Everything in this world flows better with routine and structure. As your life ebbs and flows, a structured routine becomes very important. When you leave your day to time and chance and “wing” it, you’re causing more stress by not having a plan. If you commonly feel stressed, anxious, and overwhelmed, it’s all signs that you need to adjust your routine to maximize control of your life.
Seventeen Excellent Benefits of Following a Structured Routine
If you think routines are dull, rigid, and stifling, you only look at the negative aspects. It would help if you looked at the positive benefits of having a structured routine, like productivity, happiness, and fulfillment. Here are seventeen reasons why you need structure in your day.
1. A Structured Routine Helps To Eradicate Bad Habits
You know that routine helps you with good habits, but did you know it can also help you eliminate bad ones? Repetition is the key that eliminates your unpleasant behaviors, and it will, over time, replace them with good ones.
2. Takes the Guesswork Out of Your Day
Following a routine takes away the task of planning. It eliminates the guesswork and allows you to stick to a schedule. For instance, if you know that you balance the checkbook on Wednesdays, you don’t have to guess what you will do on Wednesdays. It will become a routine chore that’s like clockwork.
3. Free up Time With a Predetermined Schedule
Everyone wishes they had more time in their day, as it’s their most precious asset. However, few people have tapped into the power to use routines to give them the time they need. You won’t need to waste energy on planning, preparation, and decision-making. Your schedule will be predetermined and dictate your day.
4. Provides a Logical and Predictable Sequence
When you have a routine, you’re providing both predictability and sequence. Interestingly, your life revolves around these things as you do your daily activities. Once you have a routine, you will experience a flow to your day and week like never before.
5. A Structured Routine Helps You Become More Proficient
Practice makes perfect, so the more you do a task, the better you will be. You’ve been brushing your teeth for decades and mastered the task. The longer you do something, the more proficient you become. So, once you get into a good routine, it will help you perfect the issues.
6. Forces You to Prioritize
A structured routine forces you to prioritize your day. For instance, if you want to lose weight, you must make meal prepping, weighing yourself, and counting calories a part of your day.
While it may be troublesome to do at first, eventually, it will become second nature to you. If you want to achieve anything in life, you must prioritize it. Once it becomes a priority, you learn to do it without much thought.
7. You Become More Efficient When You Follow a Structured Routine
There’s comfort in knowing precisely what you must do each day, so there are no big surprises. Of course, occasionally, life has a way of sneaking things in, but your efficiency will skyrocket when you have everything preplanned. There’s no reason to deliberate your workload or decide what to do and what to let go.
Planning equals being more efficient, and who doesn’t need a boost in their efficiency?
8. Facilitates Developing Good Habits
To build good habits in your life, you must master repetition. Finding a routine that works and gets you in your groove helps you develop good habits. Your brain responds to routine, and you can develop habits by doing the same task repeatedly.
For instance, you get up in the morning and brush your teeth without giving it a second thought. The reason is that this mundane task has become routine, and you automatically do it. You can do this with almost anything in your life.
9. Combats Procrastination
Everybody procrastinates at some point in their life. However, if you get into the groove of putting things off, it can cause some issues. Soon, the pile of things to do is more significant than what you’ve accomplished.
When you procrastinate, you waste time, and a set routine will help you combat this folly. Who doesn’t need a few extra minutes or hours in their day?
10. Helps You Not to Spend Time and Effort on Frivolous Things
A routine is built to do the most challenging and important things, and then the rest of your day is a breeze. When you have the essential things completed upfront, you won’t forget or neglect these items. How much time do you waste on frivolous things because you don’t have your priorities in line?
Jim Taylor, Ph.D. from Psychology Today, considers himself a ‘timeist.’ It’s a term he made up as he loathes wasting time. He has learned as he’s aged that every second, minute, hour, and day counts as you get older.
Younger folks don’t truly understand the value of time, but as you age, you also grow wiser. You learn that you waste so much of your time doing things that are of little value, but when you mature your mindset changes.
11. Encourages Self Confidence
When you think about a routine, the word confidence doesn’t come to mind. However, when you get the things done in a day that needs to be done, it gives you a little boost in your step.
A tremendous amount of satisfaction comes from getting your tasks accomplished. If your self-confidence has been a little down, you can boost it by simply getting into a better routine.
12. Lessens the Need for Determination and Willpower
You get out of bed and change your clothes each day. It doesn’t take a lot of willpower as it’s become something natural. When you have a routine, you will lessen the need for determination and resolve. You probably grab an outfit without too much thought. If you make other things part of your structured routine, then soon, you won’t give them a second thought either.
13. Eliminates a Lot of Stress
Life will never go as planned, no matter how hard you try. However, you must learn to accept the things you can control, and a routine helps you put those things in order. When you have structure and order, it eliminates stress. Instead of fretting about the tasks at hand, you can relax knowing you got it under control.
14. Gives You More Free Time
A schedule that arranges repetitive tasks essentially eliminates a lot of stress. It would be silly to scheduled or incorporate your entire life into a daily routine, but some organization helps. When you follow a schedule, it frees up time for other things. The more proficient you become at your tasks, the less time it takes you to accomplish them.
15. A Structured Routine Helps Build Momentum
When you hear the word momentum, you probably think about runners. They learn early on that the more momentum they build, the easier it is to complete a race. Going to the gym seems like a monumental task, but it soon becomes second nature when you make it part of your day.
Following a routine will boost your momentum and make it easier for you to persist and conquer.
16. Helps You Achieve Your Goals
No one achieves their goals all at once. However, you learn to accomplish things by doing things time and again. Look at some of the most famous sports athletes throughout history, and you will see that none started on top.
According to Motivational Stories For You, Michael Jordan is one of the greatest basketball players of all time. One of his first issues was being told he was too short to play on a team, as he was only 5’9”. He knew if he couldn’t get on a team because of his height, he could wow them with his talent.
So, he practiced every single day to become great. Genetics took over, and Jordan grew to a whopping 6’3,” which was more than enough to land a team spot. He had to work hard even with height, as he wasn’t so good back in his rookie days.
However, once he landed a spot on the Chicago Bulls, he changed the basketball game, making it more popular than ever. Would he have ever accomplished all his goals without his perseverance? No, you will never achieve your dreams unless you push yourself.
17. A Structured Routine Saves You Money
Routines can save money too. This may sound a bit odd, but it can be cost-cutting. Take, for example, that you bake all the family’s bread for the week on Monday.
Rather than going to the store and buying a small five-pound bag of flour, you can save money by buying it in bulk. Since you know you’ll need it, you can stockpile it to make it more cost-effective. Routines can be very cost-efficient, especially when it prompts you to look ahead.
Final Thoughts on a Structured Routine
These seventeen benefits show you why a structured routine is so important. Remember, you don’t have to be too regimented as there should be times to do absolutely nothing. You can achieve all you want in your life when you learn the power of structure, discipline, and routine.
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