HOW TO CREATE AN EFFECTIVE MORNING ROUTINE

 

Written by Joy Onovo

 

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep – Rumi

3 POWERFUL STEPS TO CREATING AN EFFECTIVE MORNING ROUTINE

At the time of publishing this post, I would have completed a ’60 days Wake up early challenge’.

You see, one of the habits I struggled with on my journey to reinventing myself was my morning routine.

Before now, I never had a morning routine. The thought of it seemed nice but wasn’t doable for me. So I thought.

 

I will always make silly excuses of how I’m a night person and can’t force myself to be a morning person.

But then, deep down within me, I wanted to do better. Waking up at late hours of the morning, I will go about my day in vagueness and having a plethora of unstructured ideas and tasks to execute.

This often led to unfinished tasks here and there, and an overall unproductive day.

I read the 5am Club by Robin Sharma 5 times at different times of my life before its teachings really stuck!

That was how challenging it was for me!

I wanted to make sure I had completed this challenge before writing this post, and walking you through what worked for me and helped me build my morning routine.

If you are like me, a Mum, or a care giver, you will understand that building a morning routine is not just about you, but also involves your family as a whole.

Creating a morning routine also means that your kids will also be on a routine so that it can be as effective as it should be.

For a single-living-alone person, creating a routine can be as simple as creating a straight-line graph. Straight to the point!

But for mums and even dads, or anyone caring for a loved one. Creating a routine can be a daunting task, no jokes!

Here, I’ll take you through 3 simple steps to creating your magic morning routine.

This is what has worked for me. Coming from a morning sluggard (ouch! I called myself that, but that is in the past now, praise God!), this is what I did to help me work on my morning routine and changed my habits.

 

3 MAGIC STEPS TO BUILDING AN EFFECTIVE MORNING ROUTINE

 

1. IT ALL STARTS A NIGHT BEFORE

   

This is a very important step to creating an effective morning routine and it should never be overlooked.

 

Carrying out the necessary activities a night before helps you breeze through your morning effortlessly and smoothly.

 

For you to have a stressless morning routine, you need to prepare a night before. Some of the preparations I do a night before are;

 

Filling my water bottle,

 

Eating an early and light dinner to avoid heaviness and indigestion,

 

Bringing out my workouts wears and keeping them in an easy to reach place,

 

Bringing out the kids’ school uniform for the next day and packing their school bags,

 

Writing out my to do list for the next day,

 

Setting my alarm and reminder for next day’s event,

 

Laying out my outfits for the next day as well as the kids’ outfits,

 

Bringing out the ingredients and utensils needed to whip up a fast breakfast for the morning as well as prepping the meal when necessary.

 

These activity makes up a greater percentage of my evening routine.

 

As you can see, your evening routine and morning routine can be related with proper planning.

You can modify this list to suit your lifestyle.

2. THE FIRST 2 HOURS

The First two hours of the day is for ME. I call this my ‘power hour’.

 

If you’ve read my previous posts, you will have noticed that I’m a sucker for self-care and ME times. Why? Because you cannot pour from an empty cup!!!

 

The first two hours when I wake up, I use it to check in with myself.

I use it to fill myself up spiritually, physically, emotionally and intellectually.

This might seem like a very small time duration to do all these, but trust me, when you focus on small tasks, free from distractions, that’s where the power is.

Because I have to prep the kids for school and get them ready before 8am, this means that my Power Hour has to be from 4:30am to 6:30 am

Here is a breakdown on what I do within my two hours.

4:30am – My alarm clock goes off and I wake up. With constant repetition of this wake up time, my body became accustomed to this time, and is quite half awake even before the alarm goes off.

 

This is true especially when I retire early the previous night before the morning.

 

Studies have shown that it is better to get right up instead of hitting the snooze button, be fully awake before stopping the alarm.

4:30am – 4:40am – freshen up (brush my teeth and wash my face)
This helps me remain alert. I also gulp a glass of water at this time to get hydrated.

