Find a routine that’s baggy enough to live in

I hate feeling trapped.

Even the word ‘routine’ used to feel grey to me, stifling and oppressive. I'm a writer, and I chose a creative career because I wanted variety. Not to go to the same place, at the same times, and do the same things, year after year.

When I left my last staff job on a national newspaper with total burn-out, I didn’t ever want a rigid routine again. No one would tell me what I should be doing, and when. So for a long time, I resisted routine. I was free, I told myself.

This is what freedom often looked like.

I’d get up, make coffee, potter about for an hour or two, deciding what to do that day and whether I felt like writing. Then I’d sit down to write, but get distracted by an urgent email, or a call from a friend, or general clutter and household chores. And anyway, I didn’t feel inspired.

This would go on till mid-afternoon, when I'd suddenly realise that my family would want feeding later, and I had no idea what was for dinner. Then I’d get caught up in shopping, meal prep and dinner.

Then somewhere around 8pm, I’d go back to my desk feeling I really should get some words on the page. Except by then the emails were mounting up again so I’d spend an hour or two dealing with them before going downstairs for some family time.

These shapeless days led to stress and guilt.

I’d end up working over the weekend, to catch up on the writing I’d somehow not managed all week. And the admin. As for money stuff and invoicing, that went into the overstuffed Drawer of Doom, to deal with later. (And by later, I mean some unspecified time in the future; but usually that came as an all-nighter at the end of January, just before UK tax returns are due.)

Days off? Rare. Holidays? Often accompanied by a laptop and some work close to deadline. Evenings? Often spent catching up with writing or admin.

But still, I was free. Right?

Slowly, I began to realise that working from home, being self-employed and even being free might be easier with a bit more structure. With routine.

Here’s what my days now look like.

Most weekday mornings I’m up around 7am. I do some stretches, meditate, write in my journal, perhaps read.

At 8am I log into the London Writers’ Salon’s Writers Hour via Zoom. We all say hi in the chat and then we write, in companionable silence, until just before 9am. I write all my website copy, blog posts and newsletters in this time. This year, I have also completed a book, written chapters and introductions to other peoples’ books, plus some journalism.

Sometimes I’ll have a quick breakfast and get another hour of writing in before work meetings; sometimes I have the luxury of a whole morning to write.

But even if I only manage the regular Writers Hour, that’s five hours a week in which I’ll write a blog post, my newsletters, and often progress something else. I no longer worry about when to write. Nor does it fill up all my leisure time.

I no longer have so much trouble with inspiration.

The ideas just seem to arrive, and I rarely struggle for things to write about. I have bad days, of course, when the words just won’t come. But there are also great ones where I’ll write 1000 words or more.

Either way, I stay at my desk for the hour. It’s non-negotiable, unless I’m ill or had an exceptionally late night. And seeing 200 or more other writers making the same commitment to their work is inspiring, on the bad days. You stick it out because they do.

Only after my allotted writing time has finished do I turn on my email, opening the floodgates to distraction.

There’s often a quick walk after breakfast. If I miss this for any reason, I go after lunch. My last coaching session finishes at 6.30pm, and I’ll then do admin till 7pm if I’m not cooking.

If we have no other plans, I’ll go for a walk with my husband after dinner; it’s our time to catch up with each other, as a couple.

The week and the month have vague shapes too.

I publish a new blog post on Monday, do the marketing for it on Tuesday, scheduling all of my social media posts for the rest of the week at the same time. Wednesday mornings I schedule any non-coaching meetings and Friday afternoon I finish early, if I can.

I rarely work weekends now, except for an hour on Sundays when I sit quietly with my journal and do my weekly check-in. But this doesn’t feel like work: it’s a welcome space to recharge and plan.

“Find a routine baggy enough to live in.” The author Matt Haigh wrote that, and I think it’s key to success here. Your routine shouldn’t be tight and restricting. It’s there to support you, to be a soft place to land when life inevitably goes off the rails.

Any creative life is filled with deadlines, changes, glorious periods of flow and times when we can’t seem to progress at all. We need to roll with that, and be kind when our structures fall apart.

You don’t need to catch up. Or beat yourself up. Your routines are there to support and serve you, to help you do the things that are important to you. So just restart as soon as you can, and ease back into them.

If you’ve never had much structure to your days, it can be hard finding what works for you and your rhythms. Experiment, until you find what's most effective for you. Start with what's important: the key things you really need to do, to move life forward. Then slowly add in new habits and routines around that.

Here are some routines that have been useful to me.

