Building a Routine • Week 1
It’s been maybe 20 years since I had a meaningful routine and even then I’d use the term loosely. There have been many attempts to build one and all have failed after a week or two. Why? As I think about it there are probably two main reasons:
My tendency to bite off more than I can chew.
The fact that I get bored easily and need variety to stay engaged.
The past two and a half years of my life have been particularly chaotic. I’ve been biting off more than I can chew like it’s my job. In March of 2020, I started my design business as the sole source of income for my family where I had previously worked for other firms and freelanced infrequently.
A year later we decided to add on to our house and planned to do most of the work ourselves. What started out as a room addition has turned into a new plumbing system, all new HVAC, complete rewire, drywall, flooring, siding, paint, essentially we took it down to the frame. Did I mention we’ve been living in a camper behind our house for most of the renovation?
A year after that my wife launched her coffee business at the local farmer’s market after striking out on finding a brick and mortar location that checked all the boxes needed to do it right.
Then finally we lucked into a spot that was better than we could have hoped and are now simultaneously building out a cafe while I try to finish our house and grow Melodiq.
Somewhere in there we had our second daughter, Ramona and our oldest daughter Emilia has been a trooper without a room of her own, sleeping on a pull out bed.
Through all the chaos we’ve truly had it pretty great. There have been hard moments and challenges for sure but when we zoom out, it’s not so bad. But one thing that’s been especially challenging is having structure. Both our businesses bring flux – last minute meetings, photoshoots in other cities, trips to visit clients in other states, and all sorts of other hard-to-plan-for stuff.
So, Auni and I decided we’d try to build a routine gradually – prioritizing the most important pieces first and only adding one thing to the routine every week. Some parts of the routine may be a daily goal, some may be weekly. But the goal will be to create some regularity.
In a perfect world, here are some pieces we’d love to be in the routine (in no particular order):
Regular bedtime
5 or so exercise sessions/week
Daily bible-reading/prayer
Other reading, fiction or non-fiction (currently reading Outlive by Peter Attia at a snail’s pace)
Getting the kids showered every other day (camper showers are a pain, especially for kids)
At least one non-meal family outing (a trip to the climbing gym, a hike, check out sky zone, take a bread baking class, etc.)
Cook one meal together
Learn a new skill with the girls
Set our outfits out the night before
Get up early
Making Joshua Weissman’s Spaghetti w/ Emilia
For our first week we’re going to tackle exercise. We’ve marked a few slots on the calendar for family walks and a trip to Alpine. Will probably sneak in a run or two and some kettlebell for good measure.
We’re tracking it on Habit
Will we make it to week two? I sure hope so. That would be embarrassing.