Simple yet effective morning routine for moms to make your day more productive & happy
Mornings are really important in our lives. How you spend the precious hours of your morning can determine how your day is going to be -good or not so good!! An effective morning routine always sets your mind to a happy tone and helps you to conquer your day. So, here I am sharing a simple yet effective morning routine that’ll make your days more productive and happier!!
Now, I must admit that it took me a while to learn my lesson about importance of morning routine, but I’ll also admit that it was a game change for me!! Now, if you are wondering how?
Then I should first explain this one basic question –
Why do you need a morning routine?
I never knew mornings can be so powerful and make a great difference to how you spend your whole day!! Having an effective morning routine can change everything!
You see, after becoming a mom I became a night person! It was obvious in the starting days of motherhood that I couldn’t get enough sleep at night and was always unable to wake up early in the morning. But even after my daughter grew up and developed a good routine for day and night I always found it difficult to wake up early because it had become a habit now.
Every night I would decide to wake up early but then every morning I would wake up later than I intended! And then my mornings were something like this:
I wake up a couple of hours later than I intended. My daughter is still sleeping so I decide to enjoy this time just for myself before she wakes up and my day starts, so I make myself a cup of tea and sit on the couch to enjoy my cup of tea!
And then I pick up my mobile and start to check on emails and Facebook and other social media while sipping my tea!! And before I know it I have spent whole 60 minutes catching up with the social media and haven’t done anything else that is actually important!!
Suddenly I realize my daughter can wake up at any moment now and I have a ton of work to do before she wakes up and rush to my laptop to get done with some writing but I couldn’t concentrate. I constantly get distracted by the thoughts in my head about the work I needed to get done and how am I going to manage it while my daughter is around after she wakes up!!
I feel behind and not ready to start my day. And then my daughter wakes up and I start my day with a complete chaos in my head!! Through all day I feel overwhelmed when I start to do any work and find myself easily distracted by social media and emails! I just keep spinning in circles and am unable to focus on anything!!
At the end of the day I feel completely defeated because I haven’t accomplished anything through out the day!! Honestly, I hate this feeling!! I hate such days when I get this feeling.
And I never knew it was because :
I never had any morning routine!!
Because believe it or not, our mornings matter! The way we spend our morning is the key to have a productive and better day. And that’s why a few simple yet effective morning routines can set your mood to the right tone immediately and help you own your day!!
Let’s start with the first and very important routine :
Start your morning before your kids get up
When you have little ones with you, it’s really hard to get up early in the morning!! I get that! And you need to have a good 7 to 8 hours sleep in order to stay healthy and have a better day!!
So, here I am not telling you to get up at 5 am in the morning ( if you could manage that, it’ll be really good for you but that’s not compulsory). Instead I am saying that try to get up at least an hour before your kids get up. Because let’s face it, you can have time of your own – just for yourself- only when your kids are asleep, right??
So, get up before your kids in the morning so that you can have an uninterrupted time just for yourself and follow your morning routine without disturbance. Because your morning routine is the time you spend on yourself, for yourself! You’ll see the changes in you when you start to follow your morning routine regularly.
Once you get used to getting up an hour before your kids then you can slowly add more hours to your mornings before your kids are awake. But remember to have a good sleep of at least 7 to 8 hours. You can manage that by going early to sleep at night so that you can start your mornings a bit early!!
Make your bed
The first thing you should do after you wake up is : Make your bed!!!
This is a very simple practice but very effective in order to start a day with intentions!!
In a book I recently read- “The power of habit : why we do what we do and how to change” , the author Charles Duhigg states :
Studies have documented that making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity, a greater sense of well-being and stronger skills at sticking with a budget. It’s not that a tidy bed causes less spending but somehow those initial shifts start chain reactions that help other good habits take hold.
And it’s true because, when you wake up, to make your bed, you need to get out of the warmth of your bed and move your body and it helps you to be awake. It starts the chain reactions that help you to start other good habits.
For many of us, getting out of bed is a real struggle and when you leave your bed as it is then you might want to crawl back in the sheets and have a few more minutes of sleep!! But once you make your bed immediately after getting up, it sets your mindset on a productive note. Hence this is an effective morning routine that you need to practice!
So, get out of your bed immediately after you wake up, instead of checking on social media & emails and make your bed!!
Drink a glass of water
Next routine is drinking a glass of water.
In order to stay healthy you should be well hydrated, and it’s a good to start your day by hydrating yourself!
So, drink a glass of water and start a healthy day!!
You should practice these three routines in the same order as I’ve written them in but for all the next routines, you can change their order for you as per your time and need or what works for you the most or what you like the most!!
Plan your day
This is one of the very important practice of your effective morning routine!
Plan your day!! Decide what you want to do today, what are the most important tasks for you and when can you do them.
To plan your day, first write everything down on a paper or in an app if you use. Once you’ve written all your to-do tasks then prioritize them. choose top 3 priority tasks for the day and assign time of you day for those 3 tasks! And if you still have free time at your hand after assigning time for those important tasks then plan other tasks to do in that time. Know how to plan your day to be more productive and create an effective schedule for your day.
