Since I left teaching in 2021, I’ve tried on a number of different routines to see what fits.

When I was working as a Content Writer for a tutoring company, I would allot myself two hours before my 11am start time to work on my work in progress. However, my schedule kept changing and my start time got earlier and earlier, so that routine of writing before work flew out the window.

Because I never had to start work before 9am in the last several years, I’ve become allergic to alarm clocks. And because I lived my life by bells while I was teaching, I promised myself that this new era of my life would be bell-less.

Except, I’m realizing…that I really like early mornings.

And I do my best generative writing work before noon.

And I’ve never been a night owl, even when I was twenty years younger, preferring a 9pm bedtime to staying up until 4am.

So, I’m back on the bells, sort of. Apparently, you can take the girl out of the school, but you can’t take the school out of the girl.

I’ve been trying my hardest to work against the type of routine that feels comfortable to me because I wanted to turn my back on all the things that a school day was. Rigid. Anxious. Having to move from one activity, one room, one floor of the building every time a bell rang.

In this new routine, there will be no bells, but there is a wake-up time (that necessitates and alarm) and designated slots of time for different types of work.

The Catalyst

I’ve been depressed and anxious all summer.

I used to love summer when I was a teacher. Obviously. It was the one time in a year when I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Eat. Use the bathroom. Actually get stuff done without someone finding me to chat. (I mean my husband still does this, which drives me crazy, but he eventually goes back to whatever he was doing.)

But since I left the classroom, summers have meant an uptick in migraine pain and a major intolerance of the constant heatwaves.

Summers used to be about traveling with friends and going on adventures.

In the last several years, they’ve been about managing dizziness, nausea, and fatigue.

I am not good at the “out of routine” feeling that comes with summer. (You should see me the week between Christmas and New Years. I’m a mess.) And when I think about my routine as it’s been since I left my job in Content Writing to be freelance, the routine I’ve kept has been loose at best.

I’ve been writing journal entry after journal entry about my depression. And reading books and watching videos about other people’s routines. And finally, this past Sunday, after months of feeling not like myself, I opened my notes app and started to plan.

The Plan

Each day is different since I have a few different tasks that comprise my current job.

But mainly the routine is as follows:

• 6am-8:30am: Slow start (includes journaling, meditating, reading, getting ready for the day, eating breakfast, and maybe going for a walk…maybe.)
• 8:30am-12:00pm: Writing and/or TpT resource creation (includes blog writing for all three of my blogs, one of which is on WordPress, two of which are on Substack, a teaching blog called The Bookish Classroom and a writing blog that’s a copy and paste of my WordPress blog. If you want to check out my TpT store you can follow the link here.)
• 12:00-2:00: Lunch/Movement Break (includes pilates or a walk, depending on the day.)
• 2:00pm-3:00pm: Social media posting and admin. (includes creating, posting, and scheduling social media content for TikTok and Instagram, responding to comments, etc.)
• 3:00-4:00pm: Day ends, go for a walk.

As I said earlier in this section, this is just a general overview of what I day would look like. I have a much more specific routine for each day.

How I’m Feeling About This Change

Well, I’m feeling really excited actually.

It’s making me think a lot about this conversation I had with a writer friend a few years ago. She’s a former teacher, who is self-employed. I wanted to pick her brain about how she structured her days because I felt like I was struggling to find that for myself.

We talked about the energy of a school year. The phases that come with breaks and holidays, September and June. I found that I was really missing that. The feeling of a day. The feeling of the last bell. A Friday afternoon. The last day of school.

In turning my back on the schedule of school, I found myself missing it. What was wrong with me?

It was a major lesson that I remind myself of when I focus all my energy on an outcome.

There are some things, that by the time you get them, you won’t want them anymore (or at least not I the way you thought you would). It’s a similar lesson to, it won’t always feel the way you thought it would.

Is this true of everything? No.

If a literary agent called me tomorrow and said they wanted to represent me, I’m sure it would feel just as exciting as I always imagined it would.

But I’ve found in my post teaching life, while wonderful and peaceful and everything I’ve ever wanted, is that I’ve changed.

The things I wanted at 25 aren’t what I want at 40.

I thought I would want unstructured days. Turns out, I don’t. I do better with structure.

I thought I’d never see 6am again. Turns out, I miss her. She’s nice. Quiet.

Maybe it’s actually the reverse then, wanting something I used to have that I hated when I had it.

Maybe that’s growing up.