The Unexamined Routine is Not Worth Doing

When you think about what you're going to do in a day, what do you think of? I bet your answer includes things like school, work, social plans, exercise, or dinner plans. It likely includes anything that is out of the ordinary--things you don't do every day. It would be a little odd if, in you answer, you included things like when you plan to brush your teeth, go to sleep, or do your laundry... even though, in all likelihood, those things are part of what you'll do in your day, too. How we take care of those small, thoughtless tasks can have a big impact on the rest of our day, especially when it comes to how put-together we feel, and how distracted we are by the to-do list in our heads. It's worth taking a moment to examine and intentionally design some of the routines in our lives, especially when it comes to the ones that bookend and frame our days.

Humans are habitual creatures and are great at repeating certain routines without even thinking. In fact, it's estimated that 47% of the average person's time is spent in this "autopilot" type state, where you're going through the motions of life but your mind is elsewhere. This state is associated with decreased happiness. So, while it takes little cognitive effort to follow a habit you've performed hundreds of times, it's important to put in some effort to make sure that those habits are serving you and helping you in life.

I realized recently (in all of this second-semester-senior-year reflection) that the first thing that I look at in the morning, and the last at night, is my iPhone. This is true for 80% of smartphone users, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. For me, it was jump-starting the rumination process of what tasks I had to accomplish that day, and was completely taking me out of my present, freshly-awoken, clear state of mind. Ending every day with an hour or two of blue-light-induced extra wakefulness, staring at a six-inch screen ten inches from my face, certainly wasn't helping me feel refreshed in the morning. I decided that this was one habit that I would prefer not to have transfer from my student life into my adult one. So, I took a whiteboard, and wrote a list of all the things I'm committing to doing when I wake up. It goes:

• Wake up with alarm (from real clock!), come to
• Bathroom, shower if needed, brush teeth
• Get dressed, finishing touches (hair etc), take vitamins
• In kitchen, brew tea, check on plants while water heats
• Eat breakfast, maybe listen to news podcast

As basic as these tasks may seem, having them written down has been extremely helpful for me. It's not that I wouldn't brush my teeth without a reminder; it's more that I've replaced my phone-checking habit with a list-checking one. I recenly borrowed a friend's special issue of Time that was all about habits, and one article in the magazine mentioned how replacing a habit with another (similar, less harmful) behavior makes it much easier to keep from slipping back into your old ways than simply trying not to do the habit you're quitting. When I want to check what I should do and think about in the morning, it's now a finite, very manageable list of tasks that starts with staying in bed for a few minutes and fully waking up ("coming to"). That feels infinitely more doable, and less anxiety-inducing, than an ever-changing, unpredictable stream of upcoming deadline reminders, headlines of tragic news stories, and messages to respond to that my phone likes to greet me with in the morning.

I've got a similar nighttime routine, which involves everything you expect, plus plugging in my phone across the room and writing a few sentences in my journal. I can't say I've stuck to that one as well as the morning one, possibly because I'm trying to add a new routine instead of replacing an existing one. But I have been eschewing screens and getting more sleep in recent times. Although it's early, I do think I'm on to something here. And I'm liking the new sense of calm that my mornings have.

Does your phone bookend your day? What habits do you have that you might like to change? It's worth taking a closer look at the unexamined, automatic parts of our day. A few small changes there can lead to some pretty big benefits.