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Makeover Your Morning

Lazy No More! Creating A Powerful Morning Routine

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Filed Under: Makeover Your Morning, Morning Routines, Organizing Series, Routines & Time

Creating Your Ideal Morning Routine

How would it feel to start your day motivated and organized? It would be great, wouldn’t it? You’d know what you were doing, that everything was sorted and you’d feel brilliant. Surprisingly, it wouldn’t take much to get a great start on your day every day. All it needs is for you to create a morning routine that motivates and organizes you for success; every day.

The Motivating Morning Routine
The motivating morning routine.

One of the secrets of success -whatever your personal definition of it is- for those who are consistently achieving results both in their personal life and in business is a morning routine. It doesn’t need to be complex and it certainly doesn’t have to be time-consuming to create or follow.

In the beginning, it will require a commitment from you to planning it and then to practicing it daily until it becomes a habit that happens without you having to consciously work on it.

Here are some elements that I have personally incorporated and that have helped me change how I go about my days and achieve so much more. Start with one little thing and add to it to build a morning routine that works for you.

1. Creating Your Ideal Morning Routine: Early Start

Forget about long lie-ins and putting the alarm on snooze every 5 minutes. Set your alarm for an hour or so, earlier than normal and see your productivity soar. An early start may not come naturally at first but by making sure you go to bed earlier and get enough sleep you’ll notice a positive difference quickly.

If you are used to going to bed late, I found that the easiest way to adjust to an earlier wake-up time was to move my bedtime to 5 to 10 minutes earlier every day, until I reached the ideal bedtime.

I personally need 8-9 hours of sleep to feel rested. Adjust your bedtime accordingly to make sure you get enough sleep.

2. Creating Your Ideal Morning Routine: Your Soul

Set the tone of your day by giving it a really positive boost.

Whether you choose to read an inspiring book, pick a card with an inspirational message, meditate or make use of techniques like tapping or visualization, this has been an important part of starting my day.

By looking inwards and connecting with myself, with my emotions and how I want to feel about my day has been quite powerful in setting the tone for the day ahead.

As the day goes by, if something shakes it up in a negative way, I always have that “place” to go back. Staying connected with my emotions and my soul works as a powerful anchor that lifts me up if I get down.

3. Creating Your Ideal Morning Routine: Exercise

Practicing some form of exercise will get your blood flowing, your heart pumping will immediately waken up your entire system.

You don’t need to go for a 5-mile run every day. If moving in the wee hours is not for you, some stretching or some yoga poses will help ground you as well as provide time for inner contemplation.

For me, stretching to start the day does the trick and then, later in the day, I go for a full 1-hour of exercise.

4. Creating Your Ideal Morning Routine: Hydration

Make sure you keep your body hydrated. While many people recommend starting the day with a glass of warm water and lemon, I never got used to that.

Many years ago, my grandmother taught me the “1-glass of water before anything” rule and I have incorporated it in my morning routine since then, still, I wasn’t drinking enough water throughout the day, coming to feel tired and even having headaches out of nowhere.

I adopted the habit of keeping a large bottle of fresh water and it works great for me.

On warmer months I’ll keep a large pitcher of water with ice and cucumber slices on the kitchen counter and I love taking quick breaks from work and enjoying a glass of water while watching the birds outside.

5. Creating Your Ideal Morning Routine: Planning

If you want to have a successful day, make sure that you know exactly what needs to be done.

Check your calendar daily, at the end of the day, to identify exactly what Have a to-do list ready and identify the order of priority.

Make sure the list isn’t too long, keeping it doable. There’s nothing more frustrating than having a long to-do list that never gets done.

I personally like to focus on 3 priority items, and if I get those done, that’s a good day!

6. Creating Your Ideal Morning Routine: Nutrition

A healthy breakfast is a good way to get your body fuelled up ready to tackle the day ahead. You’ll feel more alert and be able to concentrate on the tasks you need to accomplish.

While I never skipped breakfast, I used to go for hours in the morning without eating, just pilling up on caffeine as my energy source. With the many changes, I did last year, eating well first thing in the morning is one step I’m happy I adopted and stuck with.

7. Creating Your Ideal Morning Routine: Reading

Taking a few minutes to sit and read something inspiring or educational will help you to feel positive and motivated. You don’t have to spend a long time reading, even 10 minutes will be enough to get your mind working and your motivation kick-started.

Suggestions for morning reading include spiritual books, self-help books or biographies and autobiographies of people who inspire you and can act as role models.

