I was listening to an episode