SYW205 – Find More Time with Routines

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What if you had the time for scrapbooking all along?

In this episode I’m chatting with Ashley Brown of Routine & Things to explore how routines can help scrapbookers create more consistently. Ashley shares how time is actually an energy management problem and the role of routines in correcting course.

We get into the weeds on what makes routines different from habits and how the best way to get started might not be what you would expect.

Links Mentioned

[00:00:00] Jennifer Wilson: Welcome to Scrapbook Your Way, the show that explores the breadth of ways to be a memory keeper today. I’m your host, Jennifer Wilson, owner of Simple Scrapper and author of The New Rules of Scrapbooking. This is episode 205. In this episode I'm joined by Ashley Brown from Routine & Things to learn how scrapbookers can benefit from implementing routines in the lives and in their hobby.

Hello friends, before we jump to my conversation with Ashley I wanted to share a few things we have coming up. This year our Book Club is reading Tranquility by Tuesday from Laura Vanderkam as a nine-month study group. Our first conversation is this Wednesday evening, covering just the first section. I’m excited to use these concepts as a lens to help us all create a better experience for our hobby, so we’re feeling fulfilled by our time. Book Club meetings are a member experience, so you can visit simplescrapper.com/membership to get more details about joining the community. Behind the scenes I’m also working on a new free workshop about the three things you need to create more consistently. I hope to have it completed by the end of the month, but today’s episode is a fantastic prequel for that. As you hear in the introduction Ashley specifically addresses why routines are important for creative consistency. Alright, so let’s get to it. Here’s my conversation with Ashley Brown.

[00:02:30] Jennifer Wilson: Hey Ashley. Welcome to Scrapbook Your Way.

[00:02:32] Ashley Brown: Hey Jennifer. Thank you for having me.

[00:02:34] Jennifer Wilson: Yes, I am eager to get to know you a little bit better. I was introduced to you by a friend, uh, late last year. So can you start by sharing a little bit about yourself?

[00:02:44] Ashley Brown: Yes. So. I am first and foremost a huge God girl. I always like to state that in the beginning. Um, in terms of like my roles, I'm a mom, so I have two girls. They're three and five. They are my heart. We live, um, me and my family here in Baltimore, Maryland. And, but I'm originally from the south, so I'm a South Carolina girl. Um, and other than that, I, I just love helping people. I don't know, that's what just keeps coming to my spirit. I'm like, I'm such a, I have such a serving spirit. And I do that right now through teaching. I'm a nurse educator as well as I own the business Routine and Things, which is all about helping women get organized, um, using routines to do so. And so that's just a little bit about me.

[00:03:31] Jennifer Wilson: Oh, that's awesome. I love that you kind of, you wear multiple hats. I do the same thing. I still work for the University of Illinois doing things related to drinking water. And so I like to be able to, to keep my feet in different worlds. And I find there's a lot of, I hate the word synergy, but you know, like cross-cutting, uh, influences where you learn from doing something different for your other activity. So.

[00:03:52] Ashley Brown: For sure, yes.

[00:03:55] Jennifer Wilson: So what's exciting you right now, this is my favorite favorite question to ask our guests. You know, what is one thing lighting up your life these days?

[00:04:04] Ashley Brown: Mm. So I'm actually something that's really lightened up my life. I haven't started it yet, but I'm really excited about the journey. I'm going to be doing like what I'm calling a, quote unquote um, silence retreat, even though it's not really totally silent.

[00:04:20] Ashley Brown: But, um, I keep just hearing within my spirits just like, get silent, be within your own thoughts, cut out all of like the content, information. Because I'm such like a information seeker. I'm a lifelong learner, so I'm always like listening to podcasts, listening to YouTube videos, listening to people on Instagram, this and the third. And although that's awesome, great. But at certain times, especially now in my life, I'm going through a transition and so I need more silence. I need to know like what are my thoughts? What am I saying within myself and cut out all of the noise. And so I'm supposed to be starting that next week, which I'm really excited about.

