ideas, I’ve come up with three simple, easy, short routines to help kickstart your own routine-building, including about how long these routines take me.
Morning (about 10 minutes)
Drink water. Design your environment to build this habit by keeping a bottle of water on your nightstand.
Meditate for 5 minutes. Habit stack by navigating to your meditation app (I use Calm) while you’re drinking your water.
Make your bed. Find your why by reminding yourself that tidy spaces make a tidy mind.
Afternoon (about 10 minutes)
Step outside. Getting fresh air during the day will help your body clue in to what time it is, lower your stress levels, and allow for a little vitamin D. Habit stack by attaching this behavior to something you already do in the afternoon (eat lunch, clock out of work for a break, pick your kids up from school)
Do a body scan. While you’re outside, take 30 seconds to close your eyes, tune into your body, scanning from your toes to the top of your head, noticing everything you can. Are you sore? holding tension? relaxed? We’re not judging ourselves, just notice. Why? This helps us be more mindful and tune in with ourselves.
Bullet point your morning. Right after the body scan (we’re habit stacking again), open up the notes app on your phone and make a quick list: what you’ve done so far, how you’re feeling, and jot down how many ounces of water you’ve had (again, no value judgment here - just noticing!)
Evening (about 30 minutes)
Tidy for 15. Spend 15 minutes putting things in their places, straightening pillows, and clearing out visual clutter. Why? If you do a little bit every day, then you don’t have as much to do when it comes time to do a real tidy.
Journal for 10. Design your environment by keeping your journal (or iPad, or whatever else you use as a journal) in the same spot you usually end up in the evening, so that it’s easily accessible and visible. Write about your day, your feelings, your ideas, a problem you’re trying to solve - whatever comes to mind. I sometimes find it helpful to have a prompt, so I keep a list of journaling prompts nearby to make it easy.
Meditate for 5. Same way we started the day! We’re habit stacking here by tacking this onto the end of your journaling session. Close the journal, open the app (I have a shortcut on my phone to play Calm’s Daily Meditation), and spend five minutes decompressing.
What do your daily routines look like? What habits are you trying to include in your day? What do you struggle with when implementing new habits and routines?
