Fall is for Resetting Good Habits and Embracing Cozy Routines

I don’t know about you, but I was shocked this past weekend when, suddenly, it seemed to turn cold overnight. Nevertheless, I love the cold, crisp feeling of fall and the sense of bright, new beginnings that it brings—and these cooler days have got me thinking about ritual and routine, and how we can use these things to make better progress in our writing lives.

The start of the school year can feel overwhelming. There are so many things to buy (new lunch gear, new clothes, a nap mat for school!), doctor’s appointments to make (flu shot, anyone?), and a whole new afterschool schedule to get used to. In the first couple weeks of school, I suddenly found myself with ample time on my hands (it’s the first time ever that both of my kids are at school), but unable to get any actual work done because my head was swimming with items on my to-do list and long-neglected household chores. I quickly realized that, if I wasn’t careful, I was in danger of frittering away the entire school day with only a clean bathroom to show for it (not that that’s not a good goal sometimes).

So, I went back to basics.

What has helped me achieve things in the past?  I asked myself while staring dreamily out the window at the yellow leaves falling (I’m kidding—I had a sudden, unstoppable urge to narrate that dramatically).

Answer: A small, concrete task to start the achievement-ball rolling, and using Pomodoros to track my time.

If you’re not familiar with the Pomodoro method, this is the productivity technique where you choose a focused task, set a timer for 25 minutes, work only on the task you’ve selected, and then take a short, five-minute break when your work block is done. You can stack Pomodoros together, completing a few in a row, and then take a longer break when you’re ready for it.

So, that’s what I did. I wrote down a small task (in ink, in my planner), set a Pomodoro using this online timer, and I started working. (I also adopted a new mantra that I repeat to myself as I walk through my house while my kids are at school: “No chores!”)

If you’re having trouble getting started on anything, I’d recommend trying this for yourself. Because, as you might have been able to predict, after completing one 25-minute block of focused work, I was so absorbed in the task at hand that continuing for more blocks didn’t feel onerous or overwhelming.

Try it out for yourself: Define the task (keep it small), write it down, commit to working on it for 25 minutes, take a short break

The other thing I’ve been thinking lots about with this influx of cold weather is how I can set myself up for writing success by taking care of other areas of life. It’s a sad truth of life that, as an adult, you are often, if not always, responsible for feeding yourself, and you will likely have to address this need anywhere between three and six times a day. O, the injustice of repetitive tasks that don’t even give you a sense of accomplishment when you complete them!

There are a couple of routines I’ve adopted to make my life somewhat easier in this domain—and the two that I want to talk about today are 1) treat yourself like a precious toddler and 2) embrace a Sunday prep routine.

On you being a Toddler –Wait, didn’t I just say you were an adult?

The idea here is really simple—think about yourself as someone really precious and lovable, because you are, and treat yourself accordingly. Don't let yourself get too tired, hungry, or cranky. This means that you go to bed early enough to get a good night’s rest, you carry a bottle of water with you and maybe a granola bar too, you plan time in your day to eat meals sitting down, and you don’t overschedule yourself. Basically, anything you can imagine a parent doing for their mini-me, you’re doing that for yourself and with an attitude of loving kindness: You get to take care of yourself; you don’t have to.

Sunday Prep

If you do Sunday prep right, you will go into the week feeling like a rockstar, and your week will flow so much more easily than it otherwise would. Also, Sunday prep is not unrelated to the above idea about treating yourself like a toddler—Sunday prep is one of the tools you can use to take care of yourself.

When I do Sunday prep, these are the categories I focus on:

-       A soup

-       6 hardboiled eggs

-       Roasted sweet potatoes

-       Tuna, chicken, or egg salad

-       A muffin or bread

See why fall has me thinking about my Sunday prep routine? 

In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t always do Sunday prep and, when I do, I don’t necessarily do all of the above categories, but my week is better even if I do just 2-3 of them. The idea is that, by thinking ahead and prepping these things, you’ll always have something to grab to either start a meal, or stand alone as a quick snack.

How to Do Sunday Prep

A few notes on how to execute the Sunday prep – start with boiling the eggs!  It takes two seconds to set up and that’s a quick win!

Then get the sweet potatoes going in the oven – I wash and dry them, cut off any gross parts but leave the rest of the skin, then cut into cubes or wedges, toss with avocado oil and sea salt, and roast on a cookie sheet in the oven at 400 for half an hour or so. Sometimes I even flip them over halfway through the cooking time, but that’s only if I’ve really got my act together.