[00:04:57] Jennifer Wilson: Yes, yes. I think there's so much power in, in the quiet, and I'm hearing, in so many words throughout, out uh, the online community that I'm a part of, and those that are, you know, tangential to, to our creative community. Um, this just craving for more inward listening.

[00:05:16] Ashley Brown: Yes. It's so important and it's so, it's so valuable and needed. Because we can kind of get lost sometimes when we are listening to others. But you know, our inner voice is always speaking, and I think if we can tune into that more, then we can just expand and live our best lives, honestly.

[00:05:34] Jennifer Wilson: Yes, yes. So our audience here for Scrapbook Your Way is primarily scrapbookers and memory keepers. And I'm curious if you have an important memory that you want to keep in some way, but haven't yet. Like a photo display, a photo book, or some sort of other crafty project.

[00:05:49] Ashley Brown: Yes. So I take, me and my husband, we take a lot of pictures of our girls. And we're always like, we're gonna, you know, make sure that we keep these memories. And not even just pictures, because that's one piece of it, but we have like videos of them.

[00:06:07] Jennifer Wilson: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:07] Ashley Brown: Like doing certain things that are so unique to them at this time because they're such cute ages, like three and five, and they say the craziest things.

[00:06:15] Ashley Brown: They have.

[00:06:16] Jennifer Wilson: Yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:06:16] Ashley Brown: Quirky ways about themselves. And I'm like, I want you for my youngest, she's around here. She's always saying, butt. She's like, butt, butt, and I'm like, I wanna cap, I wanna capture that and I wanna put it somewhere so that you can see yourself talking about mommy butt, daddy butt and all of that. So like, that's something that I haven't done, but I wanna capture those videos specifically for them in some type of way.

[00:06:40] Jennifer Wilson: Oh yeah, that sounds so fun. I always thinking about like it's some milestone in the future of these photos and videos we have, if they're gonna let us share them.

[00:06:49] Ashley Brown: Exactly right. They're probably gonna be like, mom, dad, like stop.

[00:06:55] Jennifer Wilson: Uh huh. For sure. So can you tell us a little bit more about how Routine and Things came to be?

[00:07:02] Ashley Brown: Yeah. So Routine and Things came along back in 2019. But really the journey started far beyond that. I was a stay-at-home mom for close to three years. And in that beginning phase of being a stay-at-home mom, I really lost sight of myself. My life got really disorganized at the time. And um, I also was deeply depressed, um, for some time throughout the beginning stages of being a stay-at-home mom.

[00:07:27] Ashley Brown: And so, I prayed and I asked God for help, and I really just went, went within myself to try to figure out what I needed to do differently. And I, I really feel like I heard God say like routines. Routines is, you just need better routines around here. And I really didn't know at the time, I knew what routines were, but before then they had already, they had fallen into place really easily. And I didn't put much thought into them, but at this point in my life I was like, oh, I have to intentionally like start new routines, but I didn't know what to do. So using my teacher brain and all the tools that I had at the time, I was like, okay, let me try to put this together. Through a lot of trial and error, I started to figure out like, Ooh, this works when it comes to routines, this doesn't. And um, eventually I got to a point where I had stable routines, a part of my life. They felt good, and I remember thinking like, dang, how did I get to this place of peace being a stay-at-home mom and I credit much of it to having routines. That really helped me to stabilize and stay grounded and stay organized enough so that even when un expectancies occurred or just things came out of the blue, I could at least fall into place with my routines. And my routines were kind of helping me have predictability and stability. And so that's when I decided in 2019, I was like, Ooh, I wanna teach women. Right? The teacher in me is like, I wanna teach about this, and so that's when I started Routine and Things and really just started a community and sharing information. But yeah, that's how all of it got started.

[00:09:10] Jennifer Wilson: Now, if you had to compare yourself like a before and after, can you elaborate more on like some of the struggles you had before and then the ones that maybe were less or you know, even eliminated by having the routines?