Morning routine

This is a great place to start. You probably already have a routine of some sort. You get dressed, brush your teeth, eat breakfast, make a drink. This is a good time to practice habit stacking: adding something you want/need to do, to the things you already do on autopilot. Start small and build up, until you are always doing some of the things that are important to you, before the day really begins.

Routine for getting into flow

Consciously or not, you’ll have a routine for driving. You get into the car, adjust the seat and mirrors if someone else has been driving it, put your foot on the pedals, turn the ignition on, check your mirrors and blind spot before moving away.

Your start-up routine for creative work should be a little like that. Just a short sequence to get the creative juices flowing. For some people it’s a mantra or poem. For others it’s making tea, setting tools out, playing specific music.

Find what works for you. Then just stick to it, until it stops working or you feel like a change.

Money routines

I deal with this twice a month, on the 10th and the 25th or as near as possible to those dates if I have something on or they fall on a weekend. I’ve developed a checklist of tasks, arranged in logical order, so I can deal with bills, accounts, invoicing, and all the other regular financial matters quickly and easily, pretty much on autopilot.

It takes under an hour, and I can put any money admin into a desk drawer as it arrives. And then forget about it, knowing I will definitely sort it within two weeks. No January tax panic. No forgotten bills. But mainly, it just frees up so much bandwidth for other things. I’d no idea how heavily the Drawer of Doom weighed on me, until it was gone.

Clutter routines

We all have spots where clutter gathers. A kitchen counter. The hallway. That paperwork pile that seems to double in size by the day. Create daily or weekly routines to deal with them, before they become overwhelming.

After dinner, in our house, whoever didn’t cook puts on some music and spends 10 minutes cleaning the kitchen for the morning: loading the dishwasher, cleaning down the counter-tops, putting things away. Solve hallway clutter by having places for coats, bags, shoes, keys – then getting everyone, from the smallest family member on up, into the habit of using them.

Maintenance mornings

Saturday morning is when the stuff of life gets done in our household. It’s when we go out and buy whatever we need for the following week, when we do the chores, the repairs, the cleaning jobs. We usually manage coffee or lunch with friends, too, so that it doesn't feel too much of a grind.

Reset routines

For times when deadlines, travel, illness or all the other stuff of life gets in the way. Develop a routine that gets all your basic needs covered, and gets you back on track quickly.

Mine is on my phone, and I tick each item off as I do them, until I’m back into flow: drink water, eat a high-protein salad, go for a brisk walk, unpack and do laundry if I’ve been away, clear my desk if I’ve been on a deadline.

It’s all common sense. But when you’re tired, jet-lagged, or otherwise off-kilter, you don’t have a great deal of common sense left. Your reset routine offers a soft place to land.

How to build new routines

Start small. Don’t try and cement 20 new habits at once; you’ll just feel overwhelmed, resentful, or rebel against it. Start with the smallest possible version of what you want to achieve. Meditate for one minute. Do one yoga pose. Put your shoes on and walk 100 steps. Read or write for 10 minutes. Once this becomes a habit, you can build on it.

Build on what you have. We all have some routines already. When I wanted to drink more water, I started downing a glass every time I brushed my teeth. And keeping a glass on my desk that I refilled between coaching sessions, or every time I went to the bathroom.

Keep the end goal in mind. Routines are about building in the things you value. Keeping your body healthy and well. Making your creative work. Getting the kids into bed feeling happy and loved, without screaming and shouting.

In her book The Lazy Genuis Way, Kendra Adachi writes: “The routine itself isn’t what matters. It’s simply an on-ramp to help prepare you for what does.”

Stay flexible. No one dies if your routine gets disrupted. It’s there to support you, not imprison you. If a spontaneous opportunity comes up, take it. If you’re tired, rest and re-energise. And if you’re always tired, ease up. You’re trying to do too much!

Be curious. Try things, see if they work for you. See this as running a series of 30-day experiments. If a new habit or routine doesn’t work, there is nothing wrong with you. Don’t judge or beat yourself up. Just try something else until you do find a routine that supports, rather than restricts you.

Do what you need, not what others do. After reading Hal Elrod’s book The Miracle Morning, I went through a weird phase of trying to get up at 5am for exercise, study, reading and meditation. I loved walking to the beach in the dark and watching the sun come up. I loved the quiet time to think and journal when everyone else was asleep. But I was useless for the rest of the day, and I found it hard to go to sleep early.

The internet is full of people sharing their fitness regimes, their writing routines, their perfect mornings/abs/kitchens. Very few of them share the days when it all falls apart.

Don’t compare and despair. Do what’s right for you, your rhythms, your work, your loved ones. Find a routine that’s baggy enough to life in. And one that fits you.