Craving routine
And trying to stay creative when the schedule has gone haywire
I’ve always been a creature of habit. I like routines. Rituals. Lists and spreadsheets. I’m not a huge fan of surprises. I really don’t love chaos.
Here’s the part where all of the parents reading this laugh and laugh, because what else is parenting besides a barrage of surprises and chaos?
So far in 2026, my schedule has been…haphazard, at best. I had an outpatient eye surgery in January, which led to lots of follow-up appointments—all during the school day, a.k.a. my work time. I’ve been helping run my daughter’s school’s annual Read-a-thon event, which has been fun but also a lot of (unpaid) work. And then there have been various school activities that I don’t want to miss (Parent participation Friday! In-school dance performance! Chaperoning a field trip!). Meanwhile, for much of January and half of February, I wasn’t allowed to take my usual dance/yoga classes, as my eye (to be honest, my whole system) recovered from surgery.
Long story short, I am very out of my routine.
Writers love to talk about the rituals that get their creative juices flowing. Sitting at this particular table at this particular coffee shop. Listening to the same album or playlist or song over and over. Wearing the right fingerless gloves or soft t-shirt or comfy pants or cozy hat. Drinking the right hot beverage or munching on the correct writing snacks. Getting up early or staying up late to chase the muse.
Before I became a parent, I was a full-time freelancer. My schedule was entirely of my own making. Write all morning; take a dance class in the early afternoon; head to a Starbucks (remember when those used to be cozy cafés rather than bare-bones mobile-order pickup stations?) to finish the day’s freelance work before my husband left his office to meet me for dinner.
When my daughter was an infant, the routine shifted around her naptimes. “Sleep when the baby sleeps,” people like to say. Well, when she slept, I tried to write. (“Tried” being the operative word, as any exhausted new mom will attest...) My café was my living room, and my soundtrack was her white-noise machine and the soft sounds she made as she dozed. If she wouldn’t nap at home, I’d have to take an hour-and-a-half-long walk, pushing the stroller around the Prospect Park loop, iced coffee in hand. I’d try to think about my creative projects (again, “try” is the key here) but some days all I could do was focus on putting one foot in front of the other.
And then we had childcare two mornings a week. And then it was three mornings. And then three “school days” (our part-time nanny would leave our apartment at 2:30 to pick up an older child from school). Those hours were, for the most part, mine again. For over a year, I was able to build a pretty reliable routine for myself.
And then there was a global pandemic, and that hard-won routine vanished completely, for months upon months.
These days, my routine is built around my daughter’s school hours. Most weekday mornings, I get her out the door shortly after 8:00 and then sit down at my desk with a cup of coffee. I tackle various writing tasks, break for lunch, do a chore or two, maybe work out or take my regular dance or yoga class, and clock out around 2:15; school pickup is 2:35. Once a week, I meet two friends at a local coffee shop right after school drop-off, and we chat for a bit before writing, together.
Weekday afternoons belong to the kiddo. Home for a snack, and then to dance class or tumbling (if I’m on a deadline or really in the zone, I’ll bring my laptop along and squeeze in an extra 45 minutes). To the playground on nice, non-extracurricular days. Dinner. Homework. The bedtime song-and-dance.
I have built a routine that works for me, so I can be my best creative self as well as a very present parent. Key to balancing those two roles is flexibility—and as counter-intuitive as it may seem, flexibility isn’t always easy for people who do creative work. I’ve had to learn the skill (and it is a skill!) of sitting down at my computer and getting straight to the task at hand, because I never know if the time I’ve mapped out for myself later on will still be mine. I can’t leave breadcrumbs—the perfect playlist and the perfect beverage and the perfect moment—for the muse and wait around for her to show up. I have to dive right in, and if I’m not feeling inspired by one project, I may have to move on to the next to-do on my list. I have deadlines to meet and much less time than I used to have to meet them. I have to get things done.
Because the kid might be unexpectedly home sick from school. Or there will be a “parents in the classroom” event that takes up much of the morning. Or a field trip to chaperone. Or a dentist appointment—mine or hers. My routine will shift or vanish entirely, and I’ll have to adapt.
I’m pretty good at adapting. Creativity is a muscle, not a magic wand.
And my schedule should normalize a bit in a few weeks—after spring break, which falls at the start of April. I’ve got fewer appointments on the calendar, which means more uninterrupted hours to sit and write. I’ve got some catching up to do, and I intend to carve out my creative time. To protect it a little better than I’ve been able to do so far this year.
Do you have a creative routine? What’s the most important part of it? How do you adapt, when the routine goes out the window?
~Kathryn