[00:09:24] Ashley Brown: Yeah, so a struggle that I had before was, I'm gonna share a really tangible struggle. It was just like in the mornings things just felt really chaotic. Like I would wake up and I had only one daughter at the time. I ended up becoming pregnant with my second daughter. But I would wake up and it would just be like this rush in the morning, even though I didn't have anywhere to go.

[00:09:47] Ashley Brown: That's what was so weird about it. I always felt like, Ooh. Like, I need to get up. I need to start doing things. But then I was like, well, what do I do? And then my daughter wouldn't be dressed at a certain time and I'm like, why is she still in pajamas? Like, what have I done today? I just felt frazzled, honestly. It was like I just felt rushed and frazzled. Because I didn't really have structure, right? It was no structure. It was just like, oh, let me get up and let me figure out what I'm gonna do today. But that led me to, because I didn't really have a system or process for going about things, I would just be doing random things that didn't really matter. And so having routines really allowed me to have more structure. You know, having a routine with me and my daughter in the morning and also leading into the afternoon was really helpful so that I'm like, okay, so roughly around this time of day we're doing this, and then this time of day we're doing that. And so that was really, really helpful. And then when I like, I also wanna share like intangibly, even though I feel like it can be felt like something that really was troublesome for me was, I was really, really moody at the time. Like I, um, would go from A to Z in like a hot second, very much like.

[00:11:00] Jennifer Wilson: Yeah.

[00:11:00] Ashley Brown: Just very much temperamental. And I, I'm a Cancer, so we are just naturally, I feel like moody as far as Zodiac signs go. And so, but it was like on 10 and I'm like, oh my gosh, like I need to like get myself together. And even at that time for a certain extent, for a certain extent being depressed too. I was like, okay, I need to change how I'm feeling like this.

[00:11:24] Ashley Brown: I can't live like this. And so having a morning routine really helped to strengthen my mindset. and really helped me to get outside of depression. I had things like journaling and my morning routine gratitude practice. And so just focusing on like mindset things in my morning really helped me to lessen like my moodiness some, and also help me to get outside of my depression, which was really helpful.

[00:11:49] Ashley Brown: So routines helped in so many different ways, it's insane. It's not just like the, the physical structure or like you have a timeline. Or that is it also, routines really help you in connecting with yourself, and they can be structured in a way that they don't just help with tangible things. They can help with your mindset too, and your emotion. Emotional management.

[00:12:17] Jennifer Wilson: Well, yeah, and I imagine, oh, sorry. Go ahead.

[00:12:19] Ashley Brown: No, no, I was just gonna say they can really help in, in different ways. So if you're feeling like, oh yeah, I do need a morning routine because I just want a, a better flow, great. But then also if you're like, Ooh, I do find that I'm like snapping all of the time, like you can put a routine in place to help you in managing that as well.

[00:12:38] Jennifer Wilson: Yeah, I just, I, I was gonna say that there's this huge ripple effect in terms of improving your relationships with, you know, partners, children, whoever's in your life, even coworkers, if you work outside the home, that if you are starting your day in a better place, it's only gonna kind of cause more success throughout the rest of the day.

[00:12:58] Ashley Brown: Oh, for sure.

[00:13:01] Jennifer Wilson: So in your latest pod podcast episode, you talked about successful routines reducing friction. And so I wanna give our audience kind of an idea of help helping them identify some of the most common friction points in our days. And I, I know that the, the morning getting out, if anybody has to get out the door or getting the kids, you know, going for the day, those are some of them. But what else would you include in that?

[00:13:25] Ashley Brown: Yeah. I will also include, um, bedtime is a friction for many people. Um, because sometimes we don't want to get to bed at a, we want to like, we naturally want to internally, we want to. But we don't always get to bed at a decent time or we don't sometimes fall to sleep in a way that's really gonna help us have like a restful night or, or just better sleep in general.

