I love making a plan when life is going well.
Of course I do.
Years ago, when I worked at the bank, we did a StrengthsFinder assessment and I was officially a Strategic Organizer.
Which tracks. I like strategy. I like organizing things. I like having a plan.
My husband might like to challenge that last statement based on the way I plan family vacations and celebrations, but that's between us.
Give me a plan I actually want to make, though?
Monday through Friday, here's what time I'll get up. Here's when I'll work out. Here's when I'll work. Meal plan? Done. Calendar? Color-coded. I've even accounted for drive time.
Look at me go.
Then Tuesday happens…
Someone wakes up late.
You can't find the thing your kid swears they put exactly where you already looked three times.
The meeting runs over.
You forgot you need something for dinner.
The workout window disappears.
And suddenly the beautifully designed routine has been blown apart before 10am.
Now what?
I think that's the question that tells us whether a routine is actually useful.
Because almost any structure works on the day nothing goes wrong. But a good one needs to know what to do with a terrible Tuesday.
Forever, I’ve built routines like there were only two options:
Follow the plan… or don't.
If I planned to work out for forty-five minutes and couldn't, I mean, why even try — the workout was gone.
If I planned to eat a certain way and one meal went sideways, well, apparently today wasn't that day anymore.
If I got behind on the schedule, I spent the rest of the day feeling behind instead of deciding what still mattered and moving on with myself.
The plan wasn't supporting me anymore. I was reporting to it!
And once a routine starts feeling like something you can fail at instead of something that’s there to help you, of course structure starts to feel completely different.
I think this is why some people say they thrive with structure while other people hear the word routine and immediately want to escape through a window.
We aren't talking about the same kind of structure.
Structure can say: Here's the plan. Follow it.
Or structure can say: Here's what matters. Let this help you find your way back to it.
I want the second one.
I still like plans.
I still think routines make life easier. I don't want to wake up every morning and reinvent how the household operates based on vibes.
Some decisions are much easier when they've already been made.
But a useful routine needs some flex built into it.
What is the full version?
What's the shortened version?
What's the bare-minimum version that keeps me connected to what matters when the day completely falls apart?
That's been a much more useful way for me to think about consistency.
Take exercise.
Maybe the plan is a full workout.
Great.
Then Tuesday happens.
Is twenty minutes still worth doing?
Ten?
A walk?
Or is today genuinely the day to skip it and come back tomorrow?
All of those can exist inside a structure that was designed for a human life instead of an imaginary one.
The same thing works with routines at home, work habits, quiet time, food, whatever you're trying to build.
The structure gives you somewhere to return.
It doesn't need to punish you for leaving.
That's why I love the idea of guardrails.
Guardrails don't require you to drive in a perfectly straight line.
They keep one wobble from becoming a completely different destination.
That's what I want my routines to do.
When I miss something, I don't want to spend three days deciding whether I'm “back on track.”
I want the track wide enough that I never really left it.
And there's another piece of this that matters.
Sometimes a structure that used to help really does stop working.
That's information.
The season changed.
Your responsibilities changed.
You changed.
You don't get extra points for staying loyal to a routine that no longer serves the thing it was created to support.
Adjust it.
I think we sometimes get so attached to the evidence that we're disciplined—the early alarm, the streak, the perfectly followed schedule—that we forget why we built the structure in the first place.
The routine is the tool.
Your life is not supposed to become the tool that keeps the routine intact.
So look at something you're trying to be more consistent with and ask one question:
Does this plan have room for a bad Tuesday?
If the whole thing collapses the first time life interrupts it, you don't necessarily need more discipline.
You may just need a better plan.
Build one you can live inside.
Want to keep going with this conversation?
🎧 Listen to Episode 39: Why Structure Works for Some Women and Overwhelms Others →