Recently, I’ve noticed how routine my routine is getting.

Wake up. Gym. Shower. Pack school lunches. Get kids ready for school. Go to work. Teach. Take kids to afterschool activities. Drive kids home. Play with kids. Do some chores. Eat dinner. Bathtime. Tuck girls in. Watch TV. Go to bed.

That’s it. That’s the whole routine almost every single day.

Amid the ordinariness of my daily grind, I had a strange feeling that the structure and sameness of the routine I’d gotten used to was making me more creative. I feel energized and innovative at work and home. I’m thinking of inspired lessons to teach and having more fun participating in imaginative play with the girls at home.

But when I googled daily routines, I discovered mostly warnings online. “Don’t let this happen to you!”

“Break up the monotony.”

“Life is passing you by, Drinko.”

I’m paraphrasing, of course.

My anecdotal evidence went against most of what I discovered about humdrum routines.

Novelty is fun. Society seems obsessed with new and different—the next pop star, the latest slang, the unprecedented this or that. But novelty takes up a lot of our brain space. If I’m immersed in........

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