Breaking Free from the Momentum of Old Routines

I love routines. In fact, I love them so much that friends and family often tease me about how “systemized” I am. I mostly disregard the jabs because my routines, habits, and systems truly help me navigate life. However, three recent experiences reminded me that not all routines are meant to last forever. Sometimes, it’s useful to break free from the momentum of old routines.

The Sausage Story

The first was a story I read on Facebook. It turns out this is an old parable that’s sometimes told about preparing a pot roast instead of sausages. Nevertheless, here’s what I read:

This story made me laugh because it reinforces the power of routine: once we think we’ve figured out the “right” way to do something, we stick with it—whether it still makes sense or not.

Basement Stairs

The second experience was personal.

When my children were little, I received a door decoration as a gift. It came with interchangeable pieces that could be switched out for different seasons and holidays. Since then, I’ve gotten a larger decorative piece for my front door, so this one now hangs by the back door. It’s a bit old-fashioned, but I love it. Here’s a photo of how it looks in November.

When I first received the item, I took a small shoebox from my daughter’s closet (a toddler sneaker box), wrapped each decorative piece in a plastic sandwich bag, and placed all the decorations in the shoebox. Then I took the box down to the basement and stored it in a large plastic tote with the other holiday decorations.

Over time, my collection of such items has grown. In fact, I’ve accumulated so many decorations that I now have several shelving racks full of bins, each sorted by holiday.

Whenever a new holiday or season approaches, it’s my habit to update the decoration on the little house. This involves:

• Going down to the basement
• Removing the tote that holds the pieces from the shelves
• Retrieving the door decoration’s bauble for the current season
• Walking back up the basement stairs
• Crossing the house to the door
• Switching out the hanging décor
• Walking the previous piece back down to the basement
• Placing it into a plastic bag in the tiny shoebox
• Putting the shoebox back into the larger tote
• Lifting the tote back onto the shelf

Last month, as I made the trek to and from the basement, I suddenly realized that this system was more cumbersome than it needed to be for two reasons:

1. I now live in a house that has a mudroom right next to the back door (something I didn’t have in my first house, when I originally received the decoration) and,
2. My children no longer live at home, leaving a few empty drawers in my mudroom cubbies.

It felt like a lightbulb had gone off in my head. Why was I running up and down to the basement, hefting totes on and off shelves, when I could simply leave the tiny box of hanging pieces in a drawer right inside the doorway? Wouldn’t that be easier?

Once again, I saw a lesson in this: systems that were ideal in at one time may need to be tweaked when circumstances change.

The Dry-Cleaning Bag

Here’s my third story.

Back in the day, my husband wore a dress shirt to work every day. These shirts were 100% cotton, and since ironing them isn’t easy, he got into the habit of taking them to the dry cleaner. Because he had quite a few shirts, we used a service that picked up and dropped off laundry once a week. We’d leave a nylon bag of dirty shirts on the front stoop, and the cleaner would return the freshly pressed shirts on hangers, hanging from a hook on our door.

To make this work smoothly, my husband (kudos to him!) installed a small cup hook on the inside of his closet door to hold the dirty shirts. On pickup day, I’d simply move the bag from the book to the doorstep.

Well, times change. First, he no longer needs to wear a suit every day—casual Friday has morphed into a loosely defined daily dress code. In addition, even when he does wear a dress shirt, he’s switched to non-iron versions, which are treated with a chemical that minimizes wrinkling. Laundering these shirts is relatively easy, so I got into the habit of washing them myself.

For about a decade, I’ve been walking down the hall to the bedroom, retrieving the shirts from the dry-cleaning bag on the hook, carrying them to the laundry room, and adding them to a load of other light-colored, non-bleach items. Once again, as if awakening from a deep sleep, it recently occurred to me to question why we were still putting his shirts into this bag. All it did was require an unnecessary extra trip each week.

Last week, I walked into the bathroom and said as much to my husband. I asked if there was any good reason we were still using this old system for his shirts that I might be missing. He looked at me and said, “No, I guess not.” As a result of that conversation, he now simply adds his shirts to the regular laundry—which is working out just fine.

Habits that help us in one stage of life may no longer do so as our lifestyle changes.

The Takeaway

Perhaps you are wondering, “Why is Seana spending so much time talking about mundane things like sausages, seasonal decorations, and shirts?” The reason is the common thread running through these three vignettes: we may begin a routine or habit for one reason but continue it more out of momentum than wisdom or practicality.

Routines, habits, and systems should always serve us well. Since life is perpetually changing, it shouldn’t surprise us to discover that the way we once did things may no longer be ideal.

The power of a habit is that it helps us operate on a kind of “auto-pilot,” saving us both time and mental energy. I’ve written about the power of habits and suggested ones I find helpful to perform daily, weekly, monthly, and annually. I also asked other professional organizers about their daily habits, and written about some habits you might want to break because they undermine organization and productivity.

The point of this post is to remind you to periodically re-evaluate your habits. Notice the ways you automatically do things, and don’t be afraid to ask whether they’re still the best fit for your current age and stage. Start with any system that feels cumbersome or onerous. Whenever you catch yourself complaining about a recurring task, pause to brainstorm alternative approaches that might be more practical or enjoyable.

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Can you think of a routine you’ve maintained mostly out of momentum—one that might be time to change?