Create a routine, create control.
When we think about routines, we often gravitate towards a “daily routine” and what we do over an extended period of time. Maybe we have our morning routine of making coffee and getting ready for work, it has several different steps choreographed over an hour or two. There is an immense amount of freedom in these types of routines and the control they give us over our time. However, we can rethink how we utilize routines. We can get really granular with it, and break our routines down for a specific action or task. By breaking them down, it helps bring focus to the present moment, and the actual task at hand to ensure we do it to the best of our abilities. That our performance, regardless of what we are doing, will be at our best.
Why routines can work
So why bother? Why take the effort to create different routines for important tasks in the first place? When we utilize routines, it creates a sense of confidence, control, and power over our actions. It can be a part of practice, day to day actions and even for key moments of importance. Routines enable us to prioritize our physical and mental requirements, help us focus and get in “the zone” so to speak. They can be as long or as short and simple as we need them to be and tailored to our specific requirements in order to be most successful. If we try to utilize another’s routine (the dreaded trap of “this worked for me so it will work for you!”) it could throw us off, and have the opposite effect of what we were going for. Rather we need to spend the time developing our own. We need to make it ours, and the only way to do that is to try them out to see what works.
the pre-task routine
Before we start doing any task, we might take 5-10 seconds thinking about it. Usually, we are thinking about how we don’t want to do it or how we might screw it up. However, if we take those 5-10 seconds and create a pre-task routine we can make sure we do the task right and to the best of our abilities. This pre-task routine helps us to warm up both mentally and physically. It can quiet the other things that may clog our mind that are a distraction, or bring our energy levels up to where we need them. This can be especially important for any moment we need to be on our A-game. Like right before we need to give a really big presentation or a really complicated step on a project. The routine can consist of different steps all to get in the right mindset. It could start with visualizing the action we need to complete, engaging in some positive self-talk, or breathing exercises accompanied by auditory triggers. All working towards getting our head in the right space.
correcting errors with routines
When we are working on a task, something might happen that essentially throws us off our game or distracts us. Again, we probably take a few seconds after this happens to think about how bad we screwed up or that we have completely lost focus. And just like before, if we utilize just a few seconds after, we can regain our focus, control and get back whatever it is we are doing. These “in-task” type of routines will keep us in the present moment. So if we run into an error, mess something up or just flat out get distracted, we can have a routine to get us back on track. It can consist of taking a deep breath, utilizing a trigger word, and proceeding with whatever task we were working on. We’ve all been there, we were deep in work and we get that random notification on our phone so we check it. Before you know it, our entire thought process is thrown off and you lose the groove you were in. Routines can help us move on mentally/emotionally from the distraction or error so it does not have a negative effect on what it is we are actually doing.
routines to help us close
Often neglected (but equally important) as other types is the “post-task” routine. This allows us to decompress and alleviate any stress that may be lingering which could affect other aspects of our lives like our sleep, other hobbies, and even social interactions. This is especially important if the task went totally belly up, and the thought of how bad things went will just bug us all day. This routine will put us in the right frame of mind to properly recover and move on from it. Otherwise, it will just linger with us, and the negative effects will creep into the other facets of our life.
Routines can play an important role in both our professional and personal lives. When using them, they give us control over our mental and emotional state. In turn, this gives us confidence in our abilities in whatever task it is at hand. We shouldn’t necessarily just “dive in” and start creating routines for every little thing we do. We should start small, with one or two minor areas we struggle with and create the pre-task, in-task and post-task types of routines to help us overcome the mental or emotional obstacles that keep us from performing those tasks at our best. Whether it’s something as simple as getting ready to go to the gym to ensure our workout is the best, or develop a routine for when we have a bad day at work to help us “shake it off” so the rest of our day isn’t totally ruined by the poor mental state that we are in.
Routines are by no means a “one size fits all” solution. Some actions or tasks will require different routines than others. We should take the necessary time to develop routines that have a positive effect on our own mental state and practice them. Understanding that if we try it once, and it doesn’t work, we should simply abandon it. Rather, we should continue to tweak it, trying new things until we find the ones that do work. Once we do, we can plug-n-play those routines in different areas of our life as we see fit. There are many different options when building a routine ranging from auditory triggers, to visualization. Even physical action and movement can be incorporated into our routines. The most important thing though, is that these need to be ours.