What can you then do with these roasted sweet potatoes? Lots of things! Eat them for breakfast as a side to scrambled eggs. Cook ground beef, add a jar of spaghetti sauce to the beef, and eat the whole thing over sweet potatoes instead of pasta. Or use them as a side to any regular dinner—my kids love roasted chicken thighs, broccoli, and sweet potatoes.

While the sweet potatoes are roasting, mix up a quick lunch salad. I hope you like mayonnaise—if you don’t like mayonnaise, you are going to absolutely hate this step and you should probably skip it. Maybe, I don’t know, buy some deli meat or precooked sausages instead. Sausages rolled up in a wrap with lettuce and cheese make a good, quick lunch! But, provided you’re not anti-mayo, you’re basically mixing up a bowl of tuna, chicken, or egg salad to keep in the fridge. In addition to using it for sandwiches, you can dive into a salad like this with crackers, sliced peppers, or just eat it directly from the bowl with a fork. It’s very important to have something like this when hunger hits!

The soup. There are so many good recipes for fall soups online. I should know, I save them regularly into folders that I’ll never look at again! The only soup I really know how to cook is taco soup, and I think the reason I’ve become so familiar with this soup is because you can keep all of the ingredients in your freezer or pantry. You are essentially always ready to make taco soup.

Also, the method of preparation is so forgiving, you don’t need a recipe. Here’s what you do: brown the beef at the bottom of a large soup pot. When the beef is cooked through, you could pour off the fat, or you could do what I do and leave it in there (#timesaver). You’ve just cooked the only ingredient that really needs to be cooked in this recipe—go you!  Next, you’re adding some combination of canned beans and fresh or frozen vegetables. You can mix and match here—go wild! I tend to like: black beans, kidney beans, garbanzo beans (one can each) and a cup of frozen corn. Then add some canned diced tomatoes—2-3 small cans or one large one, again this recipe is very forgiving. Add chicken broth if you have it, water if you don’t—fill the pot to the point where the beans and veggies are submerged. Cover and make sure the burner is set to a medium-highish point. You want to bring everything to a boil and then lower the heat so it simmers for a while and everything heats through. I should mention, if your body doesn’t revolt against rice the way mine does, you could add rice at this point to make it a more filling meal, but you will probably have to boil it for longer to make sure the rice cooks, and also probably add more broth or water because the rice will absorb a lot of it during the cooking process. When your taco soup is ready (you know what, you might just want to google “taco soup”; I kind of wish I had just said that from the beginning)—serve piping hot, topped with sour cream, cilantro, and maybe even some crushed tortilla chips if you’re fancy!

A baked good. I got into cooking my own bread and muffins etc. because my body gets achy and itchy if I eat too much wheat, rice, or sugar (it’s as fun as it sounds!). There are pros and cons to this lifestyle—main pro: your house smells really good while things bake. The con is primarily that eating anything traditionally carb-y is now something that you have to plan ahead for.

But this brings me to a mini-tip around establishing rituals and routines: if you’re not sure what to do, or if you’re just starting out, pick someone else’s way of doing things and just follow that for a while. It will get you started.

This is what I did my first semester teaching in Harvard’s Writing Program—there were so many new things to master and, fortunately, the department was set up to be very collaborative. I remember someone saying to me: just use someone else’s syllabus policies and due dates for your first semester; it relieves the decision-making load, you’ll see what works for you and what doesn’t, and you can change things so they work better for you next semester. That’s what I did, and it mostly worked, except for one time on the first day of class when a student asked why all of the assignments were due at 10 pm (which I guess is a sort of unusual time?), and I didn’t have an answer except for the fact that someone else had done it that way!

When I don’t know what to eat, I pick a cookbook and follow it for a while. Or if I’m feeling stalled or unmotivated in my exercise life, I’ll pick someone on YouTube and do their workouts for a while (my current favorite is growwithjo). This brings me back to the baked goods—I’m using Shalane Flanagan and Elyse Kopecky’s Run Fast, Cook Fast, Eat Slow book for their Superhero muffin recipes and I also love their follow-up Rise & Run, which has more variations on the Superhero muffins and a delicious recipe for breakfast cookies!

As you are settling into the fall, I hope this post gives you some ideas about ways you can make your life easier so that you can get your writing done.

Please feel free to let me know if you’ve tried any of these techniques—or send me a picture of your taco soup! ;-)

Photo of taco soup courtesy of a website I like called Budget Bytes, where you can also find a real recipe to make said taco soup, should you find my description lacking