Habits & Routines: How They Work Together
Depending on what part of your life you are concentrating on, habits can be an asset to your daily routine and your overall well-being. This is especially true when we look at the time and brain energy that can be saved from a routine that is working well. Furthermore, we can use our routines to insert healthy habits into our lives.
Oftentimes, when people talk about habits they also talk about routines. They do seem to work nicely together, but what is the difference between a habit and a routine?
A habit is a repeated action we do unconsciously. We basically don’t think about habits because they are automatic. An example may be washing your hands after using the restroom.
A routine is a series of actions regularly followed or repeated. We have to think about routines. They take intention and effort on our part. An example may be making your bed in the morning.
That brings me to my next question. Can we form habits if we don’t like to stick to a routine?
In my previous post, I talked about systems. Systems are a lot like routines in that we have a process we go through or a series of steps to follow in order to get to where we want to be.
I know that for myself, I find it easier to tack on new habits to my existing routine. This is actually one of the things that BJ Fogg, PhD mentions in his book Tiny Habits. His methodology simply has us link a new habit we want to form to something already existing in our routine.
For example, let’s say I want to drink more water during my morning routine. I always drink at least one cup of coffee in the morning. I would therefore use my morning cup of coffee as a reminder - or as a prompt - to drink a glass of water.
The formula goes like this: After I…I will….
For me, it would look like: After I drink my first cup of coffee, I will drink a glass of water.
Another way we can try to tack on habits to an existing routine is by doing something known as “temptation bundling”. James Clear mentions this as a way to make habits more attractive in his book Atomic Habits. It basically means that you can take an activity you need to do (and may not necessarily like) and bundle it together with something you enjoy doing.
For example, I don’t really like to fold laundry. I do have a scheduled time during my week to do the laundry, but often procrastinate when it comes to taking the pile of clean clothes, folding and putting them away. Can anyone relate to this?
One way to overcome this would be to pair folding laundry with listening to a podcast that I like at the same time. At the very least, I get to accomplish a mundane task and do something that is enjoyable at the same time!
There are a couple more things I should mention if we are talking about inserting habits into our routine. Sometimes it is easier to initiate a new habit if we have a specific date we intend to start. Like at the beginning of a week or the start of a new month.
In addition, it is more likely that we will maintain habits if we have accountability partners. Whether it is one person holding you accountable or a community of people who are doing what you want to be doing, we inherently want to “fit in” with the crowd and will try to do what others are doing. It is important to surround ourselves with people that will have a positive influence on us.
While these are a few methods to improve the likelihood that a habit will stick to an existing routine, there are a lot of factors that come into play when we talk about a behavior becoming a habit. Next month, I will share with you more ways to approach habit formation.
For now, I encourage you to try one of these methods with a healthy habit you would like to insert into your routine and see what happens!
I coach people on how to find the right routine so they can save time and energy during the day. It isn’t about how strict a routine is, it is about what works and what doesn’t work for an individual. Routines give us the foundation to build healthy habits when it comes to managing time and priorities.
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