A Routine Post

Webster's Dictionary defines 'routine' as... shit, you get the picture. I wanted this week to be formulaic, predictable. Maybe it was because I can't remember ever having planned out a full week. Maybe it was because I needed to battle the lethargy brought on by the rising summer heat. Either way, this week I decided to stick to a routine.

I'm certainly a morning person, meaning that I'm more effective and driven before noon. The only problem is I'm also a pretty good night owl, staying up to sunrise several times a week. I decided to compromise and go to bed at by 1AM and wake up by 8AM.

When I have an issue that's just occurred to me, I type it as a question into my Google Chrome search bar, like a 7-year-old asking his or her father for advice. My question was: How do I not be a pussy when it comes to being productive?

After navigating past posts explaining vaginal pimples, inducing labor, and whelping a litter, I found a self-help blog whose basic message was that we don't get what we want because we either haven't thought carefully about what we want, or we haven't fully committed to pursuing that desire. That seemed fairly obvious. That's part of why I wanted a routine. However, another post had a useful tidbit: pick five difficult tasks that you plan to do in one day and start with the most difficult one.

My five tasks were: run, write, work, clean, and flirt. Writing is easily the hardest task, but I found that I couldn't sit down and do that for several hours first thing after waking up without nervous pacing and frustrated energy. Thus, running came first with writing immediately after. Fake writing, or web writing work along with doing my fiction editor duties came in third at a nearby cafe filled with beautiful people and bottomless coffee. Cleaning (dishes and laundry) came in fourth, late afternoon. Flirting mostly took place on OkCupid, since I'm still terrible at in person. That was my life Monday-Friday.

The most exciting part to this arrangement was around 7 in the evening when I realized I'd done it all and just had time to sit and think or not think or think about not thinking or not think about thinking. Somewhere in there I got to pondering this whole routine business. In the past, I'd prided myself on not having a routine, not being predictable, which eventually meant scrambling predictably to get things done at the last moment. With this came the realization that having a routine can be freeing, especially when it comes to thoughtful ways on breaking that routine. So I choose to define a routine as 'expected tasks that leave room for unexpected pleasures.'

This is probably my least exciting post so far. Well, what'd you expect from the title?