Planning your day in the morning gives you the oversight of your day and the confidence that you can accomplish your priority tasks in the given day. It boosts your confidence and sets your mood on a positive note to start your day and conquer it!!
It’s a very powerful and effective morning routine and can be done within 10-15 minutes!! Plus you get to plan some “me time” in your schedule and spend some time doing what makes you feel happy!
Have some reflection time
This one is also very effective morning routine which gives you a peaceful mindset and helps to focus on your tasks through out the day.
I know for many of us, this reflection time can seem like a waste of time but believe me when you spend 10 minutes of your morning reflecting yourself , you’ll immediately feel the calm and peace in your mind and body!!
Practicing reflection time means pausing a little and taking a step back and see where you are and where you want to be and deciding what you need to do to be there! It helps to clear your mind and makes you stop feeling scattered and aimless without intentions!!
You can practice reflection in many ways, following are a few:
- Meditation
- Prayer
- Writing journal and answering a set of few questions
- Writing or reading affirmations
- Practicing gratitude
- Deep breathing
- Sitting quiet and pondering over a cup of tea/coffee
You can do any of these in your reflection time or may be you have your own method of reflection other than these that works for you then keep doing it and you will be amazed to see the extraordinary effect of this time on your day!!
Move that body
Adding a exercise routine to your mornings can give you many incredible benefits other than a good health!
As a stay at home mom, I know you move your body a lot around your little ones but unfortunately that doesn’t count as exercise moms!! You need to do actual exercise like stretching your body in yoga or doing some jumping jacks or some sort of aerobic exercise or may be jogging around your neighborhood!! Anything that works for you or you love to do, do that kind of exercise for at least 10-15 minutes in the morning!
Exercise in the morning provides you many benefits like a) it gives your metabolism a jump start and keeps your metabolism level up through out the day, b) it increases your energy and helps you stay focused all day long ( also helps to get better sleep) and c) decreases the risk of all the scary kind of things like heart disease, cancer or diabetes!
And the fortunate thing is that, that you don’t have to spend your whole morning doing exercise for all these results. A 10 – 15 minutes regular exercise can work wonder and give you an energy boost in the morning to start your day with more energy!!
Get your pill of inspiration!
When you start your morning with some inspiration, productivity and happiness is guaranteed through out the day!
As a mom, we get burn out almost every day and we really need the inspiration to keep doing what we need to do. Hence take your pill of inspiration in the morning and face your day with determination and inspiration!
Taking an inspiration pill means feeding yourself some positive and inspirational thoughts!! Read an inspirational book or blog post, or listen to any inspirational audio book or podcast and fill your tank with all those positive thoughts. You can listen to the motivational podcasts or audio book while doing the exercise or running around your neighborhood, this way you can practice two routines at the same time and save time in the morning for other routines!!
Those positive thoughts gives you motivation to be ready for the day and any curve ball the day might throw at you!!
Eat that frog first
Okay, first of all, it’s a term!! I am not telling you to eat a frog!!
It’s a great book by Brian Tracy – Eat that frog : 21 great ways to stop procrastinating and get more done in less time.
In this book Tracy follows the quote :
If you eat a live frog for breakfast, chances are that will be the hardest thing you have to do all day.
Mark Twain
The point is, start your day with your hardest task that you want to accomplish. And even if you could not complete it throughout the day but you still have actually accomplished a lot!!
For example may be you want to declutter your home for your own good but finding it hard to do because of the overwhelm and yes it’s a time consuming task! So, start this task the first thing when you start your day and may be at the end of the day you have decluttered your half home!! It’s a great achievement even though you couldn’t do it for the whole house, you can do the remaining next day!!
So, Eat that frog first and decide which important tasks you’ll do first thing every day and put other less important tasks for later.
Have a healthy breakfast & your family time together
Once you have done all the above routines then this one is the last but important routine that remains.
Eating a healthy breakfast is a must for moms!! I know how we moms put ourselves behind for everyone in our family. We put our children, husband and the work first and even neglect to have a full and healthy breakfast in the morning because mornings are always busy for everyone in the house. And it becomes easy to skip these things to fulfill other duties of a mom and wife!
But if you want to accomplish your goals and have productive and better day then you must be full with some healthy food at the start of your day! For a mom, burn out is easy and almost everyday feeling, so to stop that burnout and have the energy to deal with your kids you should eat your breakfast and a healthy one!
It will give you the family time together and it can be fun! Isn’t it a good way to start a day ? after all the energy boost from your exercise, all the positivity from the inspiration pill, and a plan ready for the day you can surely enjoy the family time while having a good healthy breakfast and be ready to start your day and own it!!
So, moms are you ready to supercharge your mornings by following this simple yet effective morning routine?
Do you practice any routine other than these in your mornings? then tell me in the comments below, I would love to know them!