Routine: Definition, Examples, & Tips

By Kelsey Schultz, Ph.D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
Having a routine can be enormously beneficial for well-being and goal achievement. Learn more about what a routine is and how you can start developing one.
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Developing healthy routines can help improve our well-being, facilitate the achievement of our goals, and help us live up to our full potential. Many of the most successful people, such as Jeff Bezos, Stephen King, and Beyonce, credit their routines for their success. Let’s get into what exactly a routine is and what you can do to cultivate your own optimal routines.
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What Is Routine? (A Definition)

A routine can be defined as a repeated sequence of behaviors that do not require conscious effort or thought and which minimize the unpredictable variability of everyday life. In other words, a routine is a series of actions that you perform automatically every day. For example, you might have a morning routine in which you get out of bed, make a cup of coffee, take a shower, and stretch, all without having to make any decisions about which actions you will perform and in what order.

Why Routine Is Important

Many of the most successful people – scholars, athletes, and entrepreneurs alike – will credit their daily routines for much of their success. There are many reasons that a routine might be an important part of your life. Some reasons might be specific to you, your goals, and your situation, but there are three general reasons why it’s important to develop a healthy routine including the predictability it provides for your daily life, the mental energy it helps you conserve, and the consistency and self-discipline it promotes. Let’s examine each of these reasons in a little more depth.
 
Routine Increases Predictability​
Humans innately desire predictability. You might be familiar with the old adage that people are “creatures of habit.” We tend to find chaos and unpredictability stressful, and we feel more secure when we can predict with some certainty what is going to happen. Research has shown that predictability and perceived control help mitigate symptoms of anxiety (Schmidt & Lerew, 2002). Developing a routine adds predictability to our lives. For example, if we have a morning routine, we know with some level of certainty exactly how our days are going to start. This predictability helps us regulate our moods and the ways in which we respond to our environment.
 
Routine Conserves Mental Energy
Routine is also important because it saves us mental energy. As we move through our days, we encounter an enormous amount of options for what action we might take at any given moment. For example, imagine you’ve just woken up in the morning and you need to decide what to do first. You could take a shower, exercise, eat breakfast, make coffee, journal, or stay in bed a little while longer scrolling through social media. Research shows that making decisions like these requires the expenditure of some of our finite mental energy resources (Baumeister et al., 1994). Routines, on the other hand, do not require conscious effort or thought (Arlinghaus & Johnston, 2019) and thus require significantly less mental energy.
 
Routine Promotes Consistency and Discipline
Routines are vital for consistently engaging in healthy, goal-directed behaviors and resisting temptations. As mentioned previously, making decisions – especially when the decision requires us to suppress an urge or resist a temptation – costs mental energy, which is a limited resource. When we have a routine, these energetically expensive decisions are made ahead of time, which improves the likelihood that we will stick with behaviors that are consistent with our goals (Duckworth et al., 2018). For example, research has demonstrated that people in good health have routines that include health-promoting behaviors such as exercise and regular mealtimes that largely consist of the same foods (Arlinghaus & Johnston, 2019).

Benefits of Having A Routine

Science has shown that having a routine can provide a wide variety of benefits for our physical and mental health (Ludwig, 1997). Some of these benefits include
  • Fulfilling obligations
  • Consistent activity levels
  • Physical health
  • Feeling in control of life
  • Balancing work, rest, and play
  • Achieving goals
  • Improved self-esteem
  • Adding meaning to life
 
Research into the benefits of routines for families has shown that having a routine is associated with (Arlinghaus & Johnston, 2019):
  • Increased family functioning
  • Improved sleep
  • Improved social skills
  • Academic success
  • Resilience during times of crisis​

Examples of Routines

Below are a few different types of routines and an example of what each type of routine might include. The routines you adopt will be specific to your needs and goals, so these examples aren’t necessarily recommendations for routines everyone should try. Rather, they are meant to serve as a template to help you structure the routines you plan to implement in your life.

​Workout Routines
  1. 10-minute warm-up on the treadmill
  2. 10 burpees
  3. 10 push-ups
  4. 10 pull-ups
  5. 20 body-weight squats
  6. 3 1-minute rounds of plank
  7. 20 crunches
  8. 3 sets of 10 hanging leg raises
  9. 20 minutes of cardio on the exercise bike
  10. 10 minutes of cool-down on the exercise bike
  11. 20 minutes of stretching

Skin Care Routines
  1. Cleanser
  2. Toner
  3. Antioxidant serum
  4. Spot treatment
  5. Eye cream
  6. Moisturizer

Morning Routines
  1. Make your bed
  2. Drink a glass of water
  3. 10 minutes of yoga
  4. Eat breakfast
  5. 10 minutes of journaling
  6. Brush your teeth
  7. Review or create your to-do list for the day

​For more on morning routines, check out this video from Stanford Neuroscientist, Andrew Huberman:

Video: The Optimal Morning Routine

Bedtime Routines
  1. Turn off the television
  2. Write a to-do list for the following day
  3. Have a cup of herbal tea
  4. Take a warm bath
  5. Brush and floss your teeth
  6. Listen to calming music while you stretch
  7. Do a 5-minute mindful meditation

Routine and Mental Health

Having a healthy, daily routine can play a major role in sustaining good mental health. Studies have shown that disruptions in daily routines are associated with depression and anxiety (Sabet et al., 2021). This is likely because disruptions in daily routines lead to an increased sense of uncontrollability and unpredictability. Feeling as though you exist in a chaotic environment over which you have little control is a hallmark symptom of both anxiety and depression (Shear et al., 1994). Lacking a consistent routine has also been shown to be associated with sleep disorders (Sabet et al., 2021).
​
For more on routines and mental health, check out this video from Psych2Go:

Video: Daily Routine to Fight Off Depression

Routine vs Habit

Routines and habits are very similar concepts. In fact, some argue that routines are simply the activation of a string of individual habits (Hodgson, 2008). The critical difference between routines and habits, however, is that habits rely on a cue, whereas routines do not. In other words, you need some kind of stimulus or trigger to activate a habitual behavior, but this isn’t necessary for the activation of a routine.

