You are listening to the Overthinker's Guide to Joy, episode 7. This week I'm going
to talk about another one of my favorite daily habits to manage my overthinking
brain, the power of routine. Let's get started.
Hey there, you are listening to the Overthinker's Guide to Joy. This is a podcast
for overthinkers, overachievers, perfectionists, type A, stressed out,
anxious people, who just want to calm down and feel better. I'm your host,
certified life coach, Jackie de Crinis.
Hey there, and welcome back. So in my earlier series, where I talked about the
homework, H -O -M -E, which is my four daily essentials, drinking water,
eating and sleeping well, exercise and meditation. The essence of what that was or
is, is routine. And today our episode is gonna be about the power of routine.
So your mental, physical and emotional health actually depends on routine, particularly
if you're an overthinker. Creating a routine can help take the guesswork out of what
should I be doing today? What should I be doing next? Or how will I get it all
done? Or even that sort of, and I'll talk about this in a future episode, the
should ofs. I should have done this. I should be doing that if only,
right? And when we have a routine, A lot of that noise, that chatter,
that what should I be doing or I'm not sure what to do with my time or I'm not
sure how to manage my time, all goes away. Think about all the successful
organizations in the world. They all work around routine, schools,
military, jobs. The reason why routine is so important is multifaceted.
By having a routine, you have purpose. And this is kind of the essential thing to
the human psyche. We all need purpose, whether it's a job or whether it's our
education or whether it's to teach or to care for others or to make things more
beautiful in the world or more safe or to comfort or to provide, we need to have
purpose and we need it every day.
And routine is an important part of reinforcing our self -esteem. When we accomplish
something every day, we feel a sense of pride. It can be big, it can be small,
whether you're curing cancer as a scientist, or you're just doing laundry for your
family. There should be pride in anything that is accomplished daily. Admiral William
H. McRaven gave the University of Texas Commencement speech that went on to be a
New York Times bestselling book. Make your bed and other little things that can
change your life and possibly the world. As a retired Navy SEAL officer,
he felt that making your bed each morning starts your day with both purpose and
confidence. And it sets the intention for the day that then has an effect on how
you proceed the rest of it. So no matter what happens during the course of your
day, when you make your bed properly, you at least come back to that reminder at
the end of the day too. Something was accomplished and something was accomplished
well. But where else can we establish routine besides making our bed? Well,
just keeping a schedule, writing things down, whether it's social commitments,
errands, appointments, even your exercise, schedule it.
Another great one is meal planning. Whether you're single or cooking for a family,
meal planning can be a great way to establish daily and weekly routines. Knowing
what you're gonna cook, knowing when you're gonna cook it, takes a lot of the
stress out of your days, particularly if you're juggling a full -time job. But
routine is not just about rigidity, it's not about replacing spontaneity or fun.
Routine is to create better foundation so that you can be more successful and have
more time for leisure activities and fun. So here are some simple tips to developing
a routine, as I said before. Write it down. You can do post -its on a mirror.
You can tape it to your refrigerator. You can write it in a calendar. But like
everything, routines can also feel overwhelming at first. And you don't want to
create a "Oh, oh, I have another thing to do now. No. Routine is just another
practice. It's like something you develop over time. There's going to be trial and
error and failure and that's okay. But we want to break it down to bite -size
manageable tasks. Like your morning routine is one thing.
Maybe that includes making your bed, washing your face, taking a shower. Maybe your
morning includes meditation or exercise. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe that's later in the
day. Just figure out what are your priorities? Where do you have the time or where
can you create the time? But separate them out. So your morning routine is one
thing, your work routine might be another and your evening routine is another.
But like I said, don't let the routine itself overwhelm you. The idea is to create
the routine so that it just becomes a habit. And when it becomes a habit,
everything gets easier because what you magically get is more time.
I know that seems terribly incongruent, right? If you've got this list of things
that you've put in your calendar and you've got all these now new things, new
routines that you have to accomplish? How in the world could that create more time?
'Cause you're thinking to yourself, she wants me to drink water, she wants me to
eat well, she wants me to exercise, meditate, journal, all the things. All those
things when they become habitual, clear the mental space so that you can get more
done more efficiently in your workday, with your family, even for yourself.
But the best part is it takes away the overthinking because you just know that's
the routine. So people often ask me like, what's my routine? And my routine as a
corporate executive in my former life was different than my routine now as an
entrepreneur. That said, my morning routine usually consists of this.
I get up at the same time every day within about a 15 minute window. I take my
dog out. I feed him. I empty the dishwasher. I put the dishes away from the night
before, which I've usually washed. I've let them dry. I drink a glass of water. And
then I take my dog and we go meditate. That is my morning routine every day.
