How having a morning routine can change your life

I know. Our nemesis. Those women who talk about the ‘morning routines’ (you have to say that in a snarky voice, or it won’t feel as empowering) and how it changed their lives. Let’s be honest. Half of those women own 6-year-old Labradoodles that get groomed weekly instead of human children, a weekly cleaning lady, and however the fuck they do it, 25K in their savings account. Barf. If this is you, how are you even a real person?! Let’s not even talk about the three thousand dollars’ worth of hair extensions that we both know take up a permanent residence in your hair. And let’s also be honest about one more thing- We’re all jealous of her. That girl who has her shot together.

What if I were to tell you that this could actually be you- minus the Labradoodle and no kids... and maybe the hair extensions, because I’m struggling to fit in my daily Starbuck hit sometimes. It’s too late for us ladies. We’ve made our life choices. I’m here today to share some of my tips with you that might make managing mornings a whole heck of a lot better. Dare I say, enjoyable? Is it going to be easy? Again, no. I don’t think any of my tips will ever be classified as ‘easy,’ but on the contrary nothing worth anything ever comes easy. Will it be worth it, though? Hell yes.

Let’s start from the end and work our way backwards to the beginning. It’s how I do most things in life, and it’s worked out pretty well for me so far. Figuring out what problems you’d like to resolve or eliminate is the first start to every morning routine.

INTENTIONS: What are your intentions behind creating a morning routine? If you’re coming up empty, I’ll shoot you over some of my reasons for relying on a morning routine: To eliminate unnecessary stress at the start of my day, to help me remember what needs to be done, to create healthy habits that I can pass on to my daughter, to make my life easier, to feel like I have my sit together. There are many other reasons that I heavily rely on a morning routine, but these are my most important intentions behind my reason to get up instead of pressing snooze.

UNNECESSARY EVILS: Everyone learns very quickly that your morning routine starts the evening before. Waking up to yesterday’s neglected to-do list is a necessary evil to get rid of. How you do this is up to you. Simply put, make a list of everything that adds minutes to your day and see what you can accomplish before you go to bed. Dishes, taking out the garbage, setting your coffee the night before- all these things can be endured before you go to bed while you listen to a podcast or watch your favorite show. They’re all examples of ‘busy work’ that doesn’t take much thought… but it will take up your morning minutes. Eventually, you’ll have this down to perfection.

THE SNOOZE BUTTON: If you’re a snoozer, cheat the system. Set your alarm 1-3 snoozes earlier than you need to get up, and VIOLA! You did it! You got up on time! Personally, I’d rather spend those ten to thirty minutes in dreamland, but this is about you. Either make a commitment to stop hitting the snooze button or plan for the snooze button to not eat into your morning.

WAKE UP EARLIER/GIVE YOURSELF EXTRA TIME: Plan for the unplanned. It’s not the most brilliant piece of advice, but it’s probably the most obvious. Make sure that you’re accounting for enough time to allow for the unseen. This one is a no-brainer, but worth mentioning, because this can solve a lot of your morning chaos. Many of the things we need to do can easily slip our mind, especially if it’s something that isn’t part of our morning routine. I give myself an extra sixty to ninety minutes of awake time before my daughter’s morning routine starts. This is to go through my checklist before assisting my daughter with hers. Any yes, you’ll be thirty minutes ahead of schedule and choose to relax, just to find puppy pee in the hallway at the exact minute you need to leave. Some things are unavoidable, but you’ll find those mornings will pop us less and less.

FOOD PREP: Prepping lunches, breakfast, and even dinner for the following day is like having a secret maid that lives with you. I don’t mean to make a sandwich that’ll get soggy overnight, but you can prep all the easy stuff like whole fruits, granola bars, and dry snacks that go in Ziplock bags. Get your kids involved with prepping their lunches (and even outfits) for the following morning. Pack up the leftovers for your lunch and choose a meat to marinate and cut/prep the vegies for the following night’s dinner. A weekly food menu will save you time, money, and a whole lot of stress. I’ve found that different color Tupperware helps keep me organized. Dinner leftovers that will be my lunch for the following day go in pink, and dinner prep that I put together while I’m making tonight’s dinner go in green. As soon as I empty them, I then and set them aside for the prep that I’ll be finishing that evening.

CHANGE WHAT ISN’T WORKING: When something isn’t working, get rid of it. Put the task on the ‘evening prep list’ and see if that works in your favor. I love routine, but there’s nothing that’ll throw me out of habit like continuing to do something that I hate. Eventually I’ll stop entirely. Make sure you’re not including something to your morning routine that is actually sabotaging all of your hard work. Find what works and learn what doesn’t. It’ll take a few weeks, maybe months to create a long-term morning routine. Then you’ll get a puppy and must readjust it all.

Life is lifey, but there are so many things we can do to help ourselves, become a little more adjusted to our responsibilities and the seeming lack of time to get it all done. And never forget to ask for advice. There may be one thing that changes everything about what you thought you already knew.

My song for this week will hopefully remind you that although we aren’t perfect, life still floats on when we fuck up and don’t always get it right. Everyone’s unhappy, everyone’s ashamed, well we all just caught looking at somebody else’s page… 

Alright, gotta’ go feed the chickens so I don’t fall of the schedule wagon again. Love ya’, mean it.

Jena

Weekly Song Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/4asjU3sDnn3002bTJIg2vZ?si=55f6e059b25042fe

 Our Spotify Playlist Link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ZGCCJMRqzNeEuHbskj9j3?si=mpfpoRBARXawmfCAqM0kiA