[264] “I’m Not a Routine Person” ... Why That’s Not the Real Problem

Ever feel like you're just not a "routines person"? Before you blame yourself, listen in. In this episode of the Real Happy Mom Podcast, we’re breaking down five reasons why your routines aren’t sticking—and none of them have to do with your motivation or willpower. If you’ve ever tried someone else’s perfect system and felt like a failure, this is your reminder: it’s not you, it’s the routine.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why most routines are built for ideal conditions (and what to do instead).
• How to build a routine that fits your energy, season, and lifestyle.
• Why flexibility—not perfection—is the secret to consistency.

3 Takeaways:

1. Make It Fit Real Life:
   Routines built on someone else’s perfect day won’t survive real-life interruptions. Yours should bend with your season, not break at the first challenge.
2. Keep It Simple + Flexible:
   Small, repeatable routines—like a 10-minute tidy or 3-step morning reset—are more effective than rigid, overwhelming systems.
3. You’re Not the Problem—The System Might Be:
   You don’t need more discipline—you need tools that support you, not stress you out. A Trello board or 3 go-to dinners might be your real secret weapon.

Links & Resources Mentioned:

• 🔧 Get the Get Stuff Done Toolkit
• 📥 Join the Confident Mom Life waitlist
• 🧽 Listen to Episode 98: Get Kids to Help with Chores Without Complaining
• 📋 Grab the Sunday Prep Checklist

