Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is for anyone struggling to maintain a good routine,
Speaker 1: try to figure out when your routines tend to fall apart.
Speaker 1: When you know when your routines stop working, you can
Speaker 1: make adjustments so they are more likely to last. Good
Speaker 1: time management is all about strong routines. But routines need
Speaker 1: to be resilient and they need to work in people's lives.
Speaker 1: I hear from people all the time who get discouraged
Speaker 1: when life just doesn't work as they envisioned it would.
Speaker 1: They try to build good routines, but then the routines
Speaker 1: just seem to fall apart. If that is the case,
Speaker 1: I think it is helpful to examine when exactly any
Speaker 1: particular routine did fall apart what happened? Of course, falling
Speaker 1: apart implies that the routine worked for at least a
Speaker 1: little bit. And if that is the case, when was that.
Speaker 1: If you are struggling to build a morning routine, do
Speaker 1: you have a memory of a morning that went well,
Speaker 1: or maybe many mornings that went well, or maybe you
Speaker 1: are looking at evenings if they feel like a mess. Now,
Speaker 1: was there a time, or at least an evening in
Speaker 1: recent memory that didn't feel so messy. Envisioning what was
Speaker 1: going well can help you figure out what changed, so
Speaker 1: you can address that. For instance, maybe you look back
Speaker 1: and see that your evening routine works pretty well when
Speaker 1: your kids are in school, but seems to fall apart
Speaker 1: on school vacations. If so, maybe you need two different routines,
Speaker 1: one for the school year and one for times that
Speaker 1: are less structured. You set yourself up for success by
Speaker 1: knowing you aren't going to plan on the same routine
Speaker 1: when life looks very different. Or maybe every school year
Speaker 1: you start strong with your evening routines, but then once
Speaker 1: the activities ramp up, things seem to fall apart. Recognizing this,
Speaker 1: you can plan for a much simpler routine, perhaps planning
Speaker 1: to do family dinners on weekends and having more of
Speaker 1: a grab and go dinner style for the work week.
Speaker 1: There is no point aiming for a routine that simply
Speaker 1: isn't going to work for big chunks of time. Or
Speaker 1: here's one I see frequently people start the new year
Speaker 1: with good intentions for a lengthy morning routine that involves
Speaker 1: getting up early and exercising. They manage this for maybe
Speaker 1: three weeks, but then they get sick and simply cannot
Speaker 1: get out of bed at five point fifteen to go
Speaker 1: work out for an hour. A week of the flu
Speaker 1: is followed by a crazy week at work doing everything
Speaker 1: that didn't get done during the flu week. So the
Speaker 1: early morning exercise routine doesn't happen for two weeks, and
Speaker 1: then it feels impossible to start up again. People blame
Speaker 1: a lack of will power, but I'm not sure it's that.
Speaker 1: Maybe the exercise routine didn't feel compelling or sustainable long term,
Speaker 1: so it was hard to rekindle the desire to do
Speaker 1: it after a few weeks away. You didn't miss it,
Speaker 1: but perhaps a different routine would feel more alluring. If
Speaker 1: you planned to meet a friend to exercise two mornings
Speaker 1: a week, maybe that person would be understanding for a
Speaker 1: week or so, but would really push you to get
Speaker 1: back to it. If you stopped for longer than that,
Speaker 1: maybe that would be a more compelling routine. Or maybe
Speaker 1: you really just don't like getting up at five fifteen
Speaker 1: in the morning. Maybe a shorter routine that starts later
Speaker 1: would feel more doable, and so you would actually do
Speaker 1: it even when life got complicated. Figure out why a
Speaker 1: routine falls apart and when, and then you can troubleshoot
Speaker 1: to make success more likely. It really is as simple
Speaker 1: as that. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
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