[00:13:49] Ashley Brown: So nighttime, because I just feel like really for us as adults, sometimes it's like we're trying to regain our power at night because we've been working all day. And so to do that, we'll sometimes go into activities and over consume because it's like, Ooh, I want some me time, but me time lasts until midnight or after midnight, and then you're like exhausted in the morning.

[00:14:08] Ashley Brown: So I feel like that's friction there. I also think of really major. um, point in the day as well is trying to figure out dinner. Like that's like a major one for all of us. It's like, oh, well what am I cooking tonight? And even though it can seem very minute, it's like that can take up time when you're trying to figure out what to cook or you're like looking to your partner and they're like, I don't know either.

[00:14:30] Ashley Brown: And it just takes time, especially when you have kids like even then it just even gets worse. And so I think that's definitely a frictional point of the day, that you can implement a routine. Like a meal plan routine, for example, could help you in having ideas for what you're going to cook so that you're not thinking as much or taking as long to decide. Another, I think another one too, and I heard this from one of my, um, close business friends. She was like, she struggles between the hours of like four to seven. Like that window of time once the kids like get out of school and before bed. And so I was sharing with her, like if that's the case and like you're struggling or you're feeling like super bored or you're feeling like restless during that time, what type of routine could you put in place that kind of helps you, helps to like energize you or give you a type of focus? What can that be so that you're not just feeling like you're trying to make it through that time, but you're actually finding value in that time, before bed. And so I feel like those are really the frictional points in our day. It's morning, bedtime, around mealtime, and then also maybe if you have kids in school, like once they get out, between the time they get out and bedtime.

[00:15:47] Jennifer Wilson: Yes. Yes. I think the, the mealtime, especially. My daughter's now 11 and she's in middle school and all these like, activities. And so sometimes the activities are at 4:15, sometimes they're at 7. And so we're, it's not even what we're having to eat, but okay, what time are we actually needing to eat this so that we can get to the thing?

[00:16:05] Jennifer Wilson: Um, and that's definitely one of the huge one. And I think that also highlights that whatever season of life you're in is going to guide what routines you might need because it's not gonna be consistent from here on out.

[00:16:17] Ashley Brown: Mm-hmm. . Exactly, and that's very true. We, we have to pay attention to what season are we in.

[00:16:24] Jennifer Wilson: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:24] Ashley Brown: And how can we use routines to really help to support us in that season.

[00:16:31] Jennifer Wilson: So can you talk a little bit about the difference between habits and routines? And is developing one harder than the other, and how do they work together and all that?

[00:16:40] Ashley Brown: Yeah. So habits and routines are different. They have some similarities just in terms of you get that predictability and you can get structure with both. Um, however, habits are automatic so you're not thinking. It's not really conscious thought to do a habit. It's more in your subconscious. And so that's a habit. A routine is more on the conscious level. It's not automatic. You're still gonna have to think. Now after time, you won't have to think as hard, but you still are gonna have to think in order to get up and like do your routine and move through the, through the steps. Um, also, habits are typically like one thing that you're doing, like maybe you're like in the habit of drinking water, whereas a routine has, is usually multi-step.

[00:17:26] Jennifer Wilson: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:27] Ashley Brown: That's another huge difference. Is one harder to like established than another? I would say of course, like a habit, definitely is. I don't even know, I would say harder, but it's gonna take more time. If you're trying to get something to, to be automatic and not thought about. That's gonna take good, like a great amount of time. Versus a routine which you can establish in weeks or even like a month. It's easy for you to establish a routine quicker than actually forming a habit. A nd so I always share with people, you really want to think about what is your goal, like what goal do you have and which one would best serve you for that goal. Um, if you know, for example, maybe you're like, I want to x or like lose weight, I'm just, that just came off the top of my head, probably cuz that's what I'm focused on. But I wanna lose weight. which one would most benefit you based upon how you wanna go about losing weight. If it's like, okay, I wanna exercise or move my body, maybe a routine might be better for you because it might be multi-steps in order to move your, like when it comes to moving your body. Or you might be like, no, I wanna focus on my nutrition. I just wanna get in more veggies. Well, maybe taking that and making that a habit could be more beneficial for you. A routine could do the same thing as well, but you really wanna think about what, which one is most beneficial for the outcome that you want for your life. Um, I think it's really helpful to start with the routine. Just because they're, I feel like easier to manage in a sense. Um, and it's not as much pressure I think sometimes when we feel like, oh, I wanna make something a habit. Sometimes I feel like we don't feel like we can get there because it does have to be automatic in order for it to be a habit.

