A part of my first “real” job following marriage and grad school was production scheduling in a small manufacturing division. One day I received an order from one of our customers necessitating a change in the production schedule for one of the departments.
I rewrote the schedule and took it to the foreman. He said, “I can’t change the schedule. I have it here in black and white.”
“I wrote the schedule, so I can change it,” I retorted.
After a bit of arguing, he, of course, changed the schedule. (In reality, part of his job was to teach the “college kid” the real world of interpersonal relationships in a manufacturing operation.)
Do you ever notice that sometimes you adjust something, say a window blind or a chair. Or, you put something around the house in an inconvenient place. And you catch yourself muttering about it. But, you put it there; you can change it.
There are so many things about our routines, our diet (not a diet, what we eat), our exercise, that we chose and we can choose again. Yes, changing habits is hard. You can read Charles Duhigg (Power of Habit) or James Clear (Atomic Habits) for tips.
One key to a better life is to recognize those things you can change and then takes steps to make the change if they aren’t working out. Constructing a routine is good. Changing it when it doesn’t serve you is also good.