Routine check

Shit, shower, shave, shine and shampoo

Melissa Hiebert Staff

Everyone has their morning routine. Wake up, shower, get dressed, down a few cups of coffee, and then head off to school for a long day of scheduled classes. It’s next to impossible not to have a routine most of the time; there are only a limited number of minutes in the morning for any variance from the assorted tasks associated with getting ready for school.

I personally, hate routines. If I had my way, the university would run on a very complicated and intricate schedule in which no class fell at the same time of day, or even on the same day of the week. One week, a class might fall on Monday at three, Tuesday at nine, and Friday at noon. And then the next week, it would all be clumped together in a three hour Wednesday night class. Held at midnight.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be, and so I am stuck with my boring routine of waking up, showering, and catching the same bus at 8:10 every morning.

I decided to chat with other students about their routines. “I usually drink a cup of coffee, and check my email!” said Shamimn Mitchun, who is currently completing a PhD in computer science. She said that sometimes she likes it better when she doesn’t have a routine so that she can decide at a particular moment what she feels like doing. Shamimn also stated that, “it’s probably better to have a routine.” This seems to be an attitude mirrored by many students. When you wake up half-asleep in the morning, it can be hard to think about anything, and a routine can easily be completed without really having to think about it.

James Rimmer, a fourth-year logistics and marketing student, described his morning routine, which consists of waking up, showering, eating breakfast and heading off to school. This seems like the typical routine of most students, varying only slightly in the details. James also thought that his routine helped him get it together in the morning. “I’d rather just stick by my routine,” he said when asked if he’d like a little deviance from his morning rituals.

Okay, so apparently not many students share my sentiments. Perhaps it’s routine that gets people through the endless workload on minimal amounts of sleep. It’s easier to simply move through the motions in the morning than to decide consciously what you are going to do next.

Are routines necessary for achieving any kind of productivity? “If you are a responsible person, then it is possible to do everything on time,” mused Shamimn. “But without one, it’s probably worse.”

I still stand by my conviction about routines. I find that doing something completely outside the spectrum of a normal routine makes me feel a lot less like I’m sleepwalking through the day and more like I’m awake and living. Though most find that their habitual morning practices are what put them on the right track, sometimes a spontaneous break in routine can give you a sense of adventure or fun in an otherwise mundane day.