Gloriously Ordinary Sundays - 18th January 2026

Test One for Gloriously Ordinary Lives is all about thinking whether or not the support someone is getting or the way in which they’re getting to live their life is what we’d want for ourselves or for someone we love. It’s a pretty good and simple baseline to check in on how things are going.

When I’m exploring this test with people, one of the things that we focus on is our daily rhythms, rituals, and routines. As humans, whether we admit it or not, we are creatures of habit. We do things the way we like them done, and we tend to have things that we do the same each day or each time we do that thing.

I bet if you stop and think about it, your first few minutes after waking up will look almost identical every day.

You have an alarm or not.

You press the snooze button or not.

You’re woken by pets, by kids, by a partner.

You reach for your phone, for a cigarette (oh yes, those were the days), your book, your journal, your running shoes.

You get up to make your partner a cup of tea … coffee (milk ...or not) … they make one for you?

I’d be willing to bet that you get out of the same side of bed and that the first few rituals of your morning don’t vary.

The reason this test is so important when we’re thinking about the support we get is that (and I’ve really learned this about myself) the detail of how we live is critically important to how okay we feel and how gloriously ordinary our life is.

I like to shop for food every couple of days. I’m not good at deciding about what I want to eat now that I live on my own, so I’ve found it works best for me if I go with the flow and plan day-by-day what I’m going to cook. I’m a 10-minute walk from the supermarket, so it’s easy. Ciaran likes to shop once a week on a Monday. He plans what he is going to cook for the week and what he is going to eat each day, and doesn’t deviate – ever. We both control our own routines, and no one challenges us.

I always brush my teeth before breakfast and within 10 minutes of waking up.

I need Radio Four on to get to sleep and leave it on all night so that when I wake up, it helps me get back to sleep.

I sleep with four pillows – two Tempur (on the bottom) and two feather (on the top).

Most people don’t know that about me (and don’t need to), but they are all critically important to my life. Critical might sound like a powerful word to use about when I brush my teeth, but I promise it is.

Imagine you’ve got a team of people who support you. I don’t know… three, four, maybe even seven or eight different people who are coming into your home on a daily basis. Or maybe you live somewhere alongside other people where there’s a changing team of humans in your life. Maybe you can easily tell people how you like things to be, maybe not.

On Monday morning, it’s Mary. Mary always remembers that it’s your home and expects you to answer your front doorbell. She wouldn’t dream of doing your washing up, unless you’re having a tough day and she knows that it would be the right thing to do. She knows that it’s your bed to make, your hovering to do, your meals to cook, and she helps you in the way she knows you like.

In the afternoon, Anna comes on shift, and she prides herself in taking care of the people she supports. She’ll bring you a cuppa without being asked, she’ll run the Hoover around, she’ll always answer the door and welcome people in, so you don’t get disturbed. She ALWAYS does your washing up and makes sure your kitchen is sparkling clean.

Tuesday is Mita, and she helps you brush your teeth before you have your breakfast. When Ruby and Precious are working, they wait until after you’ve had your breakfast.

Alison gets dinner ready and on the table for you by 5 o’clock. Marta asks you at 6 o’clock if you’re ready to start cooking.

Just take a beat and think about how wearing this must be. How stressful to have to remember the different ways all those different people feel they should help us to live our lives.

I’m not sure how long it would take before I decked Ruby or Precious for getting the teeth brushing wrong.

It’s definitely all in the details. What would your flash point be?

PPS. Back in the 1990s, Michael Smull developed a detailed process for person-centred planning called Essential Lifestyle Planning. This is particularly useful when we are support planning with people who don’t use words and where we need to get the detail of someone’s support right (everyone, yes!). Some of the language is a bit dated, but the ideas are still absolutely sound.

Michael developed some brilliant exercises to use with groups of people (maybe as part of induction processes) that help us think about rituals and routines, and there is more information here. Morning Routine is particularly powerful. He writes about rituals here.

PPS. Did you see? The Gloriously Ordinary Sundays Podcast episode 14 is here. You'll hear that I am absolutely thrilled to introduce you all to the lovely ⁠⁠⁠Marianne Selby-Boothroyd⁠⁠⁠, who's joining the Gloriously Ordinary Lives team... that's right, the Gloriously Ordinary Lives team! How exciting is that? Have a listen, and we'd love to hear what you think!