3 Important Steps in Your Weekday Morning Routine to Maximize Productivity - and it doesn’t involve waking up at 5 am!
/Do you ever go through the motions of a morning routine like a robot? If you’re a work at home mom, tell me if this sounds like you.
Wake up, drag yourself out of bed...
Make coffee and get the kids breakfast...
Mindlessly scroll social media and 6 email inboxes while you cut up toast for the baby and poor milk for the big kid.
Then clean up all the mess and crumbs and dishes, get dressed, brush teeth, get kids ready for the day.
Take big kids to school or get ready for homeschool and then FINALLY plop down to work next to a cup of cold coffee that you never drank and open your mile long Asana task list and want to cry?
Yep. Sounds familiar to me!
What kind of ridiculous morning routine is that?
As a full time work at home mom (who is currently also homeschooling), I noticed that over the summer I reeeeeally got into a rut. I honestly didn’t even remember how I even started the morning. I was in a daze.
No wonder the anxiety crept in when I looked at my task list for the day.
I think the lightbulb went off one day when I was checking off my endless client tasks, stressed to an oblivion while my husband was playing lightsabers with our 6 year old. I looked over at him and said “hey, did we even say good morning to each other today?” The answer was no. Actually we hardly ever speak to each other during the day even though we work together, we are just too busy.
I also noticed that my productivity was down and depression and procrastination were creeping in. Even though I was crossing things off, I wasn’t doing the hard tasks.
Home life was a disaster as well, dishes constantly piling up, bathroom due for a scrub, beds never made and floors full of crumbs.
What happened to my life? I used to have a clean home, I used to feel happy, productive and grateful.
Yep...definitely depression creeping in.
Because I’m stubborn by nature, I never let these moods wash over me for long. so I thought about it and realized something HAD to change. I was doing something detrimental to my mental health and I wasn’t even realizing it.
I decided to start radically changing my morning routine to see if it would make a difference in my day-to-day happiness and productivity, and it worked!
I started small and I want you to do the same so you don’t get overwhelmed. These tiny shifts have lifted my mood and made me infinitely more productive, and I am about to share them with you so you can get out of the morning funk too.
These are the 3 shifts I have made to my morning routine to maximize productivity and boost my mood.
SHIFT #1: I STOPPED PICKING UP MY PHONE.
As you know, mindlessly scrolling not only wastes time, it also causes depression and anxiety. I got into the habit of “doom scrolling”. Reading about coronavirus news, infection rates, school outbreaks and any sort of depressing and stressful content online related to how the world is basically falling apart. For a highly sensitive person like myself, the negativity of everything I read was burning a hole in my brain. Meanwhile, what good did it do for me?
My dishes were still piling up, the baby still whined at my feet and my to-do list was still there. Instead I made a rule that I do not touch my phone until after 10 am. Our household wakes up at around 7. I am NOT the waking up before the sun type of person. I get a lot of client work done when the kids go to bed until pretty late so I need my sleep in the morning. 6:30 am is the earliest I can stomach.
So NOW I have enough time to make breakfast, drink my coffee, clean up the morning breakfast dishes, do my 30 minute workout, take a shower, get dressed for the day and the finally sit down to set up homeschooling and turn on my laptop to check my emails.
I only look at my phone now AFTER I have caught up with all my work emails and slack communications. I also don’t doom scroll anymore and only scroll IG in the evenings for 30 mins MAX. I am a social media manager after all, so I do have to be online a lot during the day, but I try to keep it productive. So when I’m on Facebook and get messages, I write them into my tasks for the day and then turn FB off.
SHIFT #2: I STARTED PLANNING OUT MY DAY ON MY PAPER PLANNER:
I look at my daily calendar to see what my day looks like and I write down in my paper planner the non-negotiable to-do’s for the day.
Asana and Trello are where I keep the running and recurring lists of work tasks for clients BUT I use my printable planners to write down household to-do’s as well as things that I need to make sure I do to keep my mind and body happy for the day.
I do my workout and write down what I did. I write down what we will be having for meals for the day so that I can make sure I take things out of the freezer or prep what I need to prep between meetings to make sure meals get made in time. I write down my son’s homeschool plan for the day, as well as any quick reminders, personal calls and appointments I need to make.
I noticed when I map out what my day will look like on paper, everything else in my Asana board seems less overwhelming. It just feels like I’m floating in a nice boat instead of drowning in unexpected tasks and running around all day. It helps to use cute and customized planner pages to keep motivated to write things down.
SHIFT #3: I STARTED SPENDING MORE QUALITY TIME WITH MY HUSBAND AND KIDS.
It doesn’t have to be for too long if you really don’t have time but I make sure to spend 1:1 time with my husband, my 11 month old son and my 6 year old son before starting the mad rush of the day.
I spend 15 minutes connecting with my husband over coffee while the kids are playing together on the floor and watching some morning cartoons. We discuss what the day will look like, how many meetings we have and at what time, if we need to get groceries for the day and when we want to get outside for some exercise for our kids. It helps ground us and helps us feel in control of the day before the mad rush takes over.
After that, I make sure to spend some floor time with the baby. I read him books, I stack some cups and knock them over, I make him laugh. It helps him know that I am around even if I’m in my office working or helping the homeschooler with work, I will always come back and spend some time with him.
I also make sure to chat with my older son during his breakfast. We talk about the plans for the day, what time mommy and daddy have calls and if we're going out somewhere to the mall or grocery store at some point during the day. I also make sure I participate in his debate of who is the scarier villain: Voldemort or Darth Vader.
I think that I’ve mastered my mornings pretty well ever since I made these changes. Of course the best and most impactful one is to stop picking up my phone. It just causes too much doom and gloom in my anxiety-prone, HSP brain and actually was making me stuck in a negative cycle all the time. Ever since I’ve made these changes, I am getting so much more done in the day, and I also feel much happier. I am happy that I have connected with my kids and my husband so working doesn’t make me feel guilty. I have cleaned up the kitchen so I don’t have to go make lunch between meetings in a mess, and I have written out on paper my non-negotiables for happiness and self-care so that I am reinforcing that I’m taking care of myself too, because that is often the last thing on my mind. I also make sure I drink my coffee while it’s hot, even if I have to sneak it into the bathroom with me.
RELEVANT LINKS:
Read up on Doom Scrolling here: https://www.wired.com/story/stop-doomscrolling/