8. Creating Your Ideal Morning Routine: Money Tasks

Before you head out the door on your commute or settle down to your day at home, it’s important to do something that will either make you money or save you from spending money. You can prep the day’s meals so that you don’t feel tempted to get a take-out when you are feeling tired at the end of the day.

Make sure that the dishwasher is loaded and the kitchen counters clean and clear so that you don’t have to think about tidying. Pay your bills so that you don’t get overdue notices and charges.

If you want to have a successful day, then it’s important to start your day in a positive way. Having a morning routine will ensure that your days are organized for success and that you feel motivated from the start.

The motivating morning routine.

This is the first post of a 7-day series. If you want to overhaul your morning routine and create new habits check the posts below!

Missed a day of this challenge? Check them all out here!

Day 1 – Click Here

Day 2 – Click Here

Day 3 – Click Here

Day 4 – Click Here

Day 5 – Click Here

Day 6 – Click Here

Take Time To Review Your Morning Routine Regularly

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Filed Under: Living, Makeover Your Morning, Morning Routines, Organizing Series, Routines & Time

Makeover Your Morning Mini-Challenge – Day 7

Creating routines and habits for your mornings are a great thing. They allow you to do what you need to do to move ahead without having to spend a lot of energy and time thinking about it. That’s a good thing. It can also be a dangerous thing when you’ve been focusing on the wrong things and are in the habit of doing things that don’t help you reach your goals.

Makeover your morning routine. Actionable tips and strategies you can use every day to make the most of your mornings.

Actionable tips and strategies you can use every day to make the most of your mornings

When we get into a routine, it’s hard to stop and ask ourselves if it’s working as well as it could be. Even more importantly, with a routine and a set of habits firmly established, it’s easy to keep going even when the circumstances change. That’s why it’s important to take some time every now and again to review our routine and habits, including the new morning routine.

Set aside a little time every few weeks, or even months to review your routine.

Put it on the calendar and make sure you do it. It won’t take long and it will be a very valuable exercise in the long run.

Our lives and circumstances change. Our routines should change with it. Just because something has served us well over the past few weeks and months, doesn’t mean it will continue to do so.

Which brings up a good point…

When you sit down to review your morning routine (or any routine or habit you’ve been working on for that matter), ask yourself this:

Assess What Is Working On Your Morning Routine

Is it working? Is it working really well?

If it is, simply carry on. If it isn’t, it may be time to make some changes and tweak it until you find something that works well for you at that particular point in time.

Another way to look at it is to find what you love and what you hate about the new morning routine. Change it accordingly until you get as close as possible to loving everything about it and still getting the results you want.

Remember, this morning routine will change and evolve over time as you, your circumstances, and the people in your life change and evolve. Embrace the changes and look at them as an indication that you’re making progress.

Keep tweaking and improving your morning routine and don’t be afraid to mix up your goals for it. Maybe you started out by making exercise a priority first thing of the day.

As time goes by and you become more fit and make time for it later in the day, your focus may shift to meditation, or learn a new language.

Keep evolving, keep changing, and keep using those precious first few hours of each day to establish some positive change in yourself and those around you.

Missed a day of this challenge? Check them all out here!

Day 1 – Click Here

Day 2 – Click Here

Day 3 – Click Here

Day 4 – Click Here

Day 5 – Click Here

Day 6 – Click Here

Your New Morning Routine And The Importance Of Habits And Routines

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Filed Under: Living, Makeover Your Morning, Morning Routines, Organizing Series, Routines & Time

Makeover Your Morning Mini-Challenge – Day 6

With your new morning game plan figured out, it’s time to not only put it into action but make it your new morning routine. Why is this important? Because you want to make sure your new plan happens every morning without fail and turning into a routine is the best way to make sure that happens.

Makeover your morning routine. Actionable tips and strategies you can use every day to make the most of your mornings.

Before something becomes a habit or a routine, it takes a lot of willpower to things happen. That’s energy that you will need for other things throughout your morning and busy rest of the day.

Yes, it will take some willpower, mental energy, and drive at first to create the new morning habits, but once they are set, it will become automatic like brushing your teeth before bed.

Once you come up with a good working morning routine, stick to it for a few weeks. That’s the best way to turn it into a strong habit. Before long, it will feel like the new normal and you no longer have to remind yourself to do each thing along the way.

It will have become a habit and a routine you’ll follow automatically. It will take a lot less effort and mental pep-talk to get things done… even if your new routine includes a 30-minute run, or getting up at the crack of down to work on your most important business task for an hour.

Watch out for moments when you slip back into your old habits and routines. It’s going to happen.

The key is to catch it early and get back on track as quickly as possible. For example, let’s say you’ve been doing well with waking up 30 minutes earlier and going for a run before you start your day.

