Makeover Your Morning Routine

Establishing a morning routine is a great way to reduce your stress level, increase your productivity, and find balance in your life. With my chronic illnesses, routines are extremely important. When my fibromyalgia flares, I enter “fibro fog” and if things aren’t on autopilot they don’t get done. It’s important to makeover your morning routine on a regular basis to make sure that it still suits your needs.

If you take the time to establish a routine and work to make it a habit, you’ll put the things that are in your routine on autopilot. This frees your brain up to think about much more important things.

What to Put in Your Morning Routine?

A morning routine is a very personal, so what you put on it needs to be personalized. There are lots of options to consider (some obvious and others not so obvious).

Get out of bed
Shower/Bath, dressed, make-up, hair, etc.
Exercise
Spiritual time
Email/Voicemail
Important steps to help with goals
Prioritized to-do list
Breakfast
Pack lunches
Gratitude journal
Laundry
Household cleaning

I’m sure you can add a lot of other options.

What Order Do I Put My Morning Routine In?

This is another one of those “everyone is different” questions. When you are creating your morning routine, you want to create a natural flow so that it’s easy to stay on track. For me, I start with the things that are upstairs and then do the downstairs things. That way I’m not running (in my case, slowly) up and down the stairs several times. I also try to lump things that require action (exercise, shower, cleaning) and things that require more thought (spiritual, to-do list, goals) together so that I’m not constantly changing directions.

Need More Ideas?

I’ve had a morning routine for several years but a few months ago it wasn’t working well and I knew I needed to revamp it. But, I was having trouble making time in my day for the revamp. I finally set aside time each day for reviewing my morning routine. By doing that, I was consistently working on my morning routine for the two-week period. At the end of the fourteen days, I had a revised morning routine that I was excited to try out.

You can also check out these earlier posts on mornings.

How Do I Make My Routine a Habit?

A lot of research has indicated that it takes 21-66 days for a habit to be established. Place copies of your routine in places where you can check it, like your bathroom mirror, kitchen, office, and nightstand, to keep yourself on track. Then, do the routine. After about 2 months you should be able to take down all your copies because your routine will be ingrained as a habit.

Let me know how you made your morning routine over. Comment below or send me an email me at janet@alifeofbalance.com.