By the end of August I’m usually ready for a little more structure.
I love the easy cadence of summer, and my days are no less full, but the way they begin and end becomes a little looser. Evenings stretch later, mornings unfold a little differently, and some of my usual routines become softer around the edges.
For a while, that feels wonderful, like a much-needed break from the pace and intensity of the rest of the year. As summer draws to a close, I find myself looking forward to returning to some of the routines that anchor my days, and this year I’ve been thinking about what actually makes them stick.
We tend to think of habits as a matter of personal resolve, something we either manage to keep or we don’t. But the spaces around us have more influence over our behavior than we might imagine.
Morning light helps signal to the body that the day has begun. Where we charge our phones can determine whether they come to bed with us, and the way a kitchen or entry is organized can make the things we want to do each day easier, or put just enough in the way that they don’t happen at all.
“If there’s something you want to do differently this season, look at the ten feet around where it happens.”
Lisa Sternfeld
I see this in my own home, too. Yesterday’s mail doesn’t always make it from the kitchen table into the drawer, and my laptop sometimes lingers there after a late night of work. Neither seems particularly significant on its own, but together they change the way we use the space the next morning. Instead of inviting us to sit down for breakfast, talk and start the day together, the table is still carrying traces of the day before.
It’s such a small example, but I think that’s precisely the point. Where things live, what stays visible and what we encounter first can shape what happens next.
It’s made me think about how many of our everyday routines are tied to the spaces where they happen. We make decisions about our homes all the time, but rarely with the small things we want to happen there each day in mind.
As we move toward fall, I’m looking at some of my own routines through this lens. If there’s something you want to do differently this season, look at the ten feet around where it happens: the light, the layout, what’s within reach and what isn’t. The place to start might not be the routine at all, but the space around it.
Feature Image: iStock
