The morning and evening act as the bookends of your day. If one is thrown off, the other is going to feel it.

Due to many different factors lately, my nights have been off balance. This has led to me waking up late, having rough insomnia, or even simply not planning for my mornings well at all. Ultimately, this causes my mornings to be not as easy going as I would hope. There have been multiple nights, this past week where I’ve set my intentions and goals for the morning before bed, but could not fall asleep if my life depended on it. I’ve been on and off, almost interchanging days on a schedule. There have been days that I’ve been able to do a short workout, read, and accomplish something before leaving the house heading to work. Other days, I might just barely get one of the three done before rushing to work and starting my day there.

In the process of this trial, I’ve had to create a bit of a nightly routine in order to get into the swing of things. Unfortunately, I totally screwed up my sleep schedule with some poor sleep this past weekend, I blame daylight savings changes. This has broken up my mornings pretty bad. I’m still pushing to get my three pieces of routine in, but it’s a struggle I don’t accomplish every day.

Even waking up late, I try to take a breath and stick to what I need to do in the morning. If I panic and rush through everything, the rest of my day is in a panic. Monday this week, I woke up later than I needed to and tried to rush through my morning. The rest of the day I felt like an amorphous blob just getting by.

Tuesday, I woke up a bit late again but slowed myself down. I took the minute or so extra to do things right, and it benefited the rest of my day. Allowing myself the time to get what I needed to done cascaded into the other aspects of my day. At work, I felt better and more focused, at home, I could concentrate on what I needed, and at night, I was able to set myself up for getting to bed on time.

All of this has gotten me thinking about creating a better routine before bed. Ideally, I would like to start winding down from 9-10 PM, put on a pot of water, and make some good night time tea, preferably this tea from Yogi at the moment ( not a sponsored link or anything, just what I could find online). At that point, reading a good book. From the research I’ve done, fiction is best to read before bed, because it helps reduce the problem solving our brains try to do. Though sometimes for me, even fiction will get my mind spiraling down some rabbit hole of research or investigation. If you have good fiction recommendations, let me know. I’m hoping to try and find some good books to help wind down instead of riling myself up.

The first step to creating a good morning routine is creating a good routine before bed. Proper preparation for the morning makes everything easier. Pick the clothes you’ll wear to work. Make sure you set up systems to make your routine easier. Good systems will beat willpower any day.

Depending on how the rest of this week goes, I may write more on evening routines as well those for the morning. I’ll be experimenting with some different tactics for sure. Be sure to drop by next week for updates!