How to Keep Routines

Maintaining routines is often more complicated than it sounds -- people get bored with routine or encounter unexpected road bumps that interrupt their carefully scripted plans. Keeping your routines, whether they include exercise, beauty regimens or school work, helps you to better manage your schedule and keep track of everything that you need to accomplish. The secret to keeping routines is a combination of planning the right activities and simply persevering when you get bored or discouraged.

Instructions

• 1

  Plan rewarding activities throughout your routines. Routines that consist of nothing but work are difficult to keep, because you don't have anything to look forward to. But by planning enjoyable activities throughout, you stay motivated to press on.

• 2

  Space out routines. For example, don't try to make it a routine to clean your entire home every Saturday. Rather, pick up after yourself at the same time every day to lighten the load.

• 3

  Work your way up from simple routines to more complex ones. If you find it difficult to maintain an exercise routine, for example, you may be trying to do too much, too fast. Start slowly, and don't push yourself to the point of exhaustion. Once your routine is established and enjoyable, you can expand it.

• 4

  Track your progress every day. Keep a checklist of what you plan to accomplish each day as part of your routine, and as you accomplish each goal, check it off so you can see how far you have come and what you have left to do.

• 5

  Enlist a friend to help you stay on track. Working out or doing laundry with a friend, for example, helps you maintain these routines because you are accountable for your actions -- someone other than yourself relies on you. Whenever you can, plan to work on your routine with a friend.

• 6

  Give yourself enough time to accomplish your goals. A tightly scheduled routine is stressful and hard to maintain, so allot the appropriate amount of time for each goal to make sure that you don't fall behind schedule. So if you know that eating breakfast usually takes you 15 minutes, set aside a full 15 minutes in your schedule.