I’ve always enjoyed a good routine, even while I liked deviating from it. When I first got married I was super into FlyLady until it got super annoying. All those reminders telling me what I ought to do was more than I could handle. The concept behind it wasn’t that bad, but I wanted to decide to do it on my own. This was all before the Princess’ arrival.
Routines just laughed at me after the Princess’ arrival. I tried multiple times to establish some sort of routine and it would work for maybe a week or so and then something would change. I gave it up after a while.
This year I noticed that things weren’t changing as rapidly anymore, so I decided to give my old morning routine a try. I always write my routines down because as much as I go over them in my head, I tend to forget a step if I try to do it from memory. Here’s a picture of the routine I came up with (using pretty markers and things that make me smile always helps with the fact that I’m doing something that isn’t particularly thrilling):
— Get up
This particularly un-thrilling activity always seems to be at the beginning of everything.
— Make coffee and do various chores while it brews.
It only takes about 5 minutes to brew the coffee, but in that 5 minutes I can start a load of laundry, fix some juice and applesauce for the Princess, and empty out the dish drainer to help breakfast and the rest of the morning go smoothly.
— Coffee/journal/devotional
My fun and important beginning to my day. I am finally able to tolerate coffee again and I enjoy it in the quiet of the morning while writing in my journal and doing devotions.
— Work on blogging/exercise
I rotate the days that I blog and try to get some exercise in. I enjoy blogging and I don’t enjoy exercise much, but I am happier when I get both done. In the quiet before the Princess wakes up is the best time for both of these.
— Dressed/Shower/Make-up
It’s sad that I have to write these down to make sure they get done, but I do. I always feel better if I do my make-up I try to make it part of my routine.
–Cook/eat breakfast, do dishes, get ready to head out the door.
These probably don’t need any explanation!
So there it is…a simple list that I try to follow most mornings. Having it written down means I don’t have to think about it, which means it actually gets done early in the morning before I start thinking!
What about you? Are there some things that you HAVE to do in the morning to wake up, or are you the type to just roll out of bed, into the car, and off to work?