Transcript

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Have you ever looked at your planner or your calendar or maybe your checklist and thought, why can't I get this to stick? If that's ever crossed your mind, this episode is for you because today we're flipping the script on one of the biggest lies that Moms tell themselves, which is, I'm just not a routines person. Hey there. My name is Tony Anne. I am the podcast host of The Real Happy Mom podcast. The podcast for busy working moms who need more time and help with achieving their big goals without pulling their hair out. And in this episode, we are gonna be going through five different reasons why. It's not you. It's actually the routine. This episode of The Real Happy Mom Podcast was brought to you by the Get Stuff Done Toolkit. The Get Stuff Done Toolkit is a plug and play system designed to help busy moms like you organize their thoughts, plan their days, and get things done without overcomplicating life or requiring hours of set up. Whether you're brand new to Trello or you already use it and just need a better workflow, this toolkit gives you the structure of tools and quick wins to go from frazzled to focus super fast. Head on over to real happy mom.com/done to learn more about the Get Stuff Done toolkit. I remember a few years ago I saw a video from an influencer. She had the most peaceful morning routine. It was productive, and it was like something that I've never seen before. She lit a candle, she journaled for 30 minutes, did some yoga, made a green smoothie, and I was like, yes, this is it. This is what I'm gonna be doing. So I tried it. I bought the planner. I printed out the habit tracker, and I even got up early one morning and then one of the kids woke up sick. I forgot to wash the laundry and didn't have clothes to wear to work. I didn't eat breakfast, and so I ended up being hangry and then my car wouldn't start. So I was exhausted before I even got to work. And my perfect routine didn't make it past day two. So I remember thinking maybe I'm just not a routine person. Looking back, it wasn't the routine that failed me. The routine failed because I didn't get it to fit my real life. So let's talk about why routines don't stick and what actually makes them work for busy moms like us. So the biggest reason why routines aren't sticking are that most routines are built for ideal conditions and not real life. You know, life happens, the kids get sick, you wake up late. There's unexpected deadlines. Your wifi decides to go out. Maybe you get stuck in traffic, or your kid comes to you with a last minute request that, oh yeah, by the way, I need 12 cupcakes for tomorrow. Or maybe it's a household emergency, like a pipe is leaking, the power goes out, or your washing machine decides it doesn't wanna work today. All these things happen and can throw off our routines. So if you don't have a routine that can bend and ebb and flow with you during these times. It's gonna break. The next point or reason why routines aren't sticking is that you've been following someone else's rhythm or routine instead of your own. Not everyone thrives at 5:00 AM or has time to meditate for 20 minutes. You really need a system that matches your energy, your schedule, and your season of life. So consider things like instead of a 5:00 AM morning routine that you saw on Instagram, consider if you are even a morning person, do your kids let you sleep through the night? If you're building a wake up time that works for your sleep and for your rhythm, it makes it so much easier instead of going against it. Or maybe you're trying to meal prep for your family and you forgot that you got too picky eaters. So what meals actually work for your family? What are your energies like after working school? And how can you simplify or batch things smarter and prep things so that it fits your lifestyle? Or maybe you're trying to fit a full on morning routine before you go to work, when you've got a toddler who seems to be attached to you at all times. So consider what season of motherhood you're in. Maybe you have a newborn or maybe you have a toddler, like I said, that just won't leave you alone. Or maybe you're in a phase where. You have older kids who are a lot more independent, or maybe you're in a season where you don't have the kids at home very much Consider what season you're in and also consider shortening or rearranging routines to reflect your reality and not the influencer or the lady on YouTube with older kids in full-time childcare. Or maybe you're looking at the influencer that's doing a clean with me routine that requires two free hours so that they can get things done. And you know, this does not work for your life. Instead of copying the influencer's routine, try to break it down into realistic microtask and definitely get help from the kiddos to help out with the chores so that you can clean things even faster. And if you need help with that, check out episode 98 with Ashley bfa, who shares how to get kids to do chores without complaining. The next reason why routines aren't sticking is that routines don't have to be rigid to be effective. You see things need to be flexible and be able to be repeated in a way that's powerful instead of having a 12 step routine that you abandoned after just a few days. So when you're considering things like, for instance, a morning startup routine, think of some things that are very, very simple, like brush your teeth, drink water, stretch, and then look at your calendar or Trello board. Or maybe it's your evening tidy up routine. It can just be literally 10 minutes to reset one room before you go to bed, not the entire house, or maybe a Sunday prep routine. So instead of doing my full-on Sunday prep routine that I talk about all the time, if you're interested, go to real happy mom.com/sunday to check out the Sunday prep checklist and you can modify this one. But instead of doing the full on Sunday routine that I talk about, maybe it's just doing these few things, like looking ahead at the week, picking out your three priorities for the week, and then prepping your outfits or lunches for the week. And let's talk about bedtime and wind down. I know that this is one where we hear a lot about routines as well. So instead of doing something super complicated, it could be something as simple as shower, stretch, and journal or pray for 15 minutes. This simple routine is gonna calm your mind down and cue your body that it's time to rest. So you see things can be super simple and also be really effective. So it doesn't have to be rigid for it to be effective. It just has to be simple and work for your life. So the next reason why you may be feeling like you're not a routines person, it is because sometimes we focus more so on perfection and it's more about support. So the thing is, the right routine doesn't demand more discipline. It actually helps you so that you need to do less. A supportive routine removes decisions and helps eliminate decision fatigue. It also cuts down on the mental load, so you're not constantly thinking about what needs to happen next and what you need to get done, and it also gives you a gentle rhythm so you're not running on fumes and willpower alone. So let's break this down with a few examples. So instead of deciding what to cook every night, a meal plan with three go-to dinners means that you can skip the decision fatigue and avoid that 5:00 PM what's for dinner spiral. Or instead of waking up and wondering what you should be doing first, a short morning checklist like brush your teeth, drink water, look at Trello, gets you moving without needing motivation. and instead of relying on memory to remember appointments, bills, and spirit week themes, a visual system or a family calendar remembers for you, so your brain doesn't have to. So you see routines are gonna help you feel like, oh, I have a rhythm now. I'm not dropping the ball. Because you have a solid system in place. They're not about having a perfect day. They're all about making chaotic days easier and good days even better and smoother. So the next reason why you may be feeling like you're not a routines person is because the system is a problem and it's not you. I want you to let that sink in for a second. You are not the problem. You just haven't had a system that is designed for your life yet, and when the system is a problem, you will find yourself using a planner that requires an hour a day to maintain. Or maybe you are told that you have to wake up at 5:00 AM for quiet time, but your baby still wakes up in the middle of the night and you cannot get up that early. Or maybe it's that you've tried meal planning system that requires 20 different ingredients and Pinterest level prep, which does not work for your life. Or maybe it's the cleaning routine that says a little each day, but your days are packed back to back and there's no little that you can squeeze in for cleaning. So instead of using that planner that we were talking about, try using a Trello board or a sticky note system that you can update in just five minutes or less. I personally love Trello and I have, um, plenty of resources out there to help you. If you wanna get started with Trello, go to real happy mom.com/cello to learn more and get started with it. And instead of waking up at 5:00 AM maybe having a midday reset routine or a five minute decompression time after bedtime or before you go home for work. This will be a lot more effective than waking up at 5:00 AM. And as far as the meal planning, it's not that you're lacking the follow through, you just don't have two hours in a Whole Foods budget to have those Pinterest level meals prepped every day of the week. So just keep things easy, rotate through your five go-to meals that everyone likes. This will keep it so that you're not stressing yourself out and everyone is happy and fed. And then as far as those cleaning routines I was talking about, instead of trying to do a little bit every day, maybe it's on the weekend having a power hour, or my new hack that I've been using a lot is every time I go to the bathroom, I do like one little thing, so I go to the bathroom.'cause you know you gotta go to the bathroom at least like two or three times a day. You go in the bathroom, you wipe down the counters, next time you go back in, you. Clean the toilet really quick. The next time you go in, you um, clean out the sinks. So those little bits that you do all come together and you eventually have a clean bathroom by the end of the day, if you're going in and outta the bathroom often. So don't feel like you have to sit down for hours and hours at a time. You can do a little bit while you're going in and out. It only takes but a few seconds. All right. Now, if this episode has been hitting home and you're nodding your head like, yes, this is me. I want you to know that help is on the way. I've been working on something called The Confident Mom Life, which is a six week program that's gonna help you build routines and systems that actually work for your life, and we'll be opening the doors really soon. If you want early access plus a early bird surprise, head on over to rah happy mom.com/confident and join the priority wait list. Okay, so let's recap what we talked about in today's episode. Remember, number one, routines don't fail because you're undisciplined. They fail when they don't fit your life. Number two, you don't need to follow someone else's routine. You need one of your own. Number three, you don't have to be rigid to be effective. Remember, flexibility is better than perfection. And number four, supportive systems make consistency way easier and not harder. And lastly, number five, you're not broken and just need a better fitting routine and a routine that supports and fits you. So that is it for this week's episode. I hope that you have enjoyed it. Definitely make sure you tune in next week for next week's episode where I'll be sharing the secret to getting things done when you're already exhausted. All right. If you need the show notes or the links that were mentioned this episode, make sure to head over to real happy mom.com/ 2 6 4. That's real happy mom.com/ 2 6 4 and you'll get the show notes in the links that were mentioned in this episode Now that's it for this one. Take care and with lots of love.