HOW TO CREATE A MORNING ROUTINE AND STICK TO IT

Do you struggle to use your time effectively in the morning? Try giving yourself a simple morning routine to set yourself on the right track for the day ahead. I’ve put together some tips on creating a morning routine and sticking to it.

An added benefit of having a morning routine is that it’s been proven to help ward off stress. This is something that is particularly important if you are busy juggling work with parenting and all the other stuff life throws at you.

I’d also say having a good morning routine is particularly useful if you work from home. It’s so easy for the lines to get blurred between your various roles and find that you’re in one big hot mess.

HOW TO CREATE A MORNING ROUTINE THAT WORKS FOR YOU

There are tonnes of ideas out there on what makes a good morning routine. Ultimately, a good morning routine is one that works for you. There’s no point trying to shoe-horn in stuff you don’t have time to do or are not interested in doing.

All that will happen is that you start strong, then tail off, feeling increasingly bad about yourself as you fail to keep up with the routine you’ve set yourself.

What you need to do is put together a simple routine that suits you, that lifts you up in the morning rather than weighing you down.

ROUTINES ARE A SERIES OF HABITS

Essentially, a routine is a series of habits. A habit is something that we cultivate or find ourselves doing on repeat. When we bundle a few of those habits together, we can create a routine.

Now clearly, some habits are good, and some are less so. So you need to focus on putting together some good habits. While stepping aside from any morning habits you have that don’t benefit you or pull you down before your day has even started.

Look at this list of suggested morning habits and see which appeals to you or whether they spark ideas for other habits you could start incorporating into your morning routine. Once you’ve been through the habits, move on to my tips on how to put your routine together.

15 SIMPLE MORNING HABITS TO FORM YOUR ROUTINE FROM

1. USE AN ALARM CLOCK

What I’m actually saying here is don’t use your mobile phone for your morning alarm. Mobiles are best kept out of the bedroom for many reasons, not least because it’s tempting to pick them up and start scrolling the moment you wake up.

So, invest in an alarm clock. I have always had radio alarm clocks from when I was a child. I really like waking up to the sound of the radio rather than an actual alarm.

2. GET UP WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF YOUR ALARM GOING OFF

What’s that phrase? If you snooze, you lose?! Yes, I know it isn’t referring to snoozing in bed after the alarm goes off. However, there has been plenty written about the benefits of a ‘rip the plaster off’ approach to getting out of bed over hitting the snooze button.

And I can vouch for this fact. No matter how tired I feel in the morning, my day gets off to a better start if I jump straight out of bed. If I lie in I find myself feeling more lethargic and it becomes increasingly difficult to get out of bed.

3. RECITE A SIMPLE LIFE-AFFIRMING AFFIRMATION

Now one of my pet hates is when someone tells me to think positively about something I’m having an issue with. There can be so much attached to the power of positive thinking, but it can also leave you feeling like crap.

That said, a couple of months ago, I started trying out reciting a simple life-affirming affirmation each morning.

I wasn’t sure it would do any good, but I got the biggest and nicest surprise because I found the difference it made to my mindset for the day immense. Yes, that’s right, not just for the morning, but for the whole day.

I use the affirmation, “Today is going to be a great day”. It’s that simple, and I must confess that I got it from the Tiny Habits book I mentioned above. It sets me in the right frame of mind to tackle the good and the bad in the day and not give up on making the best of each day.

I started off by saying the affirmation as I got out of bed, quietly and to myself. But within days, I decided I wanted to look myself in the eye as I said it, so now I say it when I first look in the bathroom mirror in the morning.

I have the affirmation written on a sticky note that is now somewhat tattier than when I wrote it out a couple of months ago, just as a visual prompt, but 99/100, I don’t need to be reminded. It’s become a very positive morning habit.

Read more about how I came to start saying a daily morning affirmation and how it has positively impacted my life.

4. DRINK SOME WATER FIRST THING

We all lose water through respiration (breathing) and transpiration (sweating) overnight, so it’s important to rehydrate first thing in the morning. It will help to rehydrate you and make you feel fresher and more alert.

I’ve got a reusable glass bottle that I fill with fresh water every evening and have on my bedside table overnight, so it’s there when I wake up.

5. DO SOME SIMPLE EXERCISE

A short morning workout is a great way to wake your body and mind up. Just 10 or 15 minutes is enough to make a difference. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just doing some simple stretches or gentle cardio is a great way to limber up for the day ahead.

