Wake up, go to work, work, go home, sleep.

Rinse and repeat.

And continue to repeat for as long as necessary.

To be completely honest, this topic has been dancing in my head for while. When you've been going the same thing over and over for days on end, there are plenty of times when the mind wanders.

As much as I like interning and working on a construction site, it becomes pretty easy to develop a routine when progress goes at a steady (albeit, slower than expected) pace.

It's been about five weeks or so that I've been applying mud and taping drywall joints inside the houses that I have been working on. Yeah, that sounds like a long time for just slapping some mud up on the wall. But if you have to go find every single nail and screw head that's a little too far out or redo entire walls with mud two or three times over, then it just eats up your time.

Finally, things look to be just about done with the interior walls...

Until I remember that the walls still need to be prep-coated and textured, doing dry wall repairs in between each step when the tape blisters up from underneath the layers of mud.

Oh, and don't forget to sand. Sand everything with every application of mud and fix it up. Gotta make that wall smooth as silk before you apply the texture.

It's not a bad thing to have a routine. It's a comforting thought to know exactly what the next day will be like before you go to bed in the evening. Humans are creatures of habit, after all. I personally prefer to know schedules beforehand. One: It gives me time to mentally steel myself if it turns out to be something I dread. Or two: I can figure out “plans of attack” to have at the ready so I've got a general idea on how to go about my work.

Routines are great. Once you make a habit out of something and continue to practice it, you are bound gain some proficiency. After all that mud, smoothing it out to remove any scars and imperfections, I like to think I've gotten somewhat decent at the process. You don't have to keep fussing over the little details, either, since you can automatically do those actions without too much conscious thought. You can shut your mind off and have a pseudo-meditative moment. It's becomes kinda relaxing at that point.

On the other hand, routines can be quite the taxing, too, especially if it's an activity that you don't particularly enjoy. Time simply flies when you're having fun (or if you're not keeping your eyes on the clock all the time) but drywall isn't exactly high up on the scale of excitement. If your concentration happens to break, then dang does time just drag on and on.

But I suppose for me, the pros outweigh the cons. Routines help minimize the kind of stress and anxiety I tend to get when I don't know what to expect the next morning. It's one less thing to have flitting about and taking up space in my head. It's times like these, though, when I wish there were more people to help get work done at my job. There's only so much that a handful of people can do at one time. But hey, if it needs to be done, then I rather it be done the right way.

Or maybe I've just gone mad from all the mud this summer. I guess mudding and sanding the same white walls for six to seven hours a day, five days a week, really does take its toll after a while.