Morning and night routines – your foundation
Do you struggle to get up in the morning?
Or do you find that you loose energy halfway throughout the day?
The fix for this is easy! You need to get a morning and night routine to follow, every day, even on weekends, days off and vacations. Right now I can guarantee you that you already have a morning and night routine. You are just not in control of them! If you want to feel better, and live a happier life, you need to take control right now! And this covers your whole life, not just your routines. But in this post, routines are the topic.
The definition for the word routine is the following:
A prescribed, detailed course of action to be followed regularly; a standard procedure.
Just reading this may not get you thinking. But look at the second word, prescribed. What is the definition for it?
To set down as a rule or guide; enjoin
How’s your head spinning now? Well we are not quite done yet. What does that last word, enjoin, really mean?
To direct or impose with authority and emphasis.
To make it shorter and more understandable we can lay out the definition like this:
Routine
A written down set of actions that must be followed, every time it has been determined in advance.
How’s that for ease of use?
The important thing to know about routines is that they are hard to replace. Let´s say that you have struggled to get out of bed for the past five years. If you want to get up the minute the alarm goes off you need to be in the right mindset from the beginning. This begins with knowing exactly what to do the minute the alarm goes off. So to take me for a example, my morning routine looks like the following (and I did struggle to get out of bed in the morning before).
Wake up without hitting the snooze button
Drink a glass of water (prepared the night before)
12 pushups
Make the bed
Weight myself
Eat breakfast
Clean myself up
Put correct clothes on
Meditate for 5 minutes
Look at upcoming appointments for the day (Calendar check)
Look at my list of stuff I’m waiting from people and send out the corresponding emails. I do this without looking into my email inbox, important!
Scan my OmniFocus Inbox for stuff that needs to get done today
Look at my annual goals
Choose Most Important Tasks for the day (MIT)
So you see, I have a very detailed plan, especially when I get out of bed. The glass of water makes my body get out of what I call, “the snooze stage”. Then I do 12 pushups to get my body into “the awake stage”. Now I’m awake and ready for action!
But let’s not forget what makes this morning routine go the way I want to, I do my homework each day, and by that I mean that I do my night routine, every single day!
The night routine should get you in a relaxed state of mine so that you have a easier time going to sleep. But let’s not forget that it’s easier to get to sleep if you actually performed some quality stuff throughout the day. Otherwise, you might just not fall asleep due to the “bad day” that you had.
The night routine is also where you do all the preparations for the next day. I have not yet gotten my night routine 100% where I want it to be, yet. But I’m getting there. I need to start planning my day, the night before. Right now I plan it in the morning by choosing the Most Important Tasks (MIT) for the day. This should be done the day before.
My night routine looks like the following:
Empty bags and re-pack (For work and gym)
Choose clothes for the next day
Process my email inbox to zero (Well almost, I keep open loops in the Inbox as well)
Scan my OmniFocus Inbox for tasks that might need to get planned right away
I charge my MacBook Pro so that it’s ready for the next day
Take a shower (I will never be able to do that in the morning)
Clean myself up
Prepare a glass of water for the next morning
Prepare OmniFocus for the next day
Read a book
The important thing about night routines is that they should allow your morning routine to run smoothly and get you in a relaxed state of mind.
One other thing to note is that you should not blame yourself if you someday blow it on your routine. It happens to everyone, life comes up as I say. The important thing to feel when this happens, the routine is easy to get back into. This feeling do you only get when you have written it down, and performed it a lot of times.
If you are just starting out with a new routine, make small adjustments, keep at it for 21 days, really push yourself every day. Day 21 is the hardest (may vary with a day or two) for most of the people. But once you pass through that barrier you can say to yourself that you have a new routine in place. Then just keep building it until you have the routine you want.
My recommendation would be to start by deciding how your optimal morning and night routine would be, use my routines as a roadmap if you want to. Remember that morning and night routines walk hand in hand and should complement one another. When you have written down these, you should decide on which are the things that you want to get started on right now. Choose the things that impact your life the most, since it will be easier to stay motivated, and start out with these. Make it no more then three things. Then just stay at it and you are on the same #highway2success as I am.
Do you have a different point of view regarding routines or just want to share your morning / night routine? Please leave a comment down below so that we can get a discussion going.
