I hate routine. And a reader with ADD recently asked what to do if they hate routine.
With ADD, it’s definitely hard to do the same routine each time.
One thing is to watch the mindset. I try to remind myself that life is chaotic enough. Doing a few of the same things each day actual creates more peace in the day. You can also think about what the routine gets you – a more serene house, time to take care of yourself, ability to invite people over anytime, etc.
It also might help to randomize the routine.
You’ll have the same things to do, but you do them in a different order each day.
You can put chores in a jar and then pull them out one at a time, more like a game.
For meal planning, it might be more helpful to have a list of staples you will always have in the house to make most of your meals. Then do your meal planning after you go to the grocery store. At the grocery store you will see what looks freshest and what’s on sale. Then you write on a whiteboard or piece of notebook paper what you got so it’s easier to create a plan. This is what I do for the farmer’s market. When I get home I write down all the fresh produce I got so I won’t forget about them and can incorporate them into meals.
For laundry the easiest thing to do is to throw a load in before dinner. Toss it in the dryer after dinner. Then fold while watching TV or something. Bill paying twice a month is easiest. And if you do it online, you can even get them done during lunch time.
And you can play with timing. A lot of the weeklies like mopping, vacuuming and dusting can be done every other week, especially if you don’t have small children at home. Or you can take a day off the routine each week.
It also helps to get in a calmer frame of mind. If you work, I imagine on your way home from work right now you are thinking about all the stuff you are behind on at home. Instead, try breathing and focusing on the good the happened during the day so far. And slow down so you feel more relaxed. It’s easier to focus when you don’t come home already frantic.
As you go about your routine, if you concentrate on the action – the bubbles as you wash dishes, the swish of the broom, the glorious colors of the vegetables time doesn’t pass as slowly. And it may become a part of your day you look forward to.
As someone with ADD, the longer I do something the worse I get at it. Once something is learned, it becomes harder and harder to focus on what one already knows. I’ve gotten lost taking the same route to work every day. Nothing new here, so the brain zones out. Things stop registering, because my brain switches to automatic pilot—even if it’s right in front of me. A lot of it is boredom—an inability to engage with something known as if for the first time. I don’t like routines, because that’s when I’m most likely to miss or forget something.
Even reading about this sort of incidental routines make me cringe. As a kid I walked to school every day. It was a straight line from my house to the school. It drove me crazy. Some days I’d take a right turn onto a street that wound around a little and then rejoined the main street, just so I wasn’t walking for the same boring route every day. Other days I’d take another similar longer but more interesting walk. I’m still the same way and I’m in my late 70s now. This need for change didn’t slow down my working life at all. I have an off the charts IQ, have a BA degrees in English and an MA in mathematics, and spent most of my working life as a computer programmer. So routine isn’t actually necessary for success.
I agree, Ellie. Routine isn’t a requirement for success. But, it is helpful to be doing some important things in your life regularly. Routine doesn’t necessarily mean doing the same thing the same way all the time.