Create Routines that Actually Stick (Spoiler Alert: They Need to Be Flexible)
I hear a similar story pretty frequently - and it always starts with the best of intentions.
One of my coaching clients—let’s call her Rachel—tried to sit down on a Sunday night, determined to create a weekly schedule that would finally “get her life together.” Her paper planner was gorgeous, filled with neatly drawn boxes and color-coded categories. She bought matching pens to coordinate her different activities. It was gorgeous.
Her phone was armed and ready to buzz all day with reminders she’d carefully programmed to keep her on track during the work day. Sticky notes dotted the kitchen cabinets with big goals and motivational quotes (also written with her new beautiful pens) to inspire her during the week.
And yet, by the time we met the next week, the whole thing had unraveled. Again.
The planner? Buried under a pile of children’s art projects. The phone reminders? She’d disabled the notifications because they stressed her out. The sticky notes? Still there, but now taunting her, making her question she no longer felt motivated by reminders of “if now, when” that seemed to be working for everyone else.
Why did Rachel struggle? She wasn’t lazy. She wasn’t undisciplined. She was simply trying to control too much, too fast, and with systems that didn’t fit her life.
Sound familiar?
Why Routines often Fail (Especially for Busy Working Moms)
If you've ever felt like every attempt at creating structure eventually collapses, you're not alone. Many working mothers—especially those managing overwhelming responsibilities, heavy emotional loads, and executive function challenges—struggle to make routines stick.
The problem isn’t you. The problem is the kind of structure and products that we’ve historically been sold.
Most productivity advice is designed like a one-size-fits-all solution. Buy this fancy shmancy planner and your life will be better. Structure your calendar with this new app and you’ll live happily ever after. Ooo…shiny object! This must be it!
But we don’t function the same way every day. Hormones fluctuate, children get sick, bosses pile on last-minute deadlines, and sometimes, we’re just tired.
Life is dynamic—and your routines need to be too.
Even Skyscrapers Have Flexibility
Here’s something most people don’t know: the tallest buildings in the world are designed to sway. As scary as that sounds (yikes- how many times did I walk next to the Willis Tower in my life while it swayed next to me), engineers know that without flexibility, rigid structures would collapse under the unpredictable forces of weather and nature.
The same is true for your routines. I hate to break it to you, but a rigid routine is pretty much guaranteed to fail.
The key is to design flexible routines that adapt to your real life, not your ideal life.
Let’s walk through what that could actually look like in real life.
Tip 1: Ditch the All-Or-Nothing Mentality
Rachel’s mistake wasn’t using a planner or setting reminders. Her mistake was thinking that if one part of her routine stopped working, the whole system had failed. One skipped workout? Throw the whole week out. One missed morning meeting? Time to delete the calendar app.
But sustainable structure doesn’t require perfection. It requires permission—to adapt, to revise, and to try again.
You haven’t failed if your routine didn’t go as planned. You’ve only failed if you never allow yourself to innovate and try again.
Tip 2: Focus on Changing Just Two Types of Routines
Start small. Each week, I want you to identify two small potential routines to work on and add into your life:
One routine that brings you pleasure
One routine that helps you chip away at responsibilities
Here’s why this matters: when structure is all about productivity, it starts to feel like punishment. And let’s be honest, punishment doesn’t help anyone.
But when you intentionally add joy into your routine, you create positive associations—and that’s what builds habits that last.
For example:
Pleasure Routine: Maybe you’ve been feeling bored with meals, want to build your culinary skills, and would like to make dinnertime more enjoyable. Your goal for the week could be: “Find one new recipe to try and add the ingredients to my grocery list.” That’s it. No pressure to cook perfectly or impress anyone—just explore and experiment.
Responsibility Routine: Maybe your email inbox gives you anxiety. Instead of trying to “catch up” all at once first thing (and then avoid the task like the plague, letting it loom in the background of your day like a storm cloud), try: “Set a 15-minute timer after lunch each day to tackle unread emails.” A bite-sized, repeatable habit is much more doable—and more forgiving when life throws you curveballs.
The goal isn’t to overhaul your entire life in seven days. It’s to start somewhere—and to start with you in mind.
tip 3: Use A simple visual tool to Prioritize
Many of us confuse urgency with importance. We feel overwhelmed because everything seems like it must be done right now. The Eisenhower Decision Matrix is a simple tool to help sort through that chaos.
It breaks tasks into four categories:
Urgent + Important (Do it)
Important but Not Urgent (Decide/Schedule it)
Urgent but Not Important (Delegate it)
Not Urgent or Important (Let it go- embrace your inner Elsa)
*If you’re interested in learning more about the power of delegating and not trying to do it all, check out my blog post on the topic.
Imagine waking up and using this tool to organize your day instead of staring at a giant, unfiltered to-do list. Here’s how it might look:
When your tasks are sorted visually like this, it becomes easier to make decisions about how to spend your time. Plus, what you write in each quadrant is flexible - the priority for something may change depending on the circumstances of the day.
