Routine vs. Ritual
A while back I read The Power of Full Engagement. The premise of the book is energy management and what you do each day to gain or use energy.
The book mentions some specific rituals that give people energy. I’m obsessed with the routines I do each day, so I was fascinated. I’m always reading what others do in an effort to find one thing that will make my day super productive.
But routines don’t necessarily motivate me throughout the day. They may keep me on track, but they’re often draining and mundane. And no fun at all. To prevent burnout, some of those tasks need to be enjoyable. Ultimately, it comes down to the difference between routines and rituals.
Routine
I think of routines as checklists or a structure in which I act. It can be a list of things I do in the morning or the process of getting my kids down for bed. In either case, there is a series of tasks that I do consistently and in the same order.
Inside routines, I don’t have to think about what comes next. I do them frequently and I can do them without looking at a list. They remove the stress on my brain and help me accomplish a task quickly and efficiently, but they don’t necessarily recharge me.
Common routines: preparing work for the day, mowing the lawn, bedtimes.
Ritual
Rituals are similar to routines since they are also a series of tasks that are completed in the same order. But a ritual’s intent is to provide energy and enjoyment along with structure. A ritual is a carefully selected process that has a positive side effect outside of the task being completed.
Common rituals: meditation, daily walk, reading a book.
From routine to ritual
I’ve taken detailed notes by hand in meetings for a while. I never enjoyed it. I kept trying to collect the notes digitally, but it never felt fluid enough.
Sometimes you have to deal with a less-than-ideal process and sometimes you can find a way to make it more enjoyable. In this case, I decided to make the note-taking something that I like doing. I bought a fountain pen. I’m intrigued by the old-fashioned way of doing things and this was a perfect fit. Using the fountain pen is a joy for me so taking notes and marking them up afterwards became a ritual instead of just a routine. I enjoy doing it because I enjoy using my fountain pen.
There is a balance to be found with routine and ritual. We’ll always have routines that we need to do. But there’s a lot of value in finding routines, (or at least parts of routines), that we can turn into rituals.
References
The Difference Between Routine and Ritual: How to Master the Balancing Act of Controlling Chaos and Finding Magic in the Mundane - Brain Pickings
The Difference Between Routines vs. Rituals - The Emotion Machine
The importance of rituals vs. routines - Vintage Amanda
Other mentions
I’ve been thinking a lot about routine vs ritual lately. I constantly find myself attempting to optimize my time (and by extension, my life) through meticulous tracking, recording, and analysis — the holy grail of which is finally cracking the code of the perfect morning routine. Every few months a new article comes out describing what some self-made billionaire does each morning, and a renewed fervor for efficient wellness surges up within me. I resolve to wake up at 5:30 am, exercise, do a daily devotion, meditate, read the news, write for thirty minutes, take a shower, blow dry my hair and put on eyeliner before settling down at my desk by 7:45 am for a wildly productive day. I do this for 3, maybe 4 full weeks, just enough time to make me exceedingly smug about the entire process before deciding to hit snooze one morning and falling so far off the efficiency wagon that I can’t even remember where I started. In my shame, I start reviewing the tapes of where I went wrong to isolate the problem — what was I eating the week before? What time was I going to bed? How do I need to change to nail it next time? A few weeks later, inspiration will strike again and I’ll be up at 5 am this time, anxious to set a new record.
This cycle of failed morning routines has been repeating itself for nearly a decade but has not been an entirely futile exercise. Through time tracking, for example, I learned that I don’t waste as much time watching TV as I suspected (but I do have trouble focusing on one task at a time). Still, the failure to be able to stick to a schedule with consistency haunted me. Some of my closest friends have incredible morning routines that they faithfully execute 24/7, rain or shine, pandemic, or no pandemic. They enjoy the sameness and consistency of a routine and find peace in the structure. Why was this such a challenge for me? I assumed it was a grit problem or a lack of will. Maybe if I were tough enough, I would be able to manage my time better. Or maybe I had not yet unlocked the perfect system — maybe I needed to shift it up 30 minutes, or back 30 minutes, or rearrange my office, or download a mediation app, or drink one fewer cup of coffee…
Then it hit me like a train: I am not a routine person. Some play in the joints of my life brings me a lot of joy. I get a flood of endorphins when I crawl back into bed with my coffee and a book for an extra 30 minutes or see the sunrise from a different sidewalk on a new running route. It’s the reason I loved a new semester of college, with new classes and teachers (and schedules). It’s why I find myself driving a different way to the office sometimes or reorganizing my desk space every couple of months.
I like the feeling of “newness.” I can stick with a routine for the 3 weeks it takes to be a habit, but the first few days of a changeup are the most fun. After this realization, I started changing my schedule in manageable ways, like alternating the times I was exercising, or taking my laptop to my porch for a couple of hours, or letting myself stay up late if the book was worth it.
The change is working nicely, but I think often about the importance of rituals in my life to replace the routines. Lots of content has been written on the topic, but in this context, I mean the little patterns that I do every single day that can signal the start or end of something. Instead of an extensive 2 hour-long scheduled routine, these are 2–5 minute series of tasks in a row, done in the same order and same place each day. Examples would be the set of tasks and actions I do right when I get up, or what I do at the end of every work day, or my bedtime process. If my schedule is going to be variable, these become more important than ever — but I haven’t really figured out the code on this one.
Different authors emphasize different things when they talk about ritual vs routine. Some emphasize the addition of enjoyable or special elements to make a typically mundane or tedious task more appealing. Some focus on the meditative and wellness side that centers around intention and spirituality. Both of these things appeal to me, especially as I think about creating patterns that are continuously refreshing. Still, I think that part that appeals the most to me is the idea that the ritual is not tied to a specific time in space — so my bedtime ritual is a pattern that can begin at 8:30pm or 11pm.
The one that strikes me as the most important, especially now that I am working from home full time, is the end of the workday routine. As many of us are probably feeling, working from home means that I end up working later and less effectively, and the time with work and the time with family becomes increasingly blurred. A little pattern at the end of the day to tell my brain it’s time to turn off — a final sweep of the inbox, a scan of tomorrow’s calendar, and a defining snap of the laptop lid — might be a start.
I’m still trying to figure out what this means for me or what I will actually do with this information. Is this focus on routine simply a new twist on the old problem? Maybe I just need a perfect ritual order of things, not a defined and scheduled routine! Or will this actually be something that sticks? At this point your guess is as good as mine.