 

At this point, I keep my phone away and beyond reach so that I do not get into the temptation of staying on my phone and going on social media or emails.

 

One of my bad habits is staying on my phone far too long than needed. I usually get distracted as there are so many entertaining things to watch and read.

 

One sure way I’ve been able to curb and starve this habit is by employing the first law of behaviour change and habit building I read in the book Atomic Habit by James Clear.

 

This law simply implies that to break a bad habit, you start by reducing exposure and removing the cues of your bad habit from your environment and reach.

 

4:40 am – 5:00 am – Quite time. This is my time to pray and spend time with God. I am a Christian, and a believer in God. One of my values and utmost desire is to have a strong relationship with God my Creator.

 

This is the time I dedicate to building my relationship with God.

5am-5:20am – I do some stretching and workout.

5:20am to 6:00am – Study time. I use this to read a motivational or inspirational book. I also read my Bible at this time.

6:00am – 6:30am is my self-care time. I have my bath at this time, and prepare for the rest of the morning.

 

If you sleep alone on a bed, it is advisable to make your bed immediately you get up from your bed or somewhere between when you freshen up and do your workout or stretch.

 

This is important because it gives you that first burst of your daily accomplishment and pretty much sets the pace for the rest of your morning.

 

If you share a bed with a partner or friend, you can skip making your bed until your significant other is awake. This makes sense to do.

 

Making your bed as simple as it may sound, makes a huge difference to how effective your morning routine will be.

 

It just does something to your psyche and prepares you for the rest of the day.

 

3. THE FAMILY HOUR

From 6:30 am – 9:00am is when I dedicate time for the members of my family.

I’ve read a whole lot of morning routine, and even watched a few YouTube videos, and one question that often pops up in my mind is “where are the kids and husbands?”

 

It is actually unfair to Mums and Care givers, who want to have a morning routine that works, but can’t find a realistic routine that fits with their own life style and family dynamics.

 

For a mom or care giver, having a morning routine or any routine at all is not as simple as plotting a straight-line graph because you have to consider the other members of your family.

 

This can be your kids, husband (yes! As silly as it may sound) and pretty much anyone you are caring for.

 

For me, I live with my husband, and two kids, and I also have a domestic staff, so it is safe to say we are a family of 5.

 

When I created my morning routine, I considered their wake-up time, their sleep time and how it can affect the overall effectiveness of the routine, especially for my kids.

 

Bearing that in mind, this is what I did to accommodate the rest of my family members into my morning routine.

 

Within this time, I prepare a quick breakfast and get the kids ready for school.

I also do a quick cleaning within this time. Speed cleaning like wiping surfaces clean, arranging items cabinets and drawers etc.

 

You can tweak this routine to suit your lifestyle. This is what has worked for me as a work from home mum.

 

If you are a 9-5 working mom, then chances are that this might not work for you. So, feel free to modify.

I’m also opportune to have a domestic staff who helps with the more detailed house chores, so this makes it easy.

If you don’t have one, be rest assured that building a morning routine is still doable and achievable. But be kind to yourself enough to accept and receive the help whenever it is offered.

 

If you noticed in this last step, I did not list down the exact activity I allocate to each time because I only have a limited amount of control to how my kids behave each morning.

 

Some mornings, they wake up grumpy, and I will just have to adapt and be creative with the activity to make them cooperate.

 

Other mornings can actually be fun and we breeze through our morning activity without much hassle.

 

What I did here to actually put in structure into our routine is to allocate a time frame or time window where we should at least do all the activities in this step.

 

In my case, the time frame is from 6:30am to 9:00am.

 

 

In conclusion, when creating a morning routine, try to switch things up with activities so that it doesn’t get too monotonous and mundane.

 

For example, during the weekends, I wake up later than 4:30 am.

 

During my workout sessions, I switch things up between stretches, yoga, strength training, dance workouts and outdoor workouts.

 

Being creative when building a morning routine will make you look forward to your mornings and not loathe the thought of it.

I hope that by walking you through my morning routine, I’ve been able to inspire you.