There are so many brilliant exercise routines on YouTube or on fitness apps that you can use to guide you. I am a huge fan of FitOn, a free fitness app with a tonne of video workouts.

6. CREATE A SKINCARE RITUAL

Don’t worry; I’m not going crazy. I know just how strong the time constraints are when you’ve got kids to get to school or nursery or if you’re a mum of a baby or toddler. So I’m not talking about spending 30 minutes on this. But it’s possible to create a five-minute beauty routine that leaves your skin feeling pampered, cared for and looking its best for the day ahead.

You need to focus on cleansing, toning, serums/actives, moisturiser and finish off with sun protection. Create a little skincare station in your bathroom with everything you need so it’s ready to hand when you scoot into the bathroom.

7. OPEN YOUR BEDROOM WINDOW

Your bedroom needs to breathe fresh air after a night with you breathing out damp CO2! And a breath or two of fresh air does wonders to wake up a tired mind and body.

8. AIR YOUR BED

Some say that it is important to make your bed first thing. I say DON’T do that!! What your bed needs first thing is a chance to air. After all, you’ve been lying in it all night, sweating (gently perspiring!!), so it’s good to let all that moisture evaporate before you make the bed.

9. GET YOUR KIDS INVOLVED

If your kids are old enough, get them to do their bit to help with the morning routine. It’s a good life lesson for them, and it feels nice to pull together as a family.

Breakfast is usually the easiest meal of the day to prepare, so perhaps they can get breakfast ready for everyone. Or maybe they can empty the dishwasher, set the table, and help clear away afterwards?

10. DRINK GREEN TEA AND SAVE COFFEE FOR LATER

Coffee and mornings seemingly go so well together, but coffee isn’t what our bodies need first thing in the morning.

It’s to do with the fact that our cortisol levels peak during the early morning, usually around 8/9 am.

Cortisol is known as the ‘stress’ hormone and acts like natural caffeine, so the last thing we need is a giant boost of caffeine.

By all means, get that coffee brewing if you love the smell of coffee, but make yourself a lovely mug of green tea instead.

Yes, green tea contains caffeine, but much less than coffee and green tea is also packed with many nutrients and antioxidants that benefit us.

Don’t worry; I’m just talking about holding off the coffee until you’ve been up for an hour! And hey, it’s nice to have something to look forward to!!

11. DON’T PICK UP YOUR MOBILE UNTIL AFTER YOU’VE HAD BREAKFAST

Mobile phones are amazing gadgets and bring many benefits. But they are also amazing time-sucks. Plus, they hold lots of potential stressors that our brains don’t need first thing in the morning. Like emails from clients, news notifications, social media notifications, app notifications… notifications, notifications, notifications… you get the idea.

And once you pick up your mobile phone for the first time each day, it’s hard to step away from it. Not to mention that if you pick it up first thing, it can derail your whole morning routine. So use the time first thing in the morning to be tech-free and set the tone for how you will behave with your mobile throughout the day.

If this sounds like a horror scenario to you, read my post on how to unplug from your mobile, before giving it a try.

12. PLAN YOUR DAY AHEAD

Take a few minutes to sit and think about where your day needs to take you and what you need to achieve and get done. If you know where you want to end up at the end of the day, you can plan how you get there.

I use Trello for all my personal and work organisation, it’s an online project management tool, and once you’ve mastered it, it is a really simple but powerful way to manage your daily life and keep yourself and your family organised. It allows you to create boards to add lists to and then add cards to the lists to organise and manage everything.

I tend to sit down for five minutes and scan through the todo list on my Trello board and move the things I need to focus on from the Todo list to the Today list I’ve created.

If you’ve never used Trello before, you can grab my free guide to getting started using it. It’s the kind of online tool that looks so simple to start with that you could easily give up before you’ve found the sweet spot for using it. But if you take an hour to find your way around it, you end up with the best organisation system.

13. SET YOURSELF SOME GOALS

This is slightly separate from your to-do list and involves setting yourself a few goals – no more than three is good – for you to achieve throughout the day. These things will make you feel like you’ve achieved something if you reach them.

Whilst it’s great to tick off things from your to-do list, like collecting your dry-cleaning or taking the kids to the dentist, achieving a goal you’ve set for yourself is uplifting and spirit-boosting.

One goal you could set yourself is to build some me-time into your day. Take a look at my guide to creating me time for yourself and my list of things to do when you get some me time to inspire yourself to take action!