[00:19:17] Ashley Brown: But a routine is, I feel like, just a lower pressure in a sense. And it's also more flexible because as we just said, seasons change. And so maybe this season you wanna move your body in one way, and the next season you're like, I wanna do something different to move my body and so it, it really is just depending on what you need, but I think both are really great. But really just think about which one would most benefit you in this season of life.

[00:19:46] Jennifer Wilson: Now, would you say that routines are kind of like fake it till you, make it in terms of when you're looking at maybe a developing a habit as the desired outcome?

[00:19:56] Ashley Brown: When you're looking to develop a habit as a desired outcome. Many people will try to go the routine route to develop a habit, which I don't feel like that's bad. That's not, you know, that's not a bad thing. However, when I think about trying to get to a habit through a routine, I feel like it's gonna be harder when you can just focus on the one habit.

[00:20:19] Ashley Brown: Like just focus on the habit because, now, I feel like if you are trying to create a routine, it's easier to go from taking a habit to trigger your routine, but not the other way around. I feel like if you have an established habit, like for example, we all, most of us brush our teeth or wash our face in the morning. You can take that habit and then say, oh, I want a skincare routine to come after brushing my teeth. That's easier for you to get into a routine with skincare that was triggered from a habit that you already have established versus saying I want to go from a routine to then making my routine into a habit that's gonna be much harder.

[00:20:57] Jennifer Wilson: Okay. Okay. Thank you for, um, going deep into that. I know that's a conversation that we, we often have in our community.

[00:21:03] Ashley Brown: Oh yeah.

[00:21:04] Jennifer Wilson: Now, as I mentioned, our audience are, you know, we're primarily hobbyists. We're doing things for fun, but sometimes the things we wanna do for fun don't seem to happen as much as we would like.

[00:21:15] Jennifer Wilson: So how can routines help us find that time, energy and motivation for, for doing our hobbies. Not just buying the things or reading about the things, but doing them.

[00:21:27] Ashley Brown: Yeah. So one beautiful thing about routines is that they create margin for you. Margin in terms of time and also they will help you to better manage your energy. Because I feel like many times our, for some of us time is an issue. For some of us, time is truly an issue for, I feel like for most of us, time isn't really the issue. It's more so how we're managing our energy throughout the day. And that's what leads us to doing certain activities or over consuming in certain activities or not taking action, is because we're feeling super tired or we're feeling very drained, or we're feeling maybe not as satisfied in life. And so that leads us to not taking action in certain ways.

[00:22:16] Ashley Brown: And so I really feel as if routines can help you better manage your energy, by helping you conserve energy. Some routines help you restore energy as well. And so when you're having routines, because it's helping you manage your energy, it's gonna better help you manage your time and that will help you to be able to do the hobby, be able to, you know, do your scrapbooking and actually have the energy and time to do so.

[00:22:42] Ashley Brown: And so that's where I really like to highlight routines for women and just people in general. Because we will focus so much on time and if we really think about it and we like do a time study, most of that time is sucked up by us not really managing our energy well. Um, and so, um, if we can learn to manage our energy better, time will open up. You'll have more space and more margin in your life.

[00:23:10] Jennifer Wilson: What would be an example of a routine that would restore your energy? Are we talking about exercise here or, or you have other ideas in mind?

