Morning Routine for People Who Hate Mornings
My Morning Routine Expectation:
I wake up moments before my 5am alarm, feeling refreshed. I jump out of bed, drink a tall class of water with a freshly squeezed lemon before hitting the yoga mat for a 30 minute yoga and meditation session. Now it’s time for my berry smoothie and journaling. Next, hit the gym! I love a morning workout, I just feel so refreshed. There’s still plenty of time to have a shower, wash my hair, blow dry it, do my makeup, pick a cute outfit, brush my teeth and read a quick chapter of my book before starting my day.
My Morning Routine Reality:
The alarm goes. SNOOZE. Again. SNOOZE. Again. SNOO – oh shoot, is that the time already?! I debate whether I have time to have a shower or if I should just throw on yesterdays outfit. I scoff a bowl of Weetabix cereal in under 90 seconds and tie my shoe laces in between bites.
That’s a classic morning for me. Any morning person will tell you I just need to get up earlier, but they’re wrong. Because getting up earlier means I would have to go to sleep earlier – and night time is my optimal functioning hours. 7pm-2am and I’m at my absolute best. All my great ideas happen then!
However, the personal development industry is filled with people talking about their 5am wake-ups, long morning routines and hour-long morning yoga sequences. It’s the ONLY way to be successful.
Well, I’m not convinced. Pushing night owls to become morning larks isn’t a great strategy. While it might mean we get to work on time, it does mean sacrificing our ‘genius hours’ in the evening. Either that, or sleep (and we all know sacrificing sleep is not a good long-term strategy).
So here’s my solution.
As a night owl through and through, I want to offer you fellow night owls an alternative:
The evening routine.
The evening routine is just like the morning routine, but instead you’re prepared before you even wake up (to me that sounds even more effective than planning when you wake up!).
Here is how I prep for the day the night before:
Write out my to-do list for the next day, using a productivity planner.
Visualize my long-term goals and make sure my plan for the next day reflects that.
Do a guided meditation
Do some push-ups if I haven’t already gotten them in earlier
Do my gratitude journal with my partner Daniel, and read them out to each other
Pack my bag with anything I need for the next day
Read a book (not something too stimulating!)
Sleep
In the morning, I have a mini morning routine. It looks like this:
Wake up, and DON’T check my phone, emails or notifications (high performance studies show that you will be up to 30% more productive throughout your day if you don’t check email for at least an hour after you wake up.)
Take my vitamins
Have a gratitude shower (listing everything I’m grateful for for the entire duration of the shower)
Get dressed
Eat breakfast (this is almost always a bowl of Weetabix – occasionally I make a smoothie if everyone else in the house is awake, otherwise the noise wakes people up!)
Check my to-do list I wrote the night before
Hit the day!
Check-in with the world (At this point, after I’ve done some work, I’m allowed to check my emails and notifications. I never, ever check the news. I never have, and I never ever will in the morning. I don’t want the chaos of the world entering my consciousness first thing in the morning!)
This list looks long, but really, it can be done in 20 minutes. It’s effective because in the evening I have already done the preparation, and now it’s time to just GO!
Would you try the mini morning routine and the evening routine as a replacement for the pressure of an elaborate morning routine? Let me know in the comments!
