A Routine Reward

I don't think I could ever cope with going into an office and doing the same job day after day. Getting the same train every morning, having the same start time, the same finish time, and working with the same people every day. I admire people who do that. I have to say that I am sometimes jealous of the security it brings. Just as when one is visiting a foreign clime on holiday, there is a certain comfortable familiarity about going somewhere you been before. 

We've just come back from a beautiful week away in Turkey to a place we last visited ten years ago. We expected it to have changed and indeed it had. And yet there was enough familiarity for us to feel immediately welcomed. To surround us with a little bit of a comfort blanket from which to explore what was different for better or worse. 

Sometimes our working lives change. Things that we rely on disappear and we’re forced to accept new circumstances. Just as in our work in the rehearsal room, change is nearly always for good. It invigorates, it freshens, and it makes us think anew. In a long run, we don't want to get into a habit of going out there every night and delivering exactly the same performance night after night. The same inflections, the same looks, the same rather putrefying performance. We want to refresh it each time. Yet it's good to have familiar touch points. The laugh in the second act you know you can get. The particular piece of business you're fond of and like to create anew each evening. Just as last week in Turkey it was great to see some old familiar restaurants with memories of happy times before, so in a life that undergoes change, it's helpful to have touch points of familiarity. Or to use that dreaded word - routine.

The summer is nearly always a quiet time for many of us. While the sunshine makes unemployment a little easier to bear, it can often expose the day and make it feel much longer and emptier. At the moment I'm writing. It may turn out to be a novel. But it does have a word target of over 70,000 words and achieving my daily word count has become part of my routine. It's something I make myself do. The routine doesn't last for the whole of the day. It lasts until my word count is done, then the rest of the day is my oyster for whatever adventures may befall.

Kalkan, Turkey.

Having this target to achieve each day gives me strength. It shows me where the door is to other opportunities. Having completed my word count and edited my daily work, other ideas show themselves. I suddenly have a list of things to do. A creative list. A fulfilling list. And what's more a list different to the one I did yesterday. So while routine may not be the thing that we want all the time, it can be a perfect little ingredient to make your day a success.