Your 2 Most Powerful Routines
Routines are hugely important in my life. When a routine becomes a habit, this is the way that we can consistently get the important things done in the midst of the busyness of life.
My routine doesn’t have to be the same as your routine. But we all have things that are already habits and we can build upon these to create new habits.
The 2 routines I want to focus on today, the 2 routines that make the most impact in my life, are our morning and evening routines. No matter if you work away from home, at home, are a stay at home mom, or a combination of these things (like myself), we all have these routines already in place. Now, we might not be fully taking advantage of the power they possess, but we have these routines. We all wake up and do something and we all go to bed at night. Every. Single. One of us.
By realizing that these are things we already do, we can add patterns and disciplines to these routines to create habits.
Personally, I find that I have more flexibly in the evenings to add more to my evening routine. Your evening routine can begin from when you get home from work or from after dinner. This is a large amount of time for me to get this routine accomplished.
For the mornings, because I still have a small child that I need to get ready for school, I have less time. My morning routine is much smaller than my evening routine. You can look at your own life and decide which routine you want to add a habit to.
So let’s get started on how to habit stack and add things to your morning or evenings.
Make a list of things that you need to get done. This list might include, daily devotion, exercise, skin/beauty care, or laundry. Each of us have different things we need to accomplish during our time we are awake. This list is where you want to start.
Decide if this task needs to be added to the morning or the evening. I had a call recently with a client for a Productivity Session (you can book me HERE.) She expressed that while her home stays really tidy, she has this chair in her room that just seems to collect clothing. We decided to add this to her evening routine. Before she gets in the bed each evening she is going to make sure that chair is clear. She will take 5 minutes and hang up the clothes or toss them in the hamper. It’s that simple. And the reality is that by doing this daily, she will likely develop the habit of just hanging up her clothing when she is changing and not have to clear this chair off in the future.
Add it to something you are already doing. Referring the previous example, this client is already getting in bed each night, every night. So she can stack this habit, getting in bed, with a new habit, clearing her chair. Here is another example. Each morning when I get up and come down the stairs, I immediately fix a cup of coffee. It’s a habit I created when my son was a baby (and he’s now 14.) So I do it almost mindlessly. When I wanted to be sure to read my Bible first thing each morning I added it to my coffee habit. I sat my Bible in the chair. Now that this a habit, I don’t even have to think about it.
Just for reference, here are some of the things involved in my Morning and Evening Routines.
Morning
Weigh
Coffee
Bible/devotion/prayer
Get dressed
Focused work time
Get kids ready for school/started with school
Evening (starts around dinner time)
Lunches prepped during dinner prep.
Tomorrow night’s dinner (thaw out meat in fridge or prep crock pot)
Clean up the kitchen from dinner
Bags ready
Clothes ready
Nightly pickup
Read with my 5 year old
Workout
Shower
Read
You can add anything you want into your morning or evening routines. What is a habit you have been wanting to add to your life? What is a goal you are working towards? Find a place for it in one of these routines and the goal will come!