Pebblepup's Writing Den

Routines are not a bad thing. They can become ruts, but they help us to achieve our goals. To achieve your writing goals, you need to establish a routine that will get you there.

I made writing in a journal part of my morning routine. I set a word count goal for each entry and work to achieve it. It’s part of my morning now.

My morning routine is to get up and have half a cup of coffee. Then I do my yoga and meditation practice. Then I write in my journal. After that, I set up my coffee for the next day, unload or load the dishwasher, take out the trash when I need to. I shower and dress. Then I go for a walk if the weather allows it.

That isn’t my entire routine, but you see where I’m going. Some of those things take longer than others. It works for me.

Look at what you do every day. That’s your routine. While it’s good to mix it up a bit, but you can make changes to your routine to point you toward any goal. That’s the beauty of your routines.

Let’s face it, routines are comforting. You keep them because they are familiar. Changing them can be hard. You need to be conscious of what you are doing to change a routine.

Change is scary. That’s why I usually call changing my routine an adjustment. I adjust my routines, I don’t change them. It’s semantics, I know. It works though. Adjusting someting is less scary than changing it.

Don’t be afraid to adjust your routine, if you make a goal you want to reach. Ask yourself if you think you can reach the goal you have chosen. If the answer is yes, work out the steps to reach the goal. Then find a way to work the steps into your routine.

Sometimes the change is something small. Suppose you want to lose weight. Adjust your morning routine to include a healthy breakfast. If your goal is to write a novel, choose a benchmark like word or page counts. Then add that to your routine.

Change is never easy. It takes time to change the course of a routine. You need to work at it. A great looking body is hard to achieve and maintain. Good health is easier, but it still takes conscious effort to achieve. Writing is the same.
Think about what you want to achieve. Work out the steps to get there. Then incorporate those steps into your daily routine and you will find it easier to reach the goal.

Whatever your goal, good health, that novel you want to write, killer abs, they all take work. If you want it, you need to work at it. Give yourself a chance and add the steps to get there to your daily routine. You’ll be glad you did.