Loving change and hating routine??

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I also struggle with establishing helpful routines. I have a similar problem with organization. It is hard for me to set up a good, useful system that will actually work.

I do find it a bit helpful to "loosen" the parameters a bit. Instead of setting a specific hour or order of things, I plan what I will do in the "morning", "afternoon" and "evening". That gives me some flexibility and doesn't throw off the whole plan if I get interrupted or if something takes longer than expected. I also am not *required* to do things in the same order, if for some reason I get thrown off.

I also try to lump like-things together. For example, I try to do all my phone calls at once. I *hate* making phone calls, and it takes me a tremendous amount of time too gather up the nerve to do them. Instead of gathering up nerves for each individual call, I try to gather them up once and do all my phone calls while I've got it together.

It is much easier to follow a routine at a workplace. It is set up for work. When one is home, all sorts of interruptions can happen. Plus there's more food...

That was going to be next trial, breaking days up into 3 parts. I hate not being productive. I do the same, lump jobs together.

It helps me to write everything down, too. (Group appropriately). But, lately, I have not been wanting to do that even though I know it would help me and I should. Grrrr,

Ugh! I know right?! My workplace does this a lot. And this is a transitional work program for adults with disabilities mind you! Sometimes I think the folks running this program FORGET that they are working with the disabled.

I am a creature of routine. I hate change and transitions.

According to my last psychologist, anger or frustration come from expectations getting disappointed. If I expect a change which does not materialize, I also feel frustration. When dealing with what people say, I have to take their record into consideration. Some people always do things later than they predict. In that case, I can either constantly feel frustrated, obsess over why they can't adjust their predictions to match observable reality, or simply make my own adjustments to their predictions. I find the third option creates the least stress for me. I also don't mention what I'm doing, since people often don't appreciate their own wacky consistency, and don't like hearing about it.

Having more flexible, looser expectations generally helps me ride the waves of unanticipated change.

Routine does not provide enough opportunities to solve problems, and solving problems is one of my special interests.

I don't have a psychological need for routine and I like some changes and don't like others. If the old way works and the new way seems harder, I get upset with that, but there might be other times where I prefer the new way and wonder why it wasn't like this to begin with.

My workplace is very routine-oriented. It wasn't always like this, but over the past few years they've been heading in that direction, and I honestly don't really like that. There are certain things that I have to do every single day, no exception, and other activities that I need to do on specific days of the week, no exception. This causes me a great deal of stress as I wonder: What if I don't have time to do all of that stuff? And then my manager wants to add even stuff to the list of things I need to get done for that particular day. I preferred it back when I'd just come in and either work freight or they'd have another project for me to work on. It was much less stressful that way. I, of course, stick with the routines as much as I possibly can to avoid getting in trouble. If a manager asks me to deviate from that routine for a particular day, I'd have no problem with it, but then I'd have to make absolutely sure that that's what they want me to do and I won't get in trouble over it.

It's also worth noting that whenever things change at my workplace, which is a lot, a whole lot of people are going to complain about it, and I don't think those people are on the spectrum.

At home, I have routines for the sake of convenience and I fall into routines and sameness easily but if I deviate from it, then it's not upsetting at all. I'm socially awkward and get nervous around people, so I don't have much desire to leave the house. Coming home from work, I'm usually too tired to do much other than play video games and watch TV and surf the Internet. On the one hand, I'd be interested in trying new activities out, but on the other hand it's hard for me to come up with new things to try out, thus planning for vacations is rather difficult for me. But if I had to rigidly stick to a routine every single day like an autistic stereotype, I would probably hate that.