My Goal for a Morning Routine
I hate mornings… If I can sleep for an extra ten or fifteen minutes I’m absolutely going to… But I’ve also realized how important mornings are to get your day started on the right foot. Knowing how important mornings are, I’m really trying to build good habits for myself and develop a good morning routine.
My work day starts at 9:00 in the morning. This may seem normal to most, but it’s pretty early for me and most of the startup industry in San Francisco, but I make it work. I typically wake up around 8:00 am every morning, but I’m going to start committing to waking up at 7:30 am instead.
From 7:30 to 7:35, I’m going to wake up and get out of bed. From 7:35–7:40 I’m going to make my way to my bathroom and drink a bottle of water. I’ve heard many different times that drinking two cups of water in the morning is really good for you, so I’m going to start drinking a full bottle of water right when I wake up
My morning really gets started as soon as I have had a shower, so I really need to make that is the first thing I do in the morning. I know some people like to start with journaling or quiet time before showering and getting ready for their day, but if I don’t get in the shower then I won’t actually wake up and get my day started. So from 7:40–7:50 I’m going to take my shower. Then it’s time to get dressed and do any random things I need to do to get ready for work in the morning. This will happen from 7:50 to 8:00. After all of that, I’m ready to go for the day and I still have 25 to 30 minutes to spare!
7:30–7:35 | Wake-up
7:35–7:40 | Drink bottle of water
7:40–7:50 | Shower
7:50–8:00 | Get dressed and get ready to go
From 8:00 until 8:25 or 8:30, this is where waking up a little bit earlier becomes useful. With an extra 30 minutes, there’s so much that I can do to get my day started right.
From 8:00–8:05, I want to meditate and just take the time to clear my head. Then from 8:05–8:15 I want to journal. There are a few different types of journaling I want to experiment with and figure out which one works best for me. I imagine the type of journaling I do will be a consistently changing as part of my morning routine.
Some examples of what I want to try are: Writing down 3 things I’m grateful for each morning. Stream of consciousness journaling. A mood tracking aspect where I rate how I’m feeling on a scale of 1–10 so I can keep track of how I’m feeling throughout the month and year and see how different thing in life impact my mood. And many more! So I’ll keep you all updated with how that is going.
From 8:15–8:25 or 8:30 I want to track how my previous day went as well as plan for my day ahead. This will include checking in on how well I accomplished my goals yesterday, set goals for myself for the day, and look at the bigger picture “why am I doing the things I am doing.” I think this will really help me gain direction, motivation, and clarity in my life.
Then on my commute to work, I’m going to continue listening to audio books. This is something I started a few weeks ago and it’s been a really awesome part of my day. I have 30–35 minutes in my day where I can be learning new information and improving my outlook on life.
This is all still just a plan for the moment, but I’m really committed and excited to start implementing this morning routine in my life! It will be hard, but I’m ready to make it happen. I think the hardest aspect of making these changes in my life will be the uncertainty and inconsistency in my schedule. When I’m traveling or when different things come up, it is very easy for a routine to fly out the window very quickly.
I hope you were able to gain some ideas for your morning routine! Let me know in the comments down below what you do as part of your routine or if there were any items you plan to implement from my routine.
