PETE Routine & Structure

Pete, slowly but with considered determination, becoming his father

PETE CAKEBREAD

I stopped counting the specific week of lockdown pretty much as soon as it began, not really out of policy but just because I thought I’d work it out when it stopped being easy to count. I’m sure I’ll put that effort in soon. Although really I secretly hope that someone else authoritative will just tell me. So on week 8/9/10 I’ll share some thoughts that have shaped the approach that I have taken to finding this time enjoyable.

My big idea is routine without repetition. In times of stress and confusion I think that routine is very important for stability and predictability in your life. With it you can make sure that you are taking care of the essential activities like eating healthily, sleeping and exercising. We know the importance of these things to having a good mind and not-so-hurty knees.

Our routine has evolved but always contains three meals a day at about the right time of day during the working week. The meals can drift a bit late with supper at 9pm but such is life. We exercise roughly two days out of three. Bedtime is by 11pm and I get up when the alarm goes at 7am. We clean the house one night a week. We do a shop. We talk to family daily.

But we build fun into our routine, often at the end of the week, which also helps to give the week some shape. These are hopefully thing that we can just enjoy.

The risk is that the routine becomes repetitive though and this is where I think you need to work hard. Very quickly a planned-out week with or without ‘fun’ will feel like a tick box exercise if we aren’t trying to push ourselves to come up with new ideas. 

For example, on one of the first weeks we decided to do a date night on a Thursday. We both dressed up into smart clothes. Dais cooked a superb meal and I decorated the second bedroom to resemble an intimate bistro. It was a bit shambolic but it made us laugh a lot. By week 8/9/10 this has evolved into a cocktail making class that we have joined a couple of times. It’s a boozy Thursday, a lot of fun and we can learn to make a new cocktail which unanimously then wows family and friends when we teach them.

Or with exercise, we still make sure we stick to a regular routine but we try and vary the activities. For example, we started off with jogs along the river. By week 8/9/10 we split our sessions between PT-led internet classes, homemade HIIT, sprints around the block, Youtube yoga and others.

I would like to summarise with one piece of advice that I hope is both practical and symbolic of what routine without repetition means. Try and eat your meals at the table. But never have the same seating arrangement two meals in a row. It’s crap advice but it reminds me every meal to keep changing things up.