How to keep healthy habits when you start a new job

Why a health habit stops when you start a new job

A habit that worked for years was usually tied to the old job's day, even if you never thought about it that way. The walk happened at 5:15 because the old job ended at 5 and home was 10 minutes away. The gym session happened at 6 a.m. because the gym was across the street from the old office. The lunchtime walk happened because everyone at the old place got up from their desks at noon and nobody thought twice about it.

When you changed jobs, all of those things changed on the same day. The start and end times changed. The commute changed. The building changed, and so did the people and the unwritten rules about when it's fine to leave. The habit didn't stop because you stopped caring about it. The time it used to happen at went away with the old job.

This is different from a habit getting squeezed out by a busy day. On a busy day, the habit still has a time, and something else takes it. On the first day of a new job, the old time doesn't exist anymore, and there isn't a new one yet.

You don't know the new day yet

In the first few weeks there is a lot about the new day you can't know yet. The offer said 8:30 to 5, but most of the team is in by 8 and the office doesn't empty out until 5:45. There is a standing call at 4:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays that nobody mentioned in the interview, and it runs to 5:15 about half the time. The drive that took 25 minutes when you went in for the interview at 10 a.m. takes 50 minutes at 5:30. Nobody has said whether it's fine to leave for 30 minutes at lunch, and you haven't seen anyone else do it. Your new boss sent two messages at 7:40 p.m. in the first week, and you don't know yet if they expect an answer that night.

You can't give the habit a time in a day when you don't know where the free time is.

Why "I'll start again once I settle in" turns into months

Waiting until you settle in sounds sensible, and in the first week or two it often is, because you really don't know your hours yet. The trouble is that "settled in" is never a date on the calendar. It keeps moving. First it's after training ends, then after the first month, then after the first big project, then after the probation period is over.

Meanwhile, the new day does turn into a pattern. By week six or eight, you know what time you get home, which nights the late call happens, and which afternoons are usually quiet. That pattern got set while the habit wasn't in it. Your evenings already have a routine by then: a later dinner, the longer drive, a show, getting things ready for the next morning. The walk isn't part of that routine, because it wasn't happening while the routine was forming.

A lot of people go through this, and it isn't a mistake anyone makes on purpose. It's different from a schedule that changes every week. If your hours change every week and always will, you can wait for a regular schedule that is never coming. With a new job, the regular schedule usually does come. By the time it does, the habit has been missing from it for weeks.

What this usually looks like in the first few months

Here is what this looks like for a few people. An office worker walked every day at 5:15 after her old job, which ended at 5, and she lived 10 minutes away. The new job ends at 5:30 and the drive is 45 minutes, so she gets home at 6:20. For two months the walk was something she would do tomorrow.

A man's gym was across the street from his old office. From the new office it's 30 minutes in the wrong direction from home. He kept paying the membership and went twice in eight weeks.

A nurse changed hospitals. On her old unit she knew what time she would get out. On the new unit she doesn't know yet how late handoff usually runs, so she can't count on any time after her shift.

A woman used to walk at lunch with a coworker at her old job. At the new job nobody leaves their desk at lunch, so she hasn't gone once, and she doesn't know yet whether it would be fine if she did.

Someone started a hybrid job where the office days were different every week for the first month. Then the team settled on Tuesday to Thursday in the office. By then he hadn't been to his Tuesday class in five weeks, and it had stopped being something he did.

And one person told themselves "after training," then "after the first month," then "after my 90-day review," and is now four months into the job without the habit.

Nobody in these examples chose to drop the habit. The old time went away on the first day, and by the time the new hours were regular, the habit hadn't been part of them for weeks.

Why 90-day plans, meal prep, and "non-negotiables" don't fix this

Most public advice for this moment is a "first 90 days" plan with something to do each month, meal-prep lists for the new commute, sleep and morning routine changes, and advice to keep "a few non-negotiable habits" or a "minimum routine" until things settle down. People also search things like "started a new job and my diet fell apart," and most of what comes back is about food.

That advice mostly assumes the hard part is knowing what to do. Most people in this spot already know what to do. They did it for years at the old job.

A 90-day plan written in your first week is a plan for a day you haven't seen yet, so it's built on guesses about your hours. Advice to keep your non-negotiables, or to do a smaller version of the habit, still needs a time in the day for that habit to happen. In a new job, the problem is that you don't know where that time is yet.

What to think about in the first weeks while you are still learning the new workday

Here are some plain questions to ask about your own new job. They are for thinking about. They are not a procedure, a checklist, or a template.

• What time did the habit happen at my old job, and what about the old day made that time work, like the end time, the commute, or where the gym was?
• Is that time still open in the new job, or am I still trying to fit the habit into the old job's day?
• What do I know now about the new day that I didn't know in week one, like when I really get home, which days run late, and which days are quiet?
• When I say "once I settle in," what would settled in actually look like, and have I already reached it without noticing?
• Are my weeknights already turning into a routine that doesn't include the habit?
• The last time I changed jobs, how long did it take before the habit came back, or did it come back at all?

The habit needs a real place in the new day. You can see the new day a lot more clearly after a few weeks than you could on the first day, so those first weeks are a good time to be paying attention to it. This page does not lay out how to give the habit that place. That part is what practical time management around one practice is for.

How this differs from nearby Healthy & Awake guides

This page is about keeping one health habit when you start a new job and don't know yet what the new workday really looks like. Nearby pages answer different questions.

• Health habits with an irregular work schedule is for hours that change every week and always will, so the habit can never get one fixed time. A new job usually does become steady within a few weeks or months. You just don't know the pattern yet, and the risk is that it settles without the habit in it.
• Sticking to health goals when your day keeps changing is about a known, regular week where single days get interrupted. In a new job, there is no known week yet to be interrupted.
• Why healthy habits keep restarting on Monday is about a midweek miss that turns into waiting for Monday. "Once I settle in" has no date at all, and the reason behind it is real.
• When meetings keep deleting your health plan is about meetings landing on a health block in a calendar you already know.
• Making time for health on a full workday is about finding room in a packed workday you already know well.
• Getting back on track after a busy week is about returning after one bad week that is already over.

How do I keep healthy habits when I start a new job?

When you start a new job, a health habit usually stops because the time it had belonged to the old job's day: the old finish time, the old commute, the gym near the old office. In the first weeks you don't know the new day well enough to give the habit a new time, so it waits until you settle in. Keeping it starts with seeing that the new day will become a regular pattern within a few weeks or months, and thinking about where the habit goes in that pattern while you are still learning it, instead of waiting for a "settled" date that never gets set.

When is practical time-management support worth considering?

When you already know what to do for your health and the problem is that one practice lost its place when your workday changed, including when you started a new job, practical time management around that one practice is a different kind of help than a 90-day plan or a meal-prep list.

Where Healthy & Awake Time Management fits

Healthy & Awake Time Management is a $47 practical time-management course for working adults who already know what to do for their health and lost one practice when their workday changed, including when they start a new job. It is educational time management around health. It is not medical care, career coaching, a nutrition plan, or a 90-day program. One payment includes lifetime access on the current offer, and the current offer comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. It will not make the new job's hours shorter.

Also related: Health habits with an irregular work schedule and Why healthy habits keep restarting on Monday. Back to Healthy & Awake.