We just moved a couple of weeks ago—not a major move, literally down the road—and it’s been a serious eye-opener in terms of what changing houses can do for your habits. Moving into the new place, there was some degree of ‘immediately putting things back to the way we had them at the old place.’ But this move, I’ve tried really hard to think more about the daily living/habits/routines that we have, and whether they need to be tweaked. A brand new house is even better than January 1 in terms of a blank slate, and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity.
A few of the revamped habits I changed up after our move:
- Keeping my phone out of the bedroom. I’m going to do a whole post on this, but moving was a good chance to change where my phone charger lives, in a way that I struggled to do in our old place (for some reason, I never got around to simply moving the charger there…). When we unpacked, the charger never went into the bedroom. Instead, it’s in the living room so that when I get up, I’m unable to scroll Instagram for far too long before rolling out of bed. Huge difference!
- Resetting the bathroom with the stuff I want to be using. Look, running and cycling outside does take a toll on our skin as we age. So, yes, I consider skincare to be part of health/wellness/healthy habits. And with the new bathroom and unpacking into it, I thought about exactly how to ensure that I had easy access to what I should be using more often.
- Creating smarter workspaces inside and outside. I love sitting on the couch and working. My back is less enthused by the concept. So, I tried to make more spots indoors/outdoors where I want to work, so at least while some of them are lounge-ier than others, I can shift throughout the day.
- Developing a new strength routine. OK, this one is very much move-specific because we got a piece of gear that changes the routine. But because we have a garage now, we have a squat rack (of course!). This means my strength training is going to get tweaked now that I have easy access to a bar, heavier weights, and a dedicated area to actually keep all of the weights.
- Making it (eventually) easier to get ready to train. I admit right now it’s all taking longer since I had the muscle memory of run prep down at our old place, but I am trying to figure out the smoothest way to get from at the desk to out the door here, making it so that getting ready for a workout is the least time intensive part of the day.
- Figuring out new meal prep plans / new kitchen routines. Again, new kitchen, new chance to develop some good habits and routines. Up first, I’m testing some hydration solutions that will make me drink more water during the day. Time will tell!
You don’t have to move to use this idea, by the way: Make a small change in the house, re-orient your bed or desk or clear out a new space in the garage for your trainer setup. Heck, use a return from a vacation or work trip as the same kind of reset.
It’s also worth mentioning that moving also means that regular healthy habits I already had were in a bit of danger. I’m pretty good about things like my morning yoga/core routine, even when we travel, but moving definitely challenged those established habits a bit. Things like where to set up in the morning, or the desire to use our lovely patio and actually sit and have coffee first thing in the AM threatened to derail my normal routine. And I admit, I have missed a couple of days. Toast was easier to make than potatoes for breakfast in the first week or so, so I was having my ‘big run/interval run’ breakfast everyday. But now that things are unpacked and unboxed and in place, and I can’t make the excuse of ‘just getting one more thing done,’ my mornings are almost back to normal. It also took a few days to figure out where all of my running stuff was, and to repattern my movements to get out for a run. It’s still taking me a few extra minutes, and I’ve learned that muscle memory is a VERY real thing. I was surprised by how hard it’s been, since we do travel so much, but getting in the groove in your own house as you’re still unpacking and moving things around to best suit the space is tricky!