Then one day you oversleep and can’t make it out there. Or the weather turns too bad, you get sick or hurt, or something else pops up that keeps you from going on that run.

That’s life. It happens. What’s important is what you decide to do the next morning.

Your most important job whenever life gets in the way of your new morning routine is to get back on track as quickly as possible. Do what you can as soon as you notice the disruption.

If the weather is bad, do a quick workout at home, or head to the gym to run on the treadmill.

If you overslept, try to squeeze in a few minutes of meditation or doing something to grow your business before you get back to the rest of your day. Most importantly get back on track with your regular morning routine as soon as possible.

Get back into your new habits the next morning if at all possible.

Actively remind yourself to get back on track for a few days until a routine is firmly back in place. You’ll be glad you did when you start to see the results you’ve been hoping for.

Missed the other days of this challenge? Check them here!

Day 1 – Click Here

Day 2 – Click Here 

Day 3 – Click Here 

Day 4 – Click Here 

Day 5 – Click Here 

Come Up With A New Morning Game Plan

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Filed Under: Makeover Your Morning, Morning Routines, Organizing Series, Routines & Time

Makeover Your Morning Mini-Challenge – Day 5

Now that you have a pretty good idea of what you want to do in the morning, what you don’t want to or need to do, and where to find the extra time needed, it’s time to put it all together in a new morning game plan.

Makeover your morning routine. Actionable tips and strategies you can use every day to make the most of your mornings.

The best place to start is with the new set of tasks that are most important to you.

Figure out a time during which you want to get them accomplished. If your goal is to go for a run in the morning, you may decide to do that first thing before getting a shower and having breakfast.

If your goal is to meditate each morning, you may decide it would work best after you’ve had a cup of coffee.

If your goal is to find some time for reading or your favorite hobby in the morning, you could carve out some time before everyone else gets up and while you enjoy that first coffee.

The same goes for wanting time in the morning to work on your business or learn something new.

Then work the rest of your morning chores around these new plans. It may take some moving around and mixing up with your current routine, but with a little creative thinking and a bit of flexibility, I’m sure you can come up with a working plan.

Making over your morning and turning it into a new routine isn’t something that comes naturally to most of us. It takes a little while to get into the groove of things.

We’ll look at this in a little more detail tomorrow. For right now, my suggestion is that you write your new morning game plan down. It’s easy to forget what you’re planning to do.

Writing it down will not only give you a reference to refer back to, but also solidify your new plan in your mind.

Put the note or notebook where you jotted down your new plan on your night table or somewhere else where you’ll see it first thing in the morning. It will serve as a reminder of what you’re intending to do and do differently in the morning now.

Even though you’ve written your plan down, it’s important to realize it’s not written in stone.

The well-laid out plans don’t always work when put into action. Adjust it and make changes as needed until you come up with a new morning game plan that works well for you and the rest of your family. Once you have that it’s time to make it the new routine… something we’ll talk more about tomorrow.

Missed a day of this challenge? Check them all out here!

Day 1 – Click Here

Day 2 – Click Here

Day 3 – Click Here

Day 4 – Click Here

Day 5 – Click Here

Day 6 – Click Here

 

Determining What You Should Be Doing Is Crucial

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Filed Under: Makeover Your Morning, Morning Routines, Organizing Series, Routines & Time

Makeover Your Morning Mini-Challenge – Day 4

Identifying Your Priorities Is Essential – Yesterday we talked about finding the time in your busy morning to do the things that are important to you. Today I want you to think about your priorities, what you should and what you shouldn’t be doing in those first few hours of the day. That’s an important idea to ponder. So often we get stuck in a rut or a routine and do things because that’s what we’ve always done. We do it without really thinking about whether or not it’s the best use of our time.

Makeover your morning routine. Actionable tips and strategies you can use every day to make the most of your mornings.
Determining your priorities is essential.

It’s Not About Cramming More Things Into Less Time

Making over your morning isn’t about figuring out how to cram more tasks into fewer hours. While adding more to your list can help in the short term, it isn’t a good long-term strategy for meaningful change. Very soon you’ll hit the limit of how much faster and how much more efficient you can get.

Instead, shift your thinking to focus on your priorities and don’t try to add to what you do in the morning. If you want 15 minutes for bible study, meditation, or exercise, don’t just think about getting up 15 minutes earlier, or shaving 15 minutes off your morning routine by showering faster, getting dressed in record time, and rushing through breakfast. In other words, don’t add to your already lengthy list of things that need to get done. You’ll only feel more rushed and stressed if you do.

