The routine you return to can be revised before you step fully into it again.

Returning from leave, illness or a long trip is the one moment when a routine is genuinely loose. Habits reassert themselves within about a week, and after that any change requires effort, while in the first days almost anything can be quietly rearranged. Most people spend that window trying to restore the old shape as fast as possible, then wonder later why nothing ever changes; the gap is an opportunity that closes on its own.

If you are returning to something, pick one part of the old pattern you will not resume. Set it up differently now, while nobody expects the previous version yet.