How to Craft the perfect Morning Routine in your Early 20s ( And why you need to take it serious)
In this article you are going to learn about setting a successful morning routine plan. We shall delve into its benefits, how to actually wake up in the morning, how to make it a habit, and how to actually break up with the snooze button in your phone.
- Why should you build a routine
- How a morning routine works
- How to build a successful routine
- List of things you should include in your morning routine
Morning Routine Habit
In his book, atomic Habits, James Clear emphasises on the need of creating a system in order for a habit to stick. He goes on to state that for a bad habit to end, one has to replace it with a good routine. He emphasises the need to make the good habit easily accessible while making it almost difficult to access the bad habit.
So what are these habits that we are supposed to systemize?
Why Should you Build a routine : The Power of Consistency
The importance of building a routine is the power of consistency. Consistency allows one to be stable and in control. A morning routine will enable you to have the framework that you require to face the rest of the day head on.
Promote productivity
A morning routine eliminates fatigue and the chaos of doing things in a hurry in the morning. When you create ample time in the morning, you have a clear head space thus enhancing productivity
How Morning routine works: The best morning routine to adapt
There is no good or bad morning routine. It all depends on which one works best with you. It also depends on the tasks that you wish to achieve in the morning. A morning routine time can range from 4:00 Am to 8:00 Am depending on which one works best with you.
However Most people prefer waking up at 5:00 Am
Make Your Routine Achievable
The purpose of the morning routine is to ensure your success. Therefore, it is wise that you make your routine achievable. You should include things that you look up to do as your priorities. This works as an incentive or a reason why you wake up.
Have a Strong Why
Why are you waking up in the morning? Have a strong why. Write down a list of things that make you want to wake up early in the morning. If the reasons are not as strong, then the drive to wake up will also be weak.
Here is a list of questions that will help you come up with concrete reasons to wake up tomorrow.
What time do I want to be waking up?
Why do I wake up at this time (State the time)?
What will my waking up at this time help me achieve?
What happens when I do not wake up at the stated time?
How does that make me feel?
Case In Point: Myself
Lately, I have been feeling like I am not in control of myself. I would binge watch a whole series and be okay with it. That would result in me sleeping at around 3 am or even 4. My sleeping late would affect how my day would turn out. I would wake up at around 7:30 am feeling groggy and depressed about the state of affairs.
The only thing that thirty minutes would offer me is preparation to work. No meditation, no prayers, no blogging. Absolutely no time for anything.
I would spend the rest of the day exhausted and moving with the flow. Feel terrible about it.
Go home
Sit on the couch to watch again
Sleep at 2am
And the vicious cycle continued.
I know you can relate.
So what can you do if you find yourself in this depressing vicious cycle of messing up with your life?
How to build to Successful Morning Routine
Building a successful morning routine requires discipline and consistency. The videos you see on YouTube of people waking up happy might not be the case in the first few days. The morning is cold and the warm blanket beckons.
A good Morning Routine Begins with your Night Schedule.
It is easier to sleep late than to wake up early. To be able to wake up at 5:00 am means that you slept early the previous night. That is at around 10:00 am. This will be hard if you have been sleeping late. Thus you should have a sleeping routine.
Quick hacks to make sleeping easy
- Avoid Caffeine two hours before your sleeping time
Coffee is meant to keep one alert and thus taking it while going to bed will counter sleeping.
- Have total darkness in your bedroom
It is easier to sleep in total darkness than in beaming lights. Also avoid listening to music or having something in the background that lulls you to sleep. Chances are that you will wake up. This includes having dark blinders and even dark curtains. Switch off the lights.
- Do not carry your gadget with you
Phones, laptops,tablets should be left in the other room. You should not have any of these gadgets near your bedside table. This helps you to tame the urge to scroll through social media.
In addition, the light coming from the phone might just keep you awake.
- Avoid taking water 1 hour to sleeping time
Taking water results in peeing often, which will end up making you not have enough sleep. The alternative to this should be taking water immediately when you wake up. This wakes you up as well as replaces the fluids that you lost while you were asleep.
- Set a sleeping time alarm
I know this might sound odd but it works. Sometimes, we need to be reminded to go to sleep and you need to be intentional about it. You might not necessarily be doing something unproductive even.
However, you have to be keen to be disciplined enough to switch off the laptop when that alarm rings. Understand that it is important for you to sleep early in order to wake up early.
- Set a secondary alarm 15 minutes after to first alarm
Since I know without a doubt that you would ignore the first alarm, here comes the second one. The time space should allow you to finish up on what you need to in order to go to sleep.
- If you must carry a book to bed, let it be a boring one
Reading a booking 10 minutes before you sleep won’t harm, it might even lull you to sleep.
Prepare Your To do list before you sleep
Map out 15 minutes of your time at night to write down your goals for the morning. Include the task that you enjoy doing and your most important tasks (MITs). The first hour of waking up should be very easy to do. Next you can include the tasks that require your most attention.
You should blend your tasks to include activities that enhance physical, Spiritual and mental development.
List of things you should include in your routine
- Physical Movement : Make Your Bed
Making your bed can go a long way in ensuring that you start off your day well. William H. McRaven once said, “ if you want to change the world, make your bed.”
It has a way of applauding you for achieving your first goal of the day. It will also round up to having a good bed to go to at night anyway.