It’s About Making Smart Choices About Using Your Time

Instead, what you should be thinking about is the best use of your time in the morning. Compare your perfect morning with your current morning routine. What aren’t you doing on your ideal morning? If you can start by cutting things out, finding time to do what’s important to you becomes much easier.

There are two great ways to find things you can stop doing. The first is to look for busy work. This is something you do out of habit that doesn’t necessarily need doing every day. Maybe it’s checking your email first thing in the morning or playing around on Facebook for half an hour while you drink your coffee. If that’s how you choose to spend your time, that’s perfectly fine, but if you’re doing it out of habit it may be time to rethink it.

Earn Back Time With A Morning Routine

The second way to quickly earn back time is to see if you’re doing things or others that they can do themselves. Kids are the perfect example. We start out fixing their breakfast, making their school-lunch, cleaning up after them, picking out their clothes, and making sure their backpack is packed and ready to do. When they are very small, we have to do these things, but all too often we continue to do them long after they’re capable of doing things on their own.

The same goes for things we do for our spouse. Maybe there was a time when you had less to do in the morning and it made sense to take on the majority of morning chores. Did things change and if so, is it time to lighten your load and get help from your partner? A few small changes may be all it takes to make the time in your busy morning to focus on your priorities and what’s important to you.

Missed a day of this challenge? Check them all out here!

Day 1 – Click Here

Day 2 – Click Here

Day 3 – Click Here

Day 4 – Click Here

Day 5 – Click Here

Day 6 – Click Here

Finding Time In Your Busy Morning

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Filed Under: Makeover Your Morning, Morning Routines, Organizing Series, Routines & Time

Making Over Your Morning Mini-Challenge – Day 3

Mornings are busy and they can be quiet chaotic. If you have a young family and plenty of people to get ready and out the door, you know this first hand. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way, no matter how busy you think you are. Earlier I shared with you how the first few hours in the morning set the tone for the entire rest of the day.

Do you want it to be rushed, frantic, and feeling like you’re constantly running and trying to catch up? Or do you want it to be calm, collected, productive, and with a feeling that you’re in control? It’s up to you and it’s all about embracing two simple concepts.

Makeover your morning routine. Actionable tips and strategies you can use every day to make the most of your mornings.

Get Up Early Enough

It’s tempting to hit the snooze button and catch a few more minutes of sleep, isn’t it? It’s even hard to set the alarm early enough that you have plenty of time for everything you want and need to get done. I get it. If you’re not a morning person, moving up the alarm by 30 minutes to carve out a little extra time can be tough. Trust me though, after the first few mornings it’s not nearly as hard as you think and something you’ll quickly get used to.

Getting up early enough and avoiding the snooze button at all costs is the key to an unrushed morning.

Here’s the problem with cutting time too short, or worse hitting the snooze button a few times. It gets you behind from the very start.

You have to rush to make it out the door in time and any little problem or speed bump along the way turns into a huge problem. Not being able to find the car keys is suddenly a major crisis because it could cause you to be late for work and the kids to be tardy at school.

Remember, your morning sets the tone for the rest of your day. If you start it chasing for time and looking for things, that’s likely how you’ll spend the rest of your time.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Your morning sets the tone for the rest of your day. Join me and let’s makeover your mornings!” quote=”Your morning sets the tone for the rest of your day.”]

Getting up early enough, on the other hand, puts you ahead of the game. You’re in control. You can take care of everything that needs doing in a calm manner and still have time for the important things you want to work on. In short, getting up early enough sets you up for an amazing, productive day.

Restructure Your Routine

Before we wrap this up, spend a little time thinking about your current morning routine and where you’re spending time.

Look for things you can change and tweak to find more time for the things you really want to do. For example, if you want an extra 20 minutes in the morning to meditate, look at what you could take care ahead of time, eliminate, or delegate to make that time.

If you spend a lot of time getting breakfast for everyone, get in the habit of setting the breakfast table the night before. Get your spouse to get the coffee ready, so all you have to do in the morning is push a button. Teach the kids to make their own breakfast and take the dirty dishes to the sink, rinse them, and put them in the dishwasher. Make sure clothes are set out the night before (including yours), and that book bags, purses, briefcases, and car keys have a designated spot and that there where they need to be before you turn in for the night.

Small changes like this to your morning routine can make a big difference. I challenge you to come up with a few small tweaks that will save you at least 30 minutes in the morning.

Missed a day in the challenge?

Day 1 – Click Here

Day 2 – Click Here

Day 3 – Click Here

Day 4 – Click Here

Day 5 – Click Here

Day 6 – Click Here