R is for Routine

There are a lot of people who benefit from routines in their lives. Among those people are those with mental illness, and preschoolers. Since our family has both, naturally we have routines that cover our whole day, week, and month.

OK, Mom, I hear you laughing all the way from Ohio.

I said we had routines. I didn't say we followed them.

I've been a flybaby with Flylady for seven or eight years. Her routines have changed my life. Or at least the way I look at things. But I still strongly resist sticking to it. Why do I avoid something that is so helpful?

I think a lot of it has to do with my perfectionism. If I can't do the entire routine perfectly, I don't do any of it. Holy Not-The-Point, Batman.

But some of it is because- newsflash- I try to do too much. I over-schedule myself and over-commit myself. And the best routine on earth couldn't account for all of that activity.

I have been trying very very hard lately to learn Nancy Reagan's Just Say No philosophy on life. I may not have peers offering me drugs, but I have things offered that are just as toxic. Even fun things that seem like they'd be helpful are hurting me when they make my life so full of activity that there's no time to do laundry.

Since my Lent commitment to finish "Hope Springs" by Easter (which I totally did! Yay for me!) I've been starting my mornings with a cup of coffee and my laptop. Writing first thing in the morning seems to set me up for the rest of the day. Aha! A clue!

So. I hear-by commit, publicly, to stick to the routine. To write first thing in the morning. To Just Say No. (There is no slick way of saying that last part without splitting the infinitive.)

We'll see how this goes.