I love routines in my daily life, almost to a fault. I can see my fiancée rolling her eyes right now. She’d probably classify it as almost compulsive. Here is a non-comprehensive list of things I have set routines for: when I wake up, what I eat for breakfast, when I drink my coffee, when I work out, bringing my lunches to work, how I handle my money, how I organize my personal items, when I go to the grocery store, bedtime, etc.

The reason I’m somewhat obsessive with my routines is it allows me to control my environment. If I go to work with coffee, a water bottle, and a lunch, that leaves more time and brain capacity at work to concentrate on actual work. Routines also allow me to concentrate because my brain isn’t figuring out where to go or what to have for lunch. Instead of hearing my stomach growl before a meeting because I’m hungry, I have a stocked snack drawer at the ready to come to the meeting prepared.

Routines also help with the fact that I hate being unprepared. I know people that forget things all the time. It causes them stress. Wastes theirs and others’ time. It also might make them look incompetent to others.

Routines also let me pack more things into my schedule, than if I didn’t have set routines. I know exactly what days and hour blocks are free, and which ones are already spoken for.

If you struggle with getting certain things done and you’d like to make routines for working out, monitoring your expenses, or calling your mom, then use a reminder app in your phone or use a digital calendar that will annoy you until you complete your task. It’s much harder to ignore a task when your phone that’s attached to you 99.9% of the time won’t stop reminding you about it.

I credit many of my personal accomplishments to routines. They help me at work, keep me in shape, and help keep my mind on point. One downside to routines is you may get into a grove and get upset if something kicks your routine off schedule. It’s definitely something I need to work on personally. While it might throw off my routine for the time being, it’s not the end of the world. I’ll be back on schedule shortly.

If you don’t have any routines, give it a shot. That book you’ve been putting off for months might actually get read and your mom is waiting for that call.