And no matter if I have an early meeting or I've got to get out of the house
early, then I just get up earlier and do that. But I build that in, oh, did I
forget to tell you? Yes, I also make my bed, brush my teeth. (laughs) But the
point is, every morning, that's my routine. That's how I start my day before
anything else happens. And then at that point, I check my emails and my texts,
and usually by 8 a .m., I have my first client. It just depends, obviously.
Sometimes I have a doctor's appointment, sometimes I have to do something with my
daughter. It's not written in stone. Make sure that you don't confuse routine and
balance with rigidity because what you don't want to do is you don't want to punish
yourself for having a great routine and you don't want to miss out because you have
a good routine. but you want to make sure that there are these principles that you
follow every day that start your day with a good intention and grounding you.
So what's the rest of my routine? Well, I typically work from about eight to four.
I take breaks in between clients because I need to stretch, go to the bathroom,
sometimes let my dog out, always drinking water, always making sure that's part of
my routine. I take a break for lunch and that varies, you know, depending on my
client's schedule. I've usually planned my lunch because I usually eat leftovers from
the night before. So for me, it's always a protein -based lunch with vegetables. And
then if I have extra time, I sometimes will eat lunch, as I've told you before, in
the sun or in the shade just to get some fresh air to get some vitamin D and
then I go back to work and at the end of the day I always exercise so some days
I have more energy than others when my body is well I'm usually playing tennis at
the moment I have a shoulder injury so I'm not on the tennis court and I'm a
little bummed about that so I ride my peloton or I go for a walk or I go for a
swim or I do stretching or pilates, but I move my body every single afternoon.
And then when I'm done with that, I start making dinner. And the evening, after
dinner, after the dishes, then there's planned relaxation time. So I might read,
I might watch TV with my husband, we might play a game, we love Scrabble, we do
all kinds of different things. but the relaxation, the evening, the downtime is
planned. Now, is it planned to the minute? No, it's not. But I've earned it because
I've taken care of all the other chores. So I'm not scrambling to then do something
in the evening. Now, that's not to be said that I don't put a load of laundry in
the dryer or what have you in the evening or finish up something that needed to
get done at work. But by the end of the day, I truly feel an exhale because I've
accomplished what I needed to do either in the morning or in the work day. Now,
obviously, if you have little kids, this is always a little trickier because your
evenings belong to things like bath times and bed times and getting everybody to
wind down. And so I get that if you have more demands on your time in the
evening, it is not as easy to unplug after dinner. But again, it's just about
routines. So presumably even if you had children, there's a bath time, there's a
bedtime. And as I said to you in my episode on, oh,
observing your levels, having a bedtime is important too.
And does it have to be to the minute? No, but like within a range, right? If you
go to bed at nine or 10 or 11, whatever it is for you, but knowing that you have
that routine is part of the routine. So I just can't stress enough that by
developing daily habits, by developing a routine, knowing what you need to get done
or want to get done or hope to get done, write it down. Make a list and figure
out how can I schedule it. And don't get overwhelmed. A lot of things don't need
as much time as you think. We think that if we have to exercise, it's got to be
two hour, you know, training marathon. No, exercise can be 15 or 20 minutes.
If your goal is to start reading every day, don't make it difficult. Just say I'm
gonna read one chapter every night Or if your goal is to write in a journal Give
yourself five minutes to write before bed but schedule it think about when you're
going to do it and Recognize that it can be in very small increments. These things
don't take time. What takes time is letting it pile up. So going back to the
laundry example, you know, when we do laundry and then we've got five loads piled
up, that takes more time. And so then we don't put our clothes away and then the
clothes, the dirty clothes get mixed with the clean clothes and then nobody wants to
bother and then it becomes overwhelming. Do it as you go. So make it a it.
Just like tidying up. One of the things people always talk to me about is because
I keep a very neat house and people always say, "How do you keep a neat house?"
Well, part of it is I just pick it up as I go. I don't let it get overwhelming.
And if your house is cluttered and you need to get it in shape to do that, then
schedule that. Where do you have free time? Where can you turn on the music and do
one room at a time. That's another podcast. We'll talk about decluttering later.
But right now, just focus on the routine. Figure out your list. Figure out what you
want to get accomplished every day. Schedule it. Write it down. Write your post -its.
Do whatever you need to do to make it happen. But commit to your routine and what
you'll find out is that you are going to become a master of creating more time by
having a routine. And your overthinking brain is going to calm down because it's
going to love routine too. So thank you for joining me. I can't wait to talk to
you next week. I've got another episode on the power series. So stay tuned for next
week. Have a great week get those routines on paper write them down commit to it
and have some fun Talk to you later Bye for now If you want to learn more tips
about managing your stress and how to manage your overthinking brain Just go to my
website and sign up for my weekly newsletter at Jackie de Crinis.com. That's J .A.
C .K. I E D E C R I N I S
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