One of the questions I always have about being creative is "Does routine kill creativity?"
For most of us our lives are routine. We get up around the same time, we drive, walk, cycle, commute the same way to work each day. When we get to work we also follow the same routine - make coffee, start computer, scan e mail etc.
Seriously take a moment and think about your day and work out how much of it is the same every week.
Here is the flip side of that though to become proficient at anything we do we need to practice and practice means repetition and to successfully repeatedly do something a routine establishes a space for that practice and in time makes it a habit.
Routine also provides us with a sense of security and security gives us space in which to relax and personally I come up with more ideas when I feel relaxed.
Also having read and listened to a lot of creative people talk about how they come up with ideas. They all seem to have a formula that initiates creative thinking for them. Whether that is a particular room, activity, music, book etc.
And here is the interesting part of that. Their routine starts a mental process that kicks off ideas.
So from this it isn't routine that enslaves us it is when we let that routine stop us from thinking and we just become followers in our own life.
There are a lot of positives to routine it provides structure, a sense of security,a can actually provide time to think because we are not focused on the thing we do as routine. When routine becomes a rut is when we stop thinking and questioning what we are doing and why we are doing it, or when we start to use routine as an excuse for not doing something else or differently.In those situations we empower our routine to control us.
Isn't that true of all life? people are more discontent and frustrated when they have empowered somebody or something to be in control of them.