Wash your Face or take a shower
Washing your face wakes you up and makes you more alert.
Take a bottle of water
As earlier stated, taking water immediately wakes you up and rejuvenates you and wakes you up even more. Have that bottle refilled for the rest of the morning to ake up for the water lost at night. Instead of running to coffee, just have water for the next hour or two. If the water is not doing the trick maybe a sweet smoothie to make the morning worthwhile will help.
Morning Pages
At this time I am assuming that you are still groggy. Thus keep on doing easy task. Morning pages do the trick. Morning pages entails taking a book and writing everything that is running on your mind.
Do not mind the spelling errors or the punctuation or even the grammar. Just write it as it comes.
Morning pages have a way of helping you clear your mind for the day.
Get on with your Most Important Tasks (MIT)
According to your previous list, check on your priorities and work on them. It could be an assignment you wanted to finish, or a blog you wanted to research on. This will be the perfect time to do all these.
Mental Development: Read a chapter of a book
Mental development is very key in this routine. Read that book you have been looking forward to or listen to a podcast of the area you are planning to grow on. Make sure that you settle on the book to read before you go to sleep to avoid wasting time.
Spiritual development : Read your Bible and Journal
If you are a believer, include your spiritual nourishment practices in your routine as well. You could be studying a book of the bible or a character. Have a specific book to journal the insights you are getting from the book.
Meditation and Gratitude
Gratitude helps us to see how far we have come and thus appreciate the progress. Have a meditation and gratitude journal. You can also use the journal for your morning devotion.
Divide the book into two parts, one part record your gratitude journey and in the other record your bible reading journey.
List down 5 things you are grateful about. A gratitude list is a powerful list. It will have an incredible impact on how you will spend the rest of the day.
The gratitude list will also allow you to appreciate the far you have come so far.
In your gratitude journal also include your Morning affirmations. Write down 3 affirmations that will guide your day.
Gratitude should not only be reserved for major leaps but even the small milestones.
Let the Light in
Switch on the lights and draw the curtains. Make sure that you are the recipient of the first day light. This will make your waking up easier.
Your Skin care routine
Take care of your skin. As earlier stated, your morning outline should be a blend of things that enhance you physically, mentally and spiritually. A skin care routine should be something that you include in your morning.
A simple morning skin care routine entails:
- Cleanse
- Moisturize
- Tone
- Vitamin C
- Sunscreen
If you do not have all five, then a cleanser and Moisturizer that has SPF will be just fine.
Invest in you: Time for personal Growth
The world is changing very fast. Make sure you change with it. Invest in yourself, learn a new skill and make it a priority each day.
Set aside 30 minutes to learn this new skill. It might seem like you are not progressing but you are becoming. The compounding change will just impress you.
I am currently learning digital marketing in depth to get certifications.
Your personal growth journey is a worthy challenge and you will win.
Craft your to do list
Write down a list of the things that you plan to do during the day. Fight the urge to just have a mental to do list, WRITE IT DOWN. There are apps on the phone to help. However, I recommend writing them down. You can also have a calendar set up. Craft a google calendar that you will follow for a month. A google calendar is easy to follow and you will just be getting pop ups on your phone through the day.
Lay out your Clothes
Some people prefer laying out their clothes the previous night to avoid wasting time. However, a morning lay out works just as fine.
Prepare for the Day
You can prepare breakfast. Pack that lunch. Get fully dressed. Then give yourself a thank you with that coffee finally. If you are working from home then you can be working on that hobby while listening to that podcast you have been meaning to listen to.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
I am a night owl
It is true that most people do not consider themselves as morning people. The argument is that they do most of the work at night. In this case I would encourage you to start your morning routine at around 6:00 am. This means that you sleep at around 11:00 Pm- 12:00 Am to give you roughly 6-7 hours of sleep.
I always snooze my alarm
You are not alone. In this case make sure that you have left your alarm in the other room. Alternatively, you can put the alarm at a distance that ensures that you have to walk out of bed to access it. Also ensure that you switch on the lights first before you turn off the alarm.
Another trick, have a ringtone that affirms you. Or better yet one that has your strong why. You might not have a custom one but one that just tells you why you are awake will do the trick.
What happens if i miss a day
Things might happen which in effect might alter your morning routine. Maybe a friend came over and you spoke the night away, or you went to visit family, or you were just under the weather.
Make sure you do not make this a habit. In such cases you can give yourself an allowance of maybe an hour and nothing more. Things happen, and they should not make you change your routine.
My Phone distracts me during my routine
- Transfer all the tasks you need to do to your desktop or manually.
- Have a hard copy bible or book
- Activate the DND button on your phone
- Remove the social media tabs from your laptop
- Leave your phone in a different room
Your mornings should be your time. Avoid anything that tries to steal that time from you. Is this a sacrifice you are willing to pay?
I feel tired immediately am up
I must say, the first few mornings will be hard. This is why you need a strong reason why you are waking up. Therefore, start easy. Do not put in your to do list things that you would even find hard to do during the day. Put fan things. Make sure there is one or two things you look up to doing in the morning when you sleep. You won’t even need an alarm.
Conclusion
A morning routine is not one shoe fits all. Check out the things that work for you and practise them for 21 days.
The key takeaways from this article are:
- Move your body
- Hydrate
- Feed your soul.
