The Value of That Old Routine

I’ve been back from my holiday trip for two weeks now, and since then I’ve managed to be on time exactly once.

Being on time has always been a struggle for me, and it’s an area where I’ve made great strides in recent years.  I’m still not perfect, but I used to be late for absolutely everything all the time.  It got to the point where my friends would just plan on seeing me half an hour after we were supposed to meet up.

Over the last few years, I’ve managed to get better at it, but I couldn’t quite tell you how — possibly this has something to do with why things have gotten chaotic over the past few weeks.  The trip caused a disruption, and then being sick caused another disruption, and I just lost my grip on my routine.

Routine is a scary word for a lot of adults with ADD.  By its very definition it threatens the spontenaity we ADD types love and excel at.  “Routine” conjures up bad memories of school, or the job we hate, or the structure that was imposed upon us by others — often, we were told, because we are too careless or scatterbrained to manage our own schedules.  Like “organized” or “neat” or “schedule”, it’s a word that makes us feel like screw-ups.

It took a long time for me to even want a routine, let alone to know how to build one, but starting last summer I began to create a schedule for myself.  One thing that helped, of course, is that it was my schedule; it wasn’t something imposed on me as a punishment for handing in my assignments late, or bring home a bad report card.  The other thing that helped was changing the way I think about routine.

You see, I realized that routine, far from being an inherently boring monotony, is actually a way to streamline the boring stuff and give myself more time for what I enjoy.  If I know that I clean my kitchen from 1:30 to 2:30 on Wednesdays, and I know what order in which I do each part of that task, I don’t have to waste time thinking about how to clean my kitchen.  I don’t have to waste time wondering how long it will take.  I don’t have to set aside all afternoon and evening on Friday because company is coming on Saturday and the entire house is a disaster.

Likewise, if I know that I get the same items at the grocery store every week, I can have a copy of that list on my cell phone.  My list has items to buy every week, like bread, and another section for things to check on every week, like olive oil.  I don’t have to waste time each week making up a brand new grocery list.  Furthermore, if my list takes the store lay-out into account, I don’t have to wander around backtracking or looking for items on my list.  I start with the bread, then the dairy, and so on.  I can be in and out of the grocery store in under 20 minutes.

My routine leaves me more time to be spontaneous.  If I want to make an unplanned stop on the way home from the store — no problem, I have the time.  If I want to go out with friends on Friday night — no problem, the house is clean.  The time that I used to spend writing grocery lists and doing emergency cleaning is time that I can now spend making art, blogging, or just watching TV.

I guess now I just need a routine for leaving the house in the morning.