Let me just start this by saying I am NOT nor have I ever considered myself a morning person. I am a night owl. My creative juices and mind works best late at night. However, I have been slowly trying to shift into a routine that makes me get to bed a bit earlier and be more productive in the morning.

I always wished I was a morning person – I once dated a morning person – he would wake up early all chipper and kiss all over me and say “WAKE UP BABY” I would mumble and he knew that meant no coffee, no talkie. I was spoiled by his morning routine because he would bring me coffee or tea and breakfast in bed. It was pure bliss. I don’t have him anymore so I am left to doing these things on my own. HA!

I also enjoy learning about and reading about other peoples morning routines. I like to know when they go to bed, how they prep the night before, when they wake up, what’s the first thing they do when they wake up, do they eat breakfast? if so, what do they eat and so on. I especially like to learn about what entreprenuers and successful people do in the morning.

There are plenty of youtube videos and websites/blog posts about peoples morning routines. Always fascinating what people around the world do.

Since I am up early this morning (woke up just before 5am) and this blog slowly died – I was going through my neverending task list and two things on there were check out morning routines and update this blog. So here I am, on my laptop, drinking green tea at 5:54AM writing a blog post on how my perfect morning routine would look. Enjoy!

The Night Before
I used to have severe insomnia – thank goodness I no longer do as it used to leave me exhausted and zombie like during the day. Even though I pride myself in being early to events and work my insomnia would make me consistenly wake up in a flurry rushing to get to work.

Now I am able to get to bed at an earlier time and if I am having a bit of insomnina I either use that time to do something productive, read or meditate. I tend to get to bed between 9PM and 1AM.

The perfect bedtime for me would be around 9PM after some journaling and reflection about my day. I would also love to prep for the next day by going through my top priorities for the next day and looking at my schedule.

Waking Up Time
Going back to my not being a morning person – I used to be one of those people that set 3-5 alarms in the morning to make sure I woke up. I would set alarms on my phone (that would be next to my bed) and my regular alarm clock that was stratigically placed across the room so that I would be forced to get out of bed (during my insomia period I would sleep through many of my alarms)

Now I have 1 alarm set for 8AM. I am still a bit of a snooze queen but not as bad as I used to be. I usually wake up to my alarm and sort of just lay there taking some nice deep breaths.

My perfect morning routine would include waking up at 6AM. I just notice if I wake up at around 6AM I have a bit of productive energy before I hit a mid morning slump.

My Day
Upon waking I normally drink some water and take my medications and supplements. I also start looking at social media and emails. My perfect morning routine upon waking would be going through some affirmations, journaling, drinking a LARGE glass of water to take my meands and supplements and checking my schedule – that should all take about 1 hour.

I don’t do anything physical in the mornings other than a little dance to some upbeat music sometimes – I would love to fit some yoga practice into my mornings so that is another 30 min – 1 hour of self care. After yoga I would get a quick bite to eat and drink another large glass of water.

So that would mean around 8:30AM I would be ready for my day. I currently work from home and don’t really have a set schedule – something I am trying to work on for a better morning routine. I don’t do anything very productive for about 2 hours after waking up.

My perfect morning routine would mean waking up earlier and getting all of the above done during the first 2 hours or so that I would normally spend fumbling around, drinking coffee and catching up on social media and emails.

Next in my perfect morning routine I would start work. Briefly look at emails and social media to see if there is anything important to take care of. By 9:00AM I would be ready for my work day. I would do some work for about an hour as I am sure I would be heading towards a little slump. Once I start feeling a bit sluggish I would stretch and maybe take a little walk, drink some more water and maybe get a light snack. Perhaps another cup of tea or some coffee.

I would give myself 15-30 minutes for that little break before I get back to work. I would then work until lunch time. Lunch time may include a little walk or stretch depending on how I’m feeling. But for sure get up out of my chair, eat something and maybe step outside for some Vitamin D.

Most days by lunch time I am hungry and a little tired so I may take a quick nap but my perfect morning routine (with yoga) I am hoping will help me avoid taking a nap unless I really feel the need to do so.

After lunch it is back to work for a few more hours before going into my night routine.

To Recap: My Perfect Morning Routine
6:00AM Wake up – journal, affirmations, reading, go through tasks/schedule
7:00AM Yoga and breakfast
8:30AM Emails and Social Media
9:00AM Work
10:00AM Stretch and take a walk
10:30AM Work
12:00PM Lunch, stretch, go outside
1:00PM Work

I am definately working on getting this perfect morning routine to be my MON-FRI routine. I think by setting my alarm for earlier and going to bed earlier I can really accomplish this.

I will also set my schedule (with alarms) to this so that I can keep to the schedule. I can always stop the alarm and keep working if I am in a creative zone and working on something that I’m not ready to step away from.

I will be sure to check back in a few weeks to see how my perfect morning routine is going. I woke up a little before 5AM today and I have completed, archived or rescheduled over 100 tasks, drank some hot green tea and wrote this blog post all before 6:30AM. Imagine what I can do if I stick to my (new) routine. I feel so productive right now (and a little hungry) and can’t wait to see how my new routine works for me.

What is your morning routine? Share it in the comments or link it to your post/video.