Routines

I’m not a hardcore routine person but routines and rituals have a place in my life. They have a place in all our lives.

Morning coffee. Walk the dog. Drive the kids to school. Email. More coffee. Recurring meetings. Dinner. Reading. Sleep.

I work from home with colleagues across several time zones so my daily schedule ebbs and flows. Without a commute to demarcate my work day, I frequently struggle with the lack of an ending ceremony. My work day doesn’t always end intentionally - I just come out of my home office for something and decide I’ll leave what’s left to the next day.

As you might have experienced during the stressful work-from-home days of the pandemic, it doesn’t take long for that type of behaviour to create an angst-ridden sense of living-at-work.

Better routines can help. I used to struggle with inventing the perfect weekly schedule and would feel defeated when I drifted and eventually abandoned it. I get bored by routines while hypocritically acknowledging their value.

I’ve come to recognize that I need to revisit my routines more regularly instead of beating myself up when they aren’t working for my current circumstances. Obviously they need to change with different seasons of life but I’ve undervalued tweaking them for the seasons and rituals throughout the year. I’m in the midst of rebuilding my weekly schedule now that spring has arrived with its longer, warmer days.

Writing the Desk Anywhere emails each week is part of that new routine. I want to have them ready to go for Tuesday mornings and so far I’ve succeeded four out of six times. Amusingly, this email wasn’t finished on time because I was away for the weekend, which was a break from our typical household routine.

I have a set of values and targets that inform what I build into my schedule:

• dedicated family time

• weekly spiritual practice

• 6+ walks in local forest park or bike rides

• dedicated time for personal / side projects (like this newsletter!)

• regular weight training sessions

• 7+ hours of sleep

• night off / intentional down time

Putting some structure in my weekly calendar helps me be intentional about things in my life that are important but easy to skip/defer. It also gives me an explicit set of non-work things to act as forcing functions for when work should start and end on a given day.

I want to make it crystal clear that I am NOT holding myself up as an exemplar. My family will be quick to tell you that I’m very much a work in progress. Instead, I’m hoping to spark some dialogue about the practices and approaches to habits, routines, and rituals that work for your work life. Leave a comment here.

 - Derek

If you want more on routines, the Stuff You Should Know podcast did a short on routines a few weeks ago.

And for a peek inside my brain and writing process… since I decided to write about routine, that goofy Rhett & Link song “I’m on Vacation” has been going through my head because of the line “I don’t eat fudge much in my daily routine.” I’m not even going to link to it here lest it infect someone else’s brain this week.

Also, I’m infamous in my family for not wanting to repeat vacations. My one vacation routine: “vacation is spelled D-E-S-S-E-R-T.”