Confession: I’m pretty rubbish in the morning. I’m not one of those people who needs to be fed caffeine intravenously before they can even swing their legs out of the bed but I do really like my bed and I don’t like leaving it much. I’ve been working on my sleep hygiene this year and it’s made such a difference to my morning routine. Here are a few tricks I’ve been using in the past few months to make sure I have totally productive mornings.
Prepare the night before
I always spend about 20 minutes at night preparing for the next day. I pack my bag, I prepare my snacks, I lay out my gym clothes, I make sure all my gadgets are charged. It seems like such a no brainer but pre-preparing will prevent you from starting your day on the wrong foot when you wake up and there aren’t any apples left and you can’t find your sneakers for your morning gym class.
Do not sleep with your phone next to your bed
I cannot stress this enough. There is no need to have your phone in your bedroom ever. If your mobile phone is also your house phone (like mine is) make sure the volume is up and leave it another room over night, as if it were an old fashioned phone attached to the wall. This stops that distractive early morning behaviour of scrolling through your phone for 20 minutes before you get up. If you’re awake in bed with nothing to do you’ll get up pretty quickly. If you’re awake, in bed with a phone, you’ve got the world at your finger tips and getting up will be super painful. Remove the temptation and you’ll totally improve your mornings.
Use food as a reward
I’m a bit weird because I’m one of those odd people who doesn’t like showers. I just find them really boring and I can’t do anything at the same time so I tend to procrastinate. I combat this in the morning by not allowing myself breakfast until I’ve had my shower. I love food and I want to get it in my gob ASAP so I jump in the shower pretty quickly in the morning. If you have a morning task like walking the dog that you dread a little bit, make yourself do it before coffee or food so you have a lovely reward when you’re done.
Write down 3 things to do before midday
I adore the three things concept where you write down three things to get done in the day but I love it even more if I give myself a midday deadline. Write down three tasks that you absolutely have to have done by midday today and get them done. It will totally free your mind for your afternoon tasks and you’ll get in to a fabulous groove of completion that you’ll want to continue through out the day.
Fake a positive attitude
Sometimes if I’m really not feeling it in the morning, I pretend my life is a movie montage of a perky blonde American college student or Cher from Clueless. There’s nothing like thinking you have an audience to make you try super hard to put on a good show of going for your morning run, packing the dishwasher, grabbing your perfectly constructed healthy lunch and then strutting out the door.
Are you a morning person? Or an evening person? Do you struggle with getting out of bed too?
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