Refresh a Routine

How do you greet a new season?

With warmth and hospitality like you’d hug a friend after quarantine?

Or with skepticism, like when reconciling with an ex-boyfriend after being separated for a year?

I tend to approach a new season with angst — not towards the change in weather, but towards the sudden mini-hurricane that disrupts my routine.

My Type A wants to dig her feet in the ground and not give up her “we’ve-got-a-good-thing-going-on” flow. She finds comfort in predictability, routine, and expectation. She is stubborn and doesn’t want to adjust for the season.

Oh, she’s certainly quick to trade her boots for bathing suits, but she doesn’t want to figure out how to fit in meal prep around the kids’ new extracurriculars. She doesn’t want to reconfigure her rest time when she’s quite content with it right now.

Why does she resist so much? Are you like this, too?

How can we refresh a routine?

If we walk the same streets or drive the same route everyday, we become immune to our surroundings, but if we shake things up and take a left instead of cruise-controlling forward, we open ourselves up to beauty and wonder we may otherwise never see.

Let’s look at this change in season as a gift — a new opportunity. A way to grow closer to God. If — let’s be real — when we feel nervous, intimidated, or skeptical, let’s turn to the cross and be strengthened by His Presence. 

6 Practical Ways to Refresh a Routine

Mind Dump + Map it Out

Write down everything this new season is bringing: New sports season? Swim lessons? Camp? List the time of day for each event that cannot be changed and plug them into your calendar (color-coordinating always helps me). Then fill in the important-to-you things in the gaps: Taking a nap, working out, meal planning, going for a walk, etc.

Illicit Help

Can you carpool? Get a babysitter? Order take-out? Swap “nights off” with your spouse? 

Trial + Error

We’re not going to nail this “refreshing thing” on the first try, y’all. Just because something worked last year doesn’t mean it’ll work again this year. (No matter how hard I try to fit a square peg into a round hole!) Allow yourself to try something — anything — then take note of what worked, what didn’t, and what you’ll try differently tomorrow. Don’t look at it as a failure, but rather as an opportunity to see beauty in another way.

Make Things Convenient

Have a designated space for All The Things: cleats, bathing suits, sunscreen, towels, masks, socks, hand-sani, and other gear. Sometimes hoarding The Things together makes them easier to find when you’re running out the door. That being said, if what matters to you is that everything gets put back in its proper place, then you do you, boo! (See: Let Go, below)

Set Alarms

If you’re like me, if you don’t set an alarm you will forget! Designate a warning alarm for cleaning up, transitioning, and putting shoes on, then another for getting in the car.

Let Go

Let go of the things that don’t matter to you. This will look differently for everyone. For me, it doesn’t matter if my laundry burns a hole through my sofa, or if my kids eat cereal for three nights in a row. What matters is that they’re wearing sunscreen, hydrating (make waterbottles convenient!), and playing with their friends until the street lights come on. What matters to me is sitting on my front porch, drinking an iced coffee and reading a book.

What matters to you?