Routines are an innate part of most of our lives. Whether you’re creating a new one or tweaking an old one, find patterns that serve you well. A routine that serves you well is one that brings fulfillment to your day and supports you in surviving and thriving in the day ahead.
Here’s a 3-step process to building a routine that serves you best:
Step 1: Think about what you want your day to FEEL.
Each person’s routine is unique to them because we all have different needs. You may be asking yourself, “How do I channel these needs?”
Before writing a gnarly to-do list of everything that needs to be a part of your routine, I challenge you to think about what you WANT your day to feel like.
Notice how I used the word “feel” instead of “look.” Dreaming about how you want to feel in your day can serve as a foundation for how you build a routine that benefits you. What sensations are important for you to experience as a busy college student? Do you want a day full of optimism, joy, gratitude, excitement?
Step 2: Let your feelings guide your actions
Diving into your feelings helps you navigate your daily habits, with the goal of being in a fulfilling rhythm each day. Research shows that routines are best created when less conscious thought goes into them (Arlinghaus and Johnston, 2018).
Therefore, being in tune with your feelings should do the “planning” for you. If you know how you want to feel throughout the day, trust your intuition to guide you there.
If you want to feel optimistic, what makes you feel that way?
- Starting the day with joyful movement to get you pumped up
- Calling your mom to give you a pep-talk
- Daily affirmations before heading out the door
If you want your day to be guided by gratitude, what makes you feel that way?
- A meditation practice
- Prayer in the morning
- Journaling
Step 3: Reevaluate and adjust
Is your routine working for you? For example, are you getting out of bed early enough to experience more peace and less stress in the morning? Or do you need a new wake-up time (and therefore maybe a new bedtime)?
Or if you like your bedtime and wake time, are there ways to streamline your morning routine by preparing outfits, binders, or food the night before?
Are you scheduling things back-to-back all day long without any breaks in between? Would it help to tweak your meeting times to have more margin in your life?
Are you scheduling in adequate self-care time, studying time, and social time?
If your patterns seem off balance, adjust and reevaluate until you find a rhythm that serves you well.
This is your encouragement to pause, think about how you want your day to feel, and tune into your instincts.
Building a routine is not supposed to be strenuous or stressful, instead it is supposed to help you add patterns to your life that balance everything you have going on. You deserve a routine that honors your needs and promotes your overall well-being.