Back to routine, sharp as a new pencil

There is something about September that makes me want to buy a pencil.

Not a box of pencils. Not a super expensive Japanese one (although those are rumoured to be amazing). Just one good, old-fashioned, yellow wooden pencil. The kind that needs to be sharpened and leaves little curls of wood in the garbage. The kind that makes you feel, for just a moment, that you have your life together.

My school days are long behind me, but every September, when the back-to-school displays start appearing in stores, I feel a little tug toward the school supplies aisle. There are notebooks with pristine pages, packages of pens that have not yet mysteriously disappeared, pencil cases that have brand new zippers. Everything is clean, organized and full of possibility.

Looking at it, I think, “This year I am going to be organized.” Of course, I am not going back to school, so I have no idea what I am going to organize. But the feeling remains.

September has always been associated with a fresh start. The summer is winding down, routines return and everyone seems to be making plans. Children are heading back to classrooms, parents are attempting to remember which days are library days and which days require gym shoes, and the rest of us are looking at our calendars and wondering how it is possible that we are already talking about Thanksgiving.

For those of us in the working world, September can be a useful reminder routines are not necessarily boring and can be one of the simplest ways to get things done. We tend to think of discipline as something stern and unpleasant, like being told to run laps or copy lines. But discipline does not have to mean suffering. Sometimes, discipline is simply deciding something will happen regularly at a particular time, and then doing it often enough you stop having a debate with yourself about it.

That last part is important because procrastination loves a debate. If I tell myself I am going to write something at some point today, my brain immediately begins negotiating. Perhaps after coffee. Definitely after checking email. Maybe after answering just one text. Then I remember there is a fascinating article I should read, followed by an important question about whether I have ever properly cleaned out my junk drawer. Suddenly, it is 3:47 p.m. and I am researching drawer organizers instead of doing the thing I actually needed to do.

Procrastination is rarely about not knowing what needs to be done. Usually, we know exactly what needs to be done. The problem is the task feels uncomfortable, tedious, complicated or just large enough our brains decide there must be something, anything else that requires our immediate attention.

This is where routine can save us from ourselves. If you have a particular task you routinely put off, try taking the decision out of it. Instead of saying, “I really should work on that report today,” give yourself a time and a place. Perhaps every Tuesday morning, after your coffee, you spend the first 30 minutes on reports before opening emails.

The goal is not to become a productivity superhero. It is simply to make the behaviour predictable.

There is something reassuring about rituals, too. Many of us have them without realizing it. We make coffee the same way every morning. We walk the dog at roughly the same time. We have a favourite chair for reading, particular playlist for cleaning or habit of making a to-do list before starting work. These little rituals can act as signals to our brains it is time to switch gears. The coffee does not magically make us productive, but the routine surrounding it can help create a transition into the day.

The trick is not to create an elaborate system that requires its own instruction manual. I have seen productivity systems that involve colour coding, multiple calendars, elaborate spreadsheets and enough categories to make me wonder whether the person is managing their work or preparing for an audit. If that works for you, wonderful, but a routine does not need to be complicated to be effective. Sometimes it is simply, “When I sit down at my desk, I deal with the most important thing first.”

The same principle applies to the things we avoid. If you have been putting off making a difficult phone call, responding to an uncomfortable email or starting a project that feels overwhelming, make the first step ridiculously small. You do not have to finish the whole project. Open the document. Write the first paragraph. Find the phone number. Put the appointment in the calendar. Spend 10 minutes on it. Starting is often the hardest part and once something is underway, it tends to become considerably less intimidating.

This is also where discipline is different from motivation. Motivation is wonderful when it shows up, but it is not particularly reliable. If we waited until we felt motivated to do everything that needed doing, there would be a lot of very clean houses and remarkably few tax returns. Discipline means doing something even when you are not particularly inspired to do it. The good news is you do not have to feel disciplined. You just have to follow the routine you have already established.

There is a workplace lesson here as well. Employers sometimes talk about productivity as though the answer is simply for employees to work harder or manage their time better. But good routines are often created by the environment around us. Clear priorities, realistic deadlines, regular check-ins and reasonable workloads make it much easier for people to stay on track. If everything is urgent, nothing is truly prioritized. If priorities change every 20 minutes, even the most disciplined employee is going to spend a lot of time wondering what they are supposed to be doing.

And perhaps that is why I like the symbolism of that September pencil. It represents the idea we can begin again without making the whole thing complicated. We do not need a dramatic reinvention of ourselves every fall. We do not need a new personality, a colour-coded planner and a promise we will wake up at 5 a.m. every morning to meditate, exercise and make homemade granola.

Sometimes, we just need a pencil. A fresh one. Sharpened. Ready to go.

We can use it to write down the one thing we have been avoiding, schedule a time to do it and then actually follow through. We can create a few simple rituals that make our work easier, rather than relying on motivation to rescue us. We can accept procrastination will always be waiting in the wings, probably holding a very convincing argument about why reorganizing the junk drawer is suddenly an urgent priority.

September gives us permission to start fresh. Even if we are not buying school supplies for anyone, we can still take advantage of that feeling. We can sharpen the pencil, clear the desk, look at the calendar and decide what needs to happen next.

And if buying a new pencil makes us feel a little more organized in the process, I say go for it. At my age, I deserve to enjoy the back-to-school sale without having to do the homework.

Tory McNally, CPHR, BSc., vice-president, professional services

at TIPI Legacy HR+ (formerly Legacy Bowes), is a human resource

consultant, relationship builder and problem solver.

She can be reached at tmcnally@tipipartners.com