[00:23:18] Ashley Brown: Exercise definitely can restore your energy. Uh, depending on how you create these routines. Uh, morning routine can restore your energy. And specifically, this is when I highlight really hugely, a bedtime routine is hands down, gonna restore your energy. If you have a, a really solid bedtime routine and you are going to bed at a good time for you, which is different for everybody. You're going to bed at a time that is good for you and you're getting good sleep, that automatically is gonna restore your energy in a really impactful way. And so a bedtime routine, morning routine, exercise routine. Those routines can really help to restore your energy and even planning routines can too, because you're decreasing the mental load. So, yeah.

[00:24:00] Jennifer Wilson: Hmm. Yes. Yes. So I also hear a lot of talk about planners and organization cuz of course we love all the things that go with those things, when we're talking about building new routines. But I, those have their role, but I think sometimes we get stuck there versus focusing on taking action. Why do you think that happens?

[00:24:21] Ashley Brown: Oh my gosh, because because we love to dream. I think that's why it happens.

[00:24:28] Jennifer Wilson: Hmm.

[00:24:28] Ashley Brown: I feel like just naturally, we love to hope for the best and make the plans because, uh, it just, it's easier. It's easier to plan to do something many times than to actually do it from, for many of us. And if it's, if we can like quickly take out a planner or a sheet of paper and then write out what we hope to accomplish and what goals we have for the week and what we need to get done. That's easier than the act of actually doing it, especially when maybe we're not managing our energy well, throughout the week. It's just easier to sit down and do it. And I just feel like sometimes we do get, like I said, we get attached to the outcome, but we don't get attached to the process that is needed or the doing that is needed to even create the outcome. We're more attached to the outcome than the actions that it takes to get there. And I think that's where a lot of us get stuck. Cuz we can write as, as we know, we can write down many things, but what is the point of writing it down if we're not really taking into account how we're gonna get there, what it looks like to get there. Do we even wanna get there? Because sometimes we just have so much noise that's telling us we need to do this or this or this, and it's like, wait, you even wanna be doing that? What is it gonna take for you to get there? And so I think that's why we get so stuck is because we are hopeful of the outcome and we get so attached to the outcome that we don't think deep enough about what it's going to take for us to actually get to the outcome.

[00:26:04] Jennifer Wilson: Yes. Yes. And I think instead of valuing progress and baby steps and you know, that each, each implementation of a process, whether it's perfect or you know, just the, the beta version or the alpha version, it's all gonna start moving us forward.

[00:26:21] Ashley Brown: Exactly. Yeah.

[00:26:24] Jennifer Wilson: So many scrapbookers talk about feeling overwhelmed even when they do have the time and energy to get started. Maybe they've even set aside this time, so they come, they sit down, whether they're at their computer because they're a digital scrapbooker, or they're in a, at a table because they're a paper scrapbooker. What kind of routines do you think hobbyists need to reduce or prevent this feeling of just being overwhelmed with, you know, too much to do, feeling behind, too many choices, that type of thing.

[00:26:55] Ashley Brown: Mm. I honestly feel as if, if you can get a routine down that helps you to declutter your mind in some type of way that can be super helpful. Whether that is a routine that includes like brain dumping, some type of planning routine, um, maybe a routine that includes journaling. I think we keep a lot of our str, well, a lot of our stress comes from what we're thinking about. And so, if you can release some of the thoughts and the things that just keep being crowded in your head, that will lighten your load a bunch. Because if you're keeping everything in your mind when you go to sit down to scrapbook, it's not going to be a pleasurable experience. It's not gonna be a really beautiful experience because you're thinking about so many things, and so having some type of routine like that and just in general, any routine that you start, is going to help to decrease mental load in some type of way, to be perfectly honest. Because it's giving you more structure and predictability, which helps to decrease mental load. And so you can really start any routine. But if you're really trying to tackle just that overwhelming feeling, that's coming from what you're thinking. And so if you can brain dump them or declutter your mind in some type of way, that's gonna be really, really helpful. I believe.

[00:28:26] Jennifer Wilson: Excellent. I know that will help a lot of our listeners. So, uh, I'm curious, what are the requirements or, or prerequisites that you see for a routine to be effective? And I'm guessing this is something maybe you teach in, in your classes and the things that you do. Like, how do we know, how do we make sure that we're checking all the boxes?

