One of my best weeks structure-wise was the week before university started.

I was waking up at 6am, having a slow morning routine, going to work, walking to the gym afterwards and lifting. I was eating properly, sleeping at a reasonable time, and generally feeling like I had finally designed the perfect routine.

There was just one problem, I had forgotten to account for university.

Once uni started, I suddenly had to figure out when exactly I was going to study four units, when I was going to strength train, when I was going to meal prep, when I was going to eat, and when I was going to sleep.

For about three weeks, I have done a remarkably bad job of doing any of those things consistently or even properly.

What I think is so interesting is that nothing particularly dramatic had happened. There wasn’t one catastrophic decision that ruined everything. One thing was just slightly out of place the first day of school, and then another thing had to move to accommodate it.

I couldn’t meal prep at the time I normally did, so I ate out. Eating out meant spending money I didn’t plan to spend, which meant having less money a few days later and eventually dipping into my savings. Study got pushed around exercise. Exercise got pushed around work. Meals got pushed around everything else. Sleep got pushed into a void.

And now, I’m still catching up on university work.

These chaotic past few weeks made me think about feedback loops. A feedback loop is a process where the outcome of one action feeds back into the process and influences what happens next.

The important thing though is that the result isn’t simply an endpoint. It becomes part of the conditions for the next decision. I think that this happens constantly in ordinary life.

For example, I skipped one study session yesterday because I was absolutely exhausted, now I have more work to do today.

I didn’t sleep at the correct time yesterday, so I have less time for exercise.

I skipped lifting this morning, which makes the week feel even more off track. These are all things that happened between last night and this morning, that has set up the rest of my day to be slightly more stressful.

If a week is very unpredicatable, you don’t allocate time to meal prepping; and when you’re not prepared, you spend more money eating out.

Because you’ve spent more money, you’re a bit more conscious of your finances, so now you’re thinking too hard about whether to go to Friday Night Salsa with the girls, because you know someone will bring up getting some food after, and you don’t quite have the disposable income for that right now.

Because you’re stressed about everything you have to catch up on, concentrating becomes harder. It feels so much easier to just lie on the couch, feel sorry for yourself, and doomscroll.

None of these decisions has to be particularly bad, but they change the conditions under which the next decision gets made, when when the conditions are not very attractive for the next decision, you end up living inside a pattern you never consciously chose.

In my experience, one of the biggest costs of a broken routine is the number of decisions it creates.

When things are working, a lot of my ordinary life happens without much thought. I don’t need to decide what I’m wearing from scratch every morning because I have a fairly simple outfit formula.

Casual: crew neck or black T-shirt with baggy jeans or black slacks.

A little more dressed up: pretty skirt and plain top(or vice versa), or a pretty dress.

Church: fancier dress.

That’s basically it.

It isn’t particularly adventurous, but it means not standing in front of my wardrobe every morning trying to solve a problem that doesn’t need solving.

The same thing applies to food. I repeat recipes. I use many of the same ingredients every week and try to prioritize protein, iron, and fibre intake. I weigh and track my food, but because I’m not constantly inventing completely new meals, that process isn’t particularly difficult.

The food is colourful and tastes good, so I actually enjoy eating it.

Unfortunately, routines and systems are not particularly sexy, and I say this as someone who gets home everyday and opens what I have literally named my “income and expenses operating system.”

Yes. I actually call it that.

But I (usually) know exactly where my money is going, what I can spend, what I’m saving, and what I’ve already committed to. It’s because of this spreadsheet that I have avoided unneccessary debt and stress.

This is just an example that feedback loops aren’t inherently bad themselves; a good routine creates conditions that make the next good decision easier.

Prepare your food → food is available when you’re hungry → you’re less likely to buy lunch → you spend less money → you have less financial stress.

Go to bed at a reasonable time → you’re less tired → getting up is easier → you’re more likely to exercise → you feel better → you’re more likely to repeat the routine.

Study when you’ve already allocated time for it → you’re less behind → you have less catch-up work → studying feels less overwhelming → you’re more likely to do it again.

The loop reinforces itself, but the only problem is that the same thing happens in the other direction. A bad pattern doesn’t necessarily feel destructive when you’re inside it. Each individual decision can feel completely reasonable.

I’ll study tomorrow.

I’ll eat out just today.

I’ll skip the gym this once.

I’ll catch up on the weekend.

I’ll fix my sleep next week.

And sometimes that’s completely fine. Life happens. You get sick. Work gets busy. Something unexpected comes up. The problem is when a slight deviation becomes the new pattern.

At some point, you’re no longer responding to the original problem. You’re responding to the consequences of the pattern it created. That’s what happened to me.

The original problem was simply that my old routine didn’t account for university; the consequences were three weeks of disorganisation, unnecessary spending, disrupted exercise and sleep, and a backlog of university work that I’m still dealing with.

I’ll say though, that sometimes a bad day is just a bad day, but some times a bad day can become the reason for another bad day, and that day can become the reason for another one.

At some point, you have to interrupt the sequence and make a different decision before the pattern becomes self-sustaining. Small choices change the conditions for the next choice.

The point of a routine isn’t to control every minute of your life. It’s to make enough of your life predictable that when something inevitably goes wrong, it doesn’t take everything else down with it. Because things will always go wrong. The question to ask is whether we will let it become a loop.