The photo is the food bowl, about ten minutes into the evening.

I did not believe routine mattered until I had a hamster who went from hiding all day to sitting at the front of the cage at 8pm waiting. It took about two weeks of doing the same things at the same time. Here is what it looks like now.

Morning, five minutes:
- Fresh water, and check the bottle is actually releasing, not just full. This is the thing I check every single day because a stuck bottle is silent and serious.
- Remove any fresh food from the night before.
- Quick look at him without waking him: eyes clear, coat not greasy, no laboured breathing. If he is asleep and looks normal, I leave him alone. Daytime is their night.

Evening, eightish:
- Scatter a small handful of food into the bedding rather than only filling the bowl. Foraging is the point, and a bowl-only hamster has nothing to do.
- One treat from my hand. This is the taming habit, not the feeding habit, so it stays small.
- Spot-clean the pee corner. Bedding that is slightly dirty is fine; wet bedding is not, and it is what makes a cage smell.

Weekly:
- Weigh him on the kitchen scale. Anything more than a small drop over a week is worth paying attention to, and it is much easier to notice than by looking.
- Check the wheel for a wobble, and check the bottle and bowl for cracks.

Monthly:
- Swap two of the hides, top up the bedding to depth, and have a proper look at the whole cage with him out of it.

The thing I would tell anyone starting out: none of this takes long, but doing it at the same time every day is what turned a nervous animal into one that comes out. They are creatures of habit more than I expected, and being predictable is most of the relationship.