[00:28:47] Ashley Brown: Yeah, so prerequisites, before you even start a routine is one, you have to get very clear on what are your views of a routine? Because some of us, I like to call, I like to call these people routine rebels. And we have 'em where, which is fine. I love a routine rebel because I'm like, yes, girl, come on over this way.

[00:29:09] Ashley Brown: Because it is just like that blockage that we can have that's like, Ooh, I'm not a routine person, or a routine won't work for me because of my personality or how I am. And that's so far from the truth because everybody has routines and I always like to highlight this. I'm like, you have routines. You just don't call them routines, but it's things and steps that you take consistently throughout your day and throughout your week that you're doing.

[00:29:35] Ashley Brown: So everyone is a routine person, so that's the first prerequisite is you must know that you, you have to believe that you're a routine person and you have to believe that they will work for you, that's first. Another prerequisite before you start a routine is you have to assess your routines. Many times we will want a certain routine just because we feel like we should have that routine. But we may need another routine that might be more beneficial in our season of life. So it's important to assess what routine is really going to be helpful for you by thinking about what's working in your life, what's not working at certain points of your day? Where can you have more efficiency, more effectiveness in your day? Where can you better manage your energy in your day to really decide which routine is gonna be most beneficial?

[00:30:30] Ashley Brown: And so that's another one is a huge one, is you have to assess your routines.

[00:30:35] Jennifer Wilson: Hmm. I love that. Because I think sometimes we have, we have, again, that attachment to the outcome. And so we think we need to, you know, insert routine at this point in the day, and maybe we have a routine that's actually working well. It may be not what everybody else does. It may not be the, you know, the lengthiest most involved. But if it's, if it's for you, then, then why change it?

[00:30:57] Ashley Brown: Exactly. Exactly. And that's what I share all the time. I'm like, don't go and overhaul your routines when you may not even need to. Yeah.

[00:31:04] Jennifer Wilson: Yes. Yes. So do you have any final advice for those who want to create, whatever it is they create more consistently?

[00:31:13] Ashley Brown: Yes. So, one of the biggest things that I like to share is being able to recognize when you're meeting resistance and getting really curious about maybe why you're not being as consistent. Because it's something that's happening. Sometimes it's not just that you're not able to. Everyone is capable of being consistent. But when you can identify what the resistance is and really get curious about that, cuz it might you, your mindset may be the resistance, maybe your environment may be the resistance. Timing may be the resistance. But if you don't get curious about what the resistance is, then you won't be able to remedy it. And so it's really important that you recognize your resistance and once you can identify what's holding you back, what's hindering you from being consistent, then start small and start to chip away at that so that over time you get more and more consistent.

[00:32:14] Jennifer Wilson: Oh, I love that. Thank you so much.

[00:32:16] Ashley Brown: Yeah.

[00:32:17] Jennifer Wilson: Ashley this has been so delightful to get to know you a little bit better and to glean some of your wisdom. Can you share what we can find you online? Anything you have new or coming up here in 2023?

[00:32:29] Ashley Brown: Yes. So you can find me online at RoutineandThings on Instagram. Um, I also have a website RoutineandThings.com. But what's coming up in 2023, I have something really special that I can't announce just yet, but.

[00:32:42] Jennifer Wilson: Okay.

[00:32:42] Ashley Brown: It's coming up in April. But also our planner is coming back in April of 2023, the Routine and Things planner, which I'm super excited about and has gotten really good feedback. And so, um, it's coming out back out in April and it'll also be back in October too.

[00:33:00] Jennifer Wilson: Nice. Nice. So April sounds like a big month for you. We will look forward to all the things that are coming new for you.

[00:33:06] Ashley Brown: Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer.

[00:33:09] Jennifer Wilson: Yes. Thanks so much for spending time with me and to all of our listeners, please remember that you have permission to Scrapbook Your Way.

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