Many of us know someone who genuinely seems to enjoy routines:

• The colleague who meal preps their lunches for the week on Sundays.
• The sister who has had a consistent gym routine for the last decade.
• The social media influencer who shares their adventures in color coded and optimized workflows.

My most popular article from last year was about how to learn to love self-discipline, and routines raise the same basic question: Are routine-lovers wired differently, or is loving routines just a nut you haven’t cracked yet?

The answer is probably a bit of both. Here, I’ll share practical tidbits to help routines click for you. The goal is routines you enjoy rather than endure.

1. Routines That Maintain You vs. Routines You Maintain

A routine can either feel like it maintains you or like you maintain it. One requires upkeep, one keeps you up.

Seek routines that feel like they serve you, not the other way around.

Everyone is likely to enjoy a routine that helps them have a sense of ease, peace, and harmony in their life.

Examples:

• The coffee maker on a timer that helps you get started in the mornings.
• The weekly takeout that represents you allowing someone to do something for you rather than always doing everything yourself.
• Routines that help keep you organized with minimal effort.
• Routines that help you meet your most fundamental needs (e.g., eating, sleeping, closeness) with minimal fuss.

2. Consider Quarterly Routines

Quarterly routines can fill an important niche. Some routines are too onerous to do monthly, but yearly is too infrequent. Another advantage of quarterly routines is that they naturally align with the seasons.

Consider these three people who read one book per quarter, with recurring seasonal themes that make sense for them.

• Anna, 45, reads a memoir each winter when she’s cozy inside, a self-improvement book in spring, a beach thriller in summer, and a novel about friendships each fall.
• Mitch, 53, reads a biography in winter, a personal finance book in spring, a spy novel in summer, and a book on health in fall.
• Chloe, 24, reads essays about being in your twenties in winter, a career book in spring, a romance in summer, and something travel-themed in fall, when she’s usually planning her vacation time.

If a monthly routine would leave you feeling like you were grinding through it, a quarterly one might not leave that same residue at all.

Each person in our examples also selected a routine that expresses something about them, which brings us to our next point.

3. Design Routines That Express Something About You

Copying others’ routines usually doesn’t work well. Routines need to be functional, but they also convey something about the person who designed them.

Mitch’s rotation says he’s thinking about money and health. Chloe’s says she’s figuring out her twenties while leaving room for pleasure. Anna’s says she likes to dabble in self-improvement without making it the whole focus of her life.

A good routine does its intended job, but it also tells us about who we are, what we prioritize, and helps us trust ourselves.

Routines allow us to relax, knowing we have mechanisms in place that help us return to important points of focus, like Mitch knowing he’ll focus on an aspect of health with his fall book and Chloe knowing she’ll think about her career each spring.

4. Take a Lifespan Perspective on Routines

Motherhood seems to have changed my relationship with routines. I’m no longer just managing my personal routines. I’m coordinating shared ones.

Changes in my routines are mostly driven by my kids’ natural development rather than my personal goals, like shifting toddler nap schedules and my older child’s emerging interests.

Evolving routines show how we’re allowing life to change us. When we allow our routines to adapt, we’re expressing a willingness to grow and be shaped by our stage of life.

The routines we have at different stages help define the seasons of our lives and tell our story.

5. Consider Romanticizing Your Routines

Romanticizing a routine means connecting it to something bigger than the routine itself. I sometimes watch athletes’ videos about their training, and their routines are very repetitive, but the videos do a good job of connecting what might seem monotonous with a specific broader purpose.

Make sure you link your routines with what you’re trying to achieve, for example, money-saving routines you’re using while you’re accumulating funds for a house deposit.

You might imagine yourself sitting in your new house in the future, when you’re no longer doing all the aggressive budgeting you’re doing now, looking back on the routines you had to get there. Or, think of the athlete who sets a PR looking back on their training routines that got them there.

Routines are a Form of Storytelling

You might feel like a capable and reflective person but still struggle with routines that feel brittle or moralized. Perhaps you feel shame over routines that you think should be realistic but turn out to be more aspirational.

Learning to love routines isn’t about optimization. It’s about changing your relationship with routines, and using them for (internal) storytelling about yourself and your current season. When you make this shift, you’ll be able to better focus on routines that maintain you, not that you maintain.