Early Morning Routine {Spring}

Yesterday, I talked about habit stacking, where you pair a habit you already do with a habit you wish to do.

Last summer, I was not quite feeling myself. I couldn’t put my finger on it…

Perhaps a little empty nest, definitely a lot of menopausal changes and a bit of twiddling my fingers and wondering what life had left for me to do.

It’s no secret that I don’t do well with time on my hands and here I was with lots of time and little motivation to do anything with it. Has anyone else had times like this?

I am not someone who feels this way often. In general, I am optimistic, glass half full and loving life kind of girl. But last summer I lost some of that spark.

Around my birthday in September I took a long hard look at my life, the things I wanted in my future and perhaps more importantly the things I wanted to experience in my present.

Since Covid, I had become a bit of recluse. Now, I love my home, my family and spending time alone. To be honest, reclusivity wasn’t too far a stretch from being dandy-fine, thank-you-very-much.

But somehow it wasn’t fine. I wasn’t fine. But I wasn’t going to not be fine for very much longer.

First things first, I needed to start my days in a more proactive way. Rather than my feelings dictating how it should go, I wanted to be the conductor, especially of the early mornings.

I should prefix all this with…

…I am not a morning person. At all.

However, over the past six months I have created such a beautiful routine that it feels easy to do each day. I look forward to it the night before and, best of all, I feel amazing afterwards. It is a brilliant start to my day!

And it all began with setting my alarm.

At five thirty my Lumie alarm (Affiliate Link) begins. For those of you who have never heard of Lumie, they are a company which produces alarm clocks which mimic the rising sun. There is no noise or jumping out of bed at a loud beep beep, or a radio blasting a song in your ear. This is the gentlest awakening and happens over the period of half an hour.

It begins with red light, turning to orange then yellow then white. At some point through the transition, I awake naturally. By six, when the light is white, it has naturally stopped my production of melatonin, stopping me from feeling sleepy.

The white light stays on for half an hour so that whilst I have my cup of coffee (habit I like), I also get a blast of white light which has a significant affect of my mood, especially over the winter months. By the time the half hour is up, I am ready to start my day.

Once awake at six, I go to the bathroom, ablute, do my teeth and weigh myself (part of the Noom program is to weight myself each morning). I then brew myself a freshly ground cup of latte and head back to the bedroom. Sometime in the future when it is warmer, instead of heading back to bed with my lamp, I’d like to have my coffee outside and get the natural light (#habit stacking goal for the future).

Once back in bed, I take out my phone and work through that day’s Noom course on my phone (let me know if you want me to do a review of Noom). Doing the course gets me into the right headspace for a day of health, reminds me to record my weight, blood pressure and food intake thus far (latte) and to put on my Apple Watch. I make notes on any pertinent parts of the course I want to follow and then move on to my devotions.

At this point it is about 630am. My favourite devotions are from a book by Sally Clarkson called ‘Mom Heart Moments’ which is a year long devotional book I read each year. It’s tatty and old but I love it so much, and most importantly, it always reminds me to look first to Jesus and then to focus on my role as mother and wife.

The last thing I do before the hour is up is to write. Usually this is journalling in some form or another. These days, I journal straight into my Seasons of Joy blog, killing two creative birds with one stone, so to speak…(and of course this is another form of habit stacking – doing something I love – blogging- and pairing it with something I want to do – journalling)

By around seven, I press publish on my journal entry and head out with Harvey for a walk. This is sometimes earlier or later depending on the length of the post I’ve written.

Last summer, I was doing no exercise at all. I was lethargic and very slowly putting on even more weight. So I decided to go for a quick walk around the block each day. I love to listen to audio books and podcasts so decided to pair this (something I love) with something I wanted to become a habit (walking). I now walk for about forty minutes and cover over three kilometres and am getting through audible books at the rate of knots.

For me, this is true habit stacking – the dog gets a walk, I get fresh air, sunshine and exercise and I get educated by listening to one of many audio book I own.

My watch records my walk and I am able to add it to my Noom day details, which means I can have more calories if I want. It also keeps a clear weekly record of my activity and how it is improving each week.

Once home from the walk, I grab another coffee and head to my office to write. I make sure I write for thirty minutes every day on the book I am writing to go along with the unit study on Ancient Mesopotamia I am creating. Once I have written for thirty minutes, I turn to my Angelicscalliwags blog and research, write and design notepages or plan YouTube videos for my next post. I do this for about 15-20 minutes before heading back to my bedroom.

I spend the last ten minutes of the early morning listening to a YouTube video, usually on nutrition or a health related topic (a habit I enjoy). I pair this with tidying our bedroom and making the bed (a habit I want to do), before starting our homeschool day at nine.

Having this routine in place means that each day, by nine, I feel refreshed, exercised, and best of all (for me) productive. I am energised for the rest of the day, which I break into three hour sections and plan them to be just as productive and healthy.

Let me know in the comments if you’d like me to share other routines I have in place for the morning, afternoon, early evening or night time.

Do you have an early morning routine? Have you tried habit stacking to make them as productive as possible? – or do you prefer to take it easy and have a slow and relaxed start to your day?