14. WORK OUT WHAT’S FOR DINNER

Getting to the end of a long day, whether you’ve been working, parenting, or both, and not knowing what’s for dinner can be stressful.

So taking a moment to decide on dinner, or better still, to look at the meal planner you’ve set up, is a great way to minimise stress at the other end of the day.

I have a meal planning board set up on Trello that I update each week, grab my free guide to getting started on Trello to get your own started. Alternatively, you could use a google sheet / excel document or just good old pen and paper.

If you’ve never tried meal planning before, look at my guide to getting started with meal planning.

15. GO FOR A WALK

Ideally, somewhere where you can be close to nature, but of course, this isn’t always possible. Perhaps you can start walking your kids to school or dropping them off, leaving the car by the school and walking to work? Or if you need to take a train to work, walk from the station to your office instead of taking a bus.

If you are walking alone, either soak up the sound of your own silence and use the time to let your mind wander or take the chance to listen to an inspirational or uplifting podcast.

HOW TO PUT TOGETHER HABITS TO CREATE A MORNING ROUTINE THAT WORKS

1. START SMALL AND GO FOR THE WIN

The key to success is to start small and go for the win.

What do I mean by this?

Well, if you set a small goal, you will find it so much easier to achieve it. And when you do, you will feel good about yourself. Which means you are much more likely to stick to it.

I first read about this theory in the book Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg, and it changed my whole perspective on life! Just think of all the new year’s resolutions you’ve made and then break them by the end of January, if not before.

They are often big changes that mean a lot to us but aren’t easy to achieve. We start them with the force of willpower and a new beginning behind us, but if we don’t find them easy to do and willpower subsides, the resolution evaporates.

So the trick is to start small and easy and then build from there. Of course, what’s easy for one person might be incredibly difficult for another.

So, rather than tell you my morning routine, I’m going to give you a big list of easy habits that you can choose from to start piecing together a morning routine that will work for you and help you jumpstart your day.

2. TEST YOUR ROUTINE OUT

Don’t expect to nail the perfect routine straight off. By allowing yourself room to manoeuvre, you are freeing yourself up to perfect a routine rather than feeling like you’ve tried and failed.

Go for what product creators call an MVP, a Minimum Viable Product. Get your routine up and running, then tweak it until you have your best routine.

3. USE REMINDERS

It can be hard to remember to do things that have yet to achieve habit status, so use reminders to help you along. Much as I love my tech, I prefer to use physical visual reminders first thing in the morning, so this is the one time I go with a sticky note over a digital reminder.

For example, as mentioned earlier, I have a sticky note with my morning mantra written on it. I stick it to my bathroom basin every evening, so it’s there when I walk into the bathroom first thing in the morning.

I don’t need the sticky note a couple of months in, but I will continue having it there until my morning mantra is 100% ingrained.

I have reminders set up via Trello that ping me to check my to-do list and share the details of the evening meal plan with me.

Download my free guide to Trello if you want to start using this brilliant project management app to help you stay on track.

4. TUNE IN TO HOW YOUR MORNING ROUTINE MAKES YOU FEEL

How you feel first thing in the morning plays a role in how you feel throughout your day. So take notice of how the routine you’re trying makes you feel. Does it make you feel energised? Does it give you chance to focus your mind? Does it cause you any stress? Does it make you feel exhausted before the rest of your day begins?

If the feelings it invokes are good, you can stick with it and even look at how you add to it. But if you find yourself feeling less than good, you need to look at revising your routine, maybe stripping it back to have less in it.

5. A GREAT MORNING ROUTINE STARTS THE NIGHT BEFORE!

Sorry to hit you with this news at the very end. It’s true! As with many good things in life, preparation is everything.

Things you can do to help prepare for a great morning include ditching your tech at least an hour before bed, the only caveat being that a paperwhite Kindle is allowed, as it doesn’t have that awful blue light that stimulates your brain and you can focus on reading an actual book rather than endlessly scrolling.

Other things include making sure you have a consistent bedtime; this helps set your body clock and ensure your bedroom is comfortable and geared towards getting a great night’s sleep.

Want to know more about how to set up a great bedtime routine? Well, you’re in luck, as I’ve put together a post with some easy-to-follow tips.

I really hope that you’ve found this guide to creating a morning routine that works for you useful. HOW TO CREATE A MORNING ROUTINE, easy morning habits, how to create a morning routine, woman waking up in morning in bed.