Disruptions to Routines: Large – Part 3

This is Part 3 of the Blog series on Disruptions to Routines.  If you missed Part 1 and/or Part 2 you can read them here.

Disruptions of Routines: Small, Medium, and Large, Part 1

Disruptions of Routines: Small, Medium, and Large, Part 2

Large Disruptions:

These kinds of disruptions will need to be handled in a totally different way.  Most of these are either longer term disruptions (weeks or months) or complete life changing ones. Not all of these are bad events.  But all will throw off your routines for a fair amount of time or require new routines.  Wedding-cake

Longer but usually temporary disruptions.  

  1. Planning for your child’s wedding.
  2. Planning and going on a major family vacation.
  3. Injuries such as a broken leg, arm, or other bones.  It could be you or a family member. This may require changing routines for doctor appointments, special bathing to accommodate casts, or restrictions on physical activity.
  4. Minor surgeries that temporarily restrict what the person can do.  Bunion/foot surgery, knee or hip surgery, tonsillectomy, hysterectomy, and many others where life will get back to normal after a few weeks or months.
  5. Selling and moving to a new house.  You may need to change some of your routines on a permanent basis depending on the house and location. Bigger or smaller home to clean. Longer or shorter commutes to work or school.
  6. Breaks from and to school.  The beginning of the school year requires a change in routine from the summer break. Sending children off to college is even a bigger change because they aren’t living at home for months on end.

Life changing disruptions that will require a “new normal”.

Again, these are not always bad things.

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  1. Adding a spouse or significant other to your household and lifestyle.
  2. Adding a first, second, or more children to your household and lifestyle.
  3. Moving to a new city for another job or retirement.
  4. Taking a job outside the home after staying home when the children were young.
  5. Different stages of your children’s lives will require updating your routines. From babies, to toddlers, to school age, to teenagers, and beyond the activities of the household have significant changes.

 

More difficult life changing disruptions.

You may anticipate some of these or they may come completely out of the blue.

  1. Aging parents. You may only have to deal with minor but ongoing distractions such as helping with transportation and shopping. Or it can be a total major life change for you if the aging parent requires a lot of your time physically and mentally to take care of their illnesses, dementia, etc. This may be short term or involve many years.
  2. Major life changing illness. It could be your’s or a family member. Cancer, heart attack, stroke, or even diabetes will require lifestyle changes from temporary to permanent. Medical treatments, dietary changes, physical limitations, or frequent doctor visits.  New routines and even a changing mental outlook may be needed to adjust to these kinds of disruptions.
  3. A divorce or a death of a spouse will require a “new normal”.
  4. A major injury that requires a major change of lifestyle.  This may include a loss of a limb, brain injury, eye injury leaving loss of sight, or major burn injury.

When you stop to think about all the bad things that could happen you start to realize those small daily or even medium disruptions aren’t so bad.  By learning to be grateful for the good things (small, medium, or large) that happen you won’t get so stressed out everyday over the annoying disruptions.

 Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not get bent out of shape.”                                         ~Anonymous

This concludes the three part blog series on Disruptions to Routines.  If you are looking for solutions to those annoying disruptions please ask for them in the comment section of this blog or on the FaceBook Page

To a lighter load along the way.

Janice