Morning routines

Maybe it's just me. Or maybe it's something ingrained into me from boot camp years back. Every morning at my house pretty much starts off the same.

• I get up.
• Make coffee.
• Do something with the dishes - it depends. Some mornings the dishwasher needs to be reloaded, others it simply needs to be unloaded.
• Check the status of the laundry and do something about that.
• Pour coffee.
• Check e-mail and be readily available to help MarvMan find something he all of a sudden can't find.

It's an every morning kind of thing. Some mornings it goes according to plan. Others, the steps get mixed up or MarvMan lets me sleep while he gets ready. Lately, I've been adding yoga or some other form of workout to the routine. After the coffee. (I eat breakfast when the kids do.) I need that caffeinated burst in order to even consider the option of jumping around and/or folding myself into awkward positions.

I wonder if it ties in to a fear of the unknown.

Schedules and routines give us structure and a sense of balance and control. Granted, most of the things that I do in the morning need to be done, and it's easier to do them early in the morning while the kids are still sleeping. But there is definitely that sense of having control over at least the beginning of the day that seems to make things feel better.

Because I certainly don't want to be awake. I'm not at my best. So having the routine in place allows me to go on autopilot and simply go through the checklist.

I'm not saying that routines and schedules are bad - not in the least. But I think it's interesting how they work and how they can sometimes fall into place without us even noticing it.

Do you have a routine or schedule? What is it and how did you come to start using it?