How to Start a Routine

The first step in starting a routine is to identify what kind of routine would benefit you and what activities you want it to include. It might help to reflect on areas in which you are struggling or what behaviors you would like to add to or remove from your daily life. Do you have a hard time feeling focused throughout the day? Do you have particular goals you are working toward? Is there a particular lifestyle you would like to adopt?
​
Once you have identified the routines you would like to add to your daily life, write out all the activities in which you already regularly engage and the behaviors you would like to add. Try to consider what order makes the most sense for each activity. For example, it would make more sense to eat breakfast before brushing your teeth than after.

After you have an idea of the order in which the chosen activities should occur, or the structure of your routine, consider what part of your day is best to incorporate this routine. It can help to take note of the parts of your schedule that are fixed and build your routine around them. For instance, if you have meetings between noon and 4 every day, you will likely want to develop routines that take place before noon and after 4. If you don’t already have a consistent schedule, it will be helpful to consider ways to make it more consistent. Attempting to incorporate routines into an erratic schedule can be extremely challenging.

Finally, create a schedule that includes which routines/activities will occur at what time. Below is an example of what your routine schedule might look like:

Morning Routine (7:00 - 9:00 am)
  • Think of 1 thing I am grateful for
  • Drink a glass of water
  • Meditate
  • 10 minutes of yoga
  • Eat breakfast
  • Shower
  • Get ready for the day
Work (9:30am - 5:30pm)
Unwind (6 - 7pm)
Dinner (7 - 8pm)
Bedtime Routine (8 - 10pm)
  • Get organized and create a to-do list for tomorrow
  • 20 minutes of stretching
  • Have a cup of herbal tea and read for 20 minutes
  • Bedtime hygiene (brush teeth, wash face, etc.)
  • Bedtime meditation

Once you’ve put together your schedule it’s time to try it out. Do your best to be flexible and willing to revise as needed. Sometimes we underestimate how long things will take or our schedules change in unforeseen and uncontrollable ways, so it is important to revise and try again instead of just scrapping the whole plan.

Tips on Sticking To A Routine

Starting a routine is a walk in the park compared to sticking to a routine. Waning motivation, changes in schedules, or other circumstances, such as illness, can easily throw us off our decided path. Here are a couple of tips for sticking with your new routine:

​Prepare for Obstacles
Often, we can identify in advance what events or situations might disrupt our routines. For example, we can anticipate that we might struggle to maintain our routines when we know that we are going to have a particularly busy work week or if we are planning to go on vacation for a few days. We can prepare for these obstacles in advance by adjusting our routines to fit these circumstances. 

For instance, imagine you are implementing the morning routine outlined above, but you know you are going to be out of town for several days. You could select a few of the activities in your routine that you know you will be able to do while you are away. Even just keeping part of your routine can make it easier to get back in the swing of things when you return to your typical schedule.

Practice Self-Compassion
When we are first cultivating a routine that works for us, it can be hard to stick with our plans. Disruptions in life, both good and bad, can throw off our routines (Frank et al., 2022). When our routines start to fall apart, we can experience an increase in symptoms of anxiety and depression (Frank et al., 2022), which can make getting back into our routines additionally challenging. Practicing self-compassion when you are struggling to stick to your routines will be enormously helpful in getting back on track.

Quotes on Routine

  • “The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.” – Mike Murdock
  • “Your morning sets up the success of your day. So many people wake up and immediately check text messages, emails, and social media. I use my first hour awake for my morning routine of breakfast and meditation to prepare myself.” – Caroline Ghosn
  • “With consistency and reps and routine you're going to achieve your goals and get where you want to be.” – Mandy Rose
  • “Yoga is at the core of my health and wellness routine; even if it's only for 10 to 15 minutes I find it helps me to re-center and to focus as well as improve my overall core strength.” – Miranda Kerr
  • “I eat healthy when I can; I eat a burger when I want, and I work out. You have to live with the routine that keeps your body the healthiest, and that's what I do - I don't change it for a swimsuit shoot. You have to figure out what works with your body the best.” – Gigi Hadid
  • “You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.” – John C. Maxwell
  • “A daily routine built on good habits and disciplines separates the most successful among us from everyone else. The routine is exceptionally powerful.” – Darren Hardy
  • “Your future is found in your daily routine. Successful people do daily what others do occasionally!” – Paula White
  • “A champion doesn't become a champion in the ring, he's merely recognized in the ring. His “becoming” happens during his daily routine.” – Joe Louis
  • “My daily routine is to make every day the best day.” – David Wolfe
  • “Over time, as the daily routines become second nature, discipline morphs into habit.” – Twyla Tharp
  • “The big things that come our way are ... the fruit of seeds planted in the daily routine of our work.” – William Feather
  • “A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Articles Related to Routine

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

Books Related to Routine​

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

Final Thoughts on Routine

Having healthy routines is an important part of our overall health and wellbeing. In addition to improving our mental and physical health, routines can also help us achieve our goals and live more fully. Developing and sustaining a routine is not always easy, so it is important that we are flexible when necessary and always compassionate with ourselves when we slip up.

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