Why Your Morning Routine Isn’t Working and How to Fix It

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The idea of ​​getting up early, having breakfast, and writing a few pages in your diary is great. But in practice, it rarely turns out so cleanly. After a while, you start sleeping a little more. Then you skip writing because you are in a hurry to overcome traffic jams. Anyway, who has time for breakfast?

Before you know it, you are going back to your old habits again. If you want to solidify your morning routine, make it a habit.

For years, I had a habit of waking up at the last minute: half an hour before I had to leave for work, or right before I had to sit down at my laptop and start typing. It was a stressful way to start the day, and for that reason, I have always loved the idea of ​​having a solid morning routine that would make it easier for me to have a clear, energetic, and productive day. (Plus, rituals are very beneficial to your overall health .) Over the years, I’ve managed to develop a fairly solid daily routine, but in the process of building it, I’ve discovered a few problems that can throw you off. certainly.

You can’t get up early

Getting out of bed every morning is hard enough, but it’s nearly impossible if you don’t get enough sleep. Your morning routine is designed to give you time to devote to yourself once you wake up. Most likely, this means that you need to get up earlier. Whether it’s journaling or just reading the newspaper with a cup of coffee, your morning rituals won’t have the same effect if you’re in a rush to do them because you’re up late.

This became a problem for me. I vowed to get up early, make coffee, and then read and write every morning before work. It worked great for the first few weeks. Then I started getting up a little later each day, and my whole routine became counterproductive because I was struggling to get over it .

It helped me start at the bottom of my evening routine . I focused on what I can do before bed to make sure I can get to sleep early and fall asleep quickly.

We’ve already told you how to achieve the perfect evening routine , and it’s not just about what you do an hour before bed. What you do during the day can also greatly affect your sleep schedule. Here are some tips I’ve included in my evening routine to help me get to bed early:

  • Leave work at work : Don’t focus on work outside of office hours. To do this, it is helpful to plan your first assignment in the morning. The more prepared you are for the next day, the less likely you will be thinking about work after work.
  • Go outside during the day : Research shows that daylight can improve sleep at night. Try to take outdoor breaks throughout the day.
  • Eat earlier rather than later: Consider having dinner earlier in the evening so that you don’t waste time digesting food while you sleep. It also helps to avoid drinking alcohol , which can impair the quality of your sleep at night.
  • Find a relaxing activity before bed : Some people read. I used to solve word search puzzles. No matter what you’re doing, try not to show your TV or phone screen before bed. They emit blue light that suppresses melatonin .

Once you finish your evening routine and get used to going to bed at a specific time, you can get up earlier as a result.

If that still doesn’t work and you still find yourself putting off sleeping in the morning, try gradually exercising . Start changing your wake up time in 20 minute increments. For example, if you usually get up at 7 AM and want to wake up at 6 AM, try starting at 6:40 AM. Once you get it, try 6:20 and so on.

Your work day starts too early

So, you have taught yourself to get up at 6 am, maybe even earlier, and you still do not have time. Perhaps you are just not realistic about your schedule.

I like to think that I have all the time in the world in the morning and I can gradually start my day. But this is not how it works in practice. These are usually urgent emails that I need to read, or comments that I need to respond to, or some other work-related task that cannot wait. Especially if you work with people in different time zones, you may need to be in front of your computer at certain times.

As a result, I have an unrealistic idea of ​​what I can achieve in my daily routine: exercise. Logging. While reading a book. Trying to squeeze it all into the morning hour for an hour and then get to email and work was really stressful. So I completely forgot about the routine and immediately plunged into work.

Rather than giving up, it’s helpful to pick a couple of rituals that will have the most impact and then focus on them. For example, I preferred to enjoy a cup of coffee and keep a diary. It’s not much, but I’m focused as I go through these two rituals and they do their job: they mentally prepare me to take on this day.

It also helps speed up other parts of your morning routine , such as showering and hair care. I love the whole ritual of making and drinking coffee in the morning, but if you don’t, you can also use the timer to make coffee when you wake up. Some more quick tips to speed up:

  • Choose simple hairstyles
  • Optimize your makeup routine
  • Shower at night

It can also help you keep track of your morning routine for a week or so . Find the areas in which you spend the most time, and then cut down on those areas that you are not interested in so that you can focus on the rituals that matter to you most. Bottom line: You want to be realistic about how much time you can spend in your morning, and then come up with some effective actions.

You get bored

A few weeks after the adoption of a new routine, it may become outdated. As with diet, you may be completely addicted to it when you first start, but then you give it up when the novelty wears off.

It helps to think about your routine in the following terms: not as something new, exciting, but rather as a gradual change in lifestyle. With this in mind, don’t try to do every morning routine you come across. Focus on one thing and see how it works out. Try jogging for a week, for example, and once you get comfortable with this habit, and then consider adding a new one in that case, you won’t go from zero to 60 with your morning. you gradually change your habits. When the newness wears off, these habits have already taken hold.

One of the reasons I got bored with my morning routine is because I kept choosing activities that I didn’t like. I was reading an article like “This Is What Rich People Do Every Morning,” and I was excited and wanted to have a hearty breakfast too. I’ve tried this for a while and it seemed like a tedious job to me. Breakfast is important and I eat it, but I’m just not the big person who “sits down at the breakfast table.” It sounded good, but I didn’t care, so I ended up feeling like spending time cooking, eating, and cleaning was like work.

There are some common early morning habits that are good for everyone, but it’s up to you to decide. Choose rituals that really matter to you and affect your daily life. So, it’s not about whether they are interesting or not, but how they help you start your day. There are several options you can choose from:

Gradually add new rituals, see which ones are followed, and change your routine over time.

The morning routine is fine. No one likes to be immersed in a tense, tortured state of mind. You need a calm, unhurried morning that prepares you mentally for whatever you need to do that day. If your morning routine just isn’t working out, these tips can help you understand why and how you can change your routine to make it stick.

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