Want a deeper dive on the Eisenhower Decision Matrix? This article from Very Well does a great job explaining how to use it in daily life.
Example Eisenhower Decision Matrix
tip 4: Make It Impossible to Fail
One of the biggest traps for high-achieving women is perfectionism disguised as productivity.
We tend to set goals like:
“Exercise for an hour every day.”
“Cook all meals at home this week.”
“Wake up at 5am to meditate.”
Notice how rigid those goals are? What happens if you wake up at 5:30 instead of 5? Or have a wildly busy day and order take-out tonight? Does that mean that you failed?
Setting goals for routines rigidly sets us up to feel like things failed very easily. And when you inevitably fall short, the shame spiral begins.
Here’s my new mantra for you to try when you try, but your goal did not go as planned:
This wasn’t a failure- it just wasn’t right for me today
When you’re thinking of how you would like to define your two flexible routines, be extremely mindful of how you tell yourself (oh self-talk…we will get into your power in another post) and others your plans.
Instead of saying “I want to exercise for an hour every day,” try “I want to move my body in a way that feels good today.” That might mean a walk around the block, stretching for 5 minutes, or dancing in the kitchen with your kids while you make dinner. Or going to your spin class and burning it out for an hour.
It all counts.
Instead of saying “I want to wake up at 5am to meditate every day,” try “I want to start my day with intention, and today that means taking a deep breath and stretching my body before getting out of bed.”
Sounds lovely.
Adjusting your goal on the fly doesn’t mean you failed. It means you’re building sustainable habits instead of chasing unsustainable standards.
It is honoring your body and mind in how they actually showed up today, not as you hoped they showed up today.
Which is a great segue to my next point…
tip 5: Be Honest About Capacity
We live in a culture that glorifies busyness. The default mode for many working moms is to take on more, prove more, do more.
But overcommitment leads directly to burnout—and to routines that crumble under pressure. And it’s no surprise that research agrees too!
Take a few minutes to honestly assess your capacity today:
What’s on your plate already?
Where do you actually have time to work on your routines?
What can you let go of in order to create space for what matters?
Your capacity may change daily, and that’s ok. Just be honest, flexibly adjust your expectations for yourself, and reassess your energy and capacity tomorrow.
tip 6: Expect Your Routines to Change
Here’s something most advice won’t tell you: even the best routine will stop working eventually. That doesn’t mean it was a bad routine. It just means your circumstances have evolved.
Seasons change. Schedules shift. Energy levels rise and fall.
You might love using the Eisenhower strategy we talked about earlier one week and loathe it the next, only to find yourself revisiting it three months from now.
You are allowed to change what’s not working. Let yourself pivot. Pivoting is flexibility and the key to real sustainable change.
If it helps, try using a simple weekly review prompt:
“What worked? What didn’t? What can I tweak and try again next week?”
TIp 7: Build in Tiny Rewards
Rewards aren’t just for kids and pets! Adults need positive reinforcement too. One of the best ways to make a routine stick is to pair it with something you actually enjoy.
Responded to a few tough emails? Standup, stretch, and listen to a favorite song.
Got up early to workout even when you were exhausted? Light a candle and sit down for five quiet minutes tonight.
Want to take a walk around the block? Pair it with listening to an inspiring or funny podcast episode.
The reward doesn’t have to be big or expensive. It just has to be something that tells your brain: Hey, that was worth it. Let’s do that again.
Even better? Celebrate effort, not outcome. Day didn’t go as planned? Did you make an attempt? Then you earned that reward!
You Don’t Need to Fix Everything at Once
Let’s bring it back to Rachel.
After a few coaching sessions, she stopped trying to overhaul her whole life in a single weekend. She picked two areas: meal planning (for joy) and email (for function). She created micro-routines around those. Some days they worked great. Some days they didn’t. But she stuck with it, not because she had perfect structure—but because she finally had permission to build a system that flexed with her life.
A few months later, her routines looked totally different. But they were hers. They were rooted in self-compassion, not control.
That’s the real goal.
Your Next StepS
This week, try this simple challenge:
Choose one tiny routine that adds joy to your week.
Choose one tiny routine that helps you manage a responsibility more efficiently.
Be sure you set those routine goals in a “can’t fail” format.
Reward your effort, not just the results.
And most importantly, remind yourself: The best routines are the flexible ones. You can’t expect a rigid routine to work in an unpredictable and always changing life.
And on that note, I am off to flexibly choose a walk around the block instead of a full workout since I need to pick up my kid early today and this blog post took a lot longer to write than expected.
Want some support with getting flexible routines set-up in your life?
Contact us to find out how Empowered Focus can help.
We’re always cooking up new ideas over here, so reach out to chat and find out what we can do to help you meet your own wonderful (and flexible) goals.
Disclaimer: While Dr. Liz is a licensed psychologist, the information provided herein is intended solely for educational purposes. Services offered by Empowered Focus, LLC are not to be considered a substitute for mental health therapy. Individuals requiring mental health therapy are advised to seek support from a qualified mental health provider in their respective localities. A valuable resource for locating such providers is Psychology Today.