Establishing a Morning Routine
- Tara Hodgson
- Feb 9, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 27, 2021
So we’re now a little over a month into the new year, and for a lot of people that means we’ve made New Years Resolutions. I shied away from doing this a couple of years ago and instead I set myself goals for the year but the idea is still the same. Sometimes we make plans that are a bit too vague like “get life organised”, or “exercise” and our desire to keep doing these things wanes and fades because it’s just too hard to work out what we actually want to be doing. Other times we make very specific plans with a rigid structure from the get go that are doomed to fail because there’s no room for these ideas to develop naturally and we feel confined.
So how do you establish a morning routine?
The truth is that it’s difficult to go from 0-100 with this and keep at it. In my opinion a morning routine should be something that flows naturally, you need to push yourself to start doing it sometimes but then from there it’s all natural. I wouldn’t put down in my morning routine to study or go outside for a run or walk because I know I prefer doing those in the afternoon. You build a morning routine out of things that fit for you.
For me this looks like setting my alarm for 9am on weekdays, even though I’m usually up before that. I want to get the most out of my day, but also give myself time to get a proper rest and since I have been working jobs that start late and finish late at night, this sort of routine worked well for me. Around August of 2019 my natural wake up time was 7am, and it still is around that but I allow myself to go back to bed for a couple of hours to relax a little bit more.
– Wake up & Meditate – Read news / check weather – Send morning messages to friends/ my partner – Make breakfast – Brush teeth – Check & reply to emails / important messages Top 5 things organised people do in the morning…
This is what my routine looked like two years ago. That’s what was working for me then but over time I’ve worked out that I prefer to structure my mornings like this instead
Wake up
Drink a glass of water
Have breakfast
Brush teeth
Meditate
I’ve simplified it down and made it into something that works for where I am now in life. I changed from checking the news each morning around the start of last year because it was starting my day on an anxious note. The glass of water and breakfast are important and things I had been forgetting so I set alarms on my phone for these things (at half 9, so I had breakfast before it became brunch!).
Your morning routine can change and grow to suit your needs at the time and that’s okay, but to start off with you want something that’s simple and not very rigid. I’d recommend things like “wake up before X time” and follow that with “have breakfast before X time” so you have a little bit of leeway and wriggle room. Then, add in some things you already do on a morning. This will make it feel less like a chore and this makes it easier to keep going with the routine.
Conclusion
Do whatever feels natural and right for you when establishing a morning routine.
Have a few things you want to start doing mixed in with things that you already do each day to make it familiar.
Start with wider goals, like waking up before 9am, before making them more specific as you start getting the hang of these things
Above all have fun
Hey! Tara here and thanks for checking out my blog. I update every Tuesday with posts about studying tips, advice and talk about productivity and organisation too. If you want to keep up to date with my latest blog posts I’d love it if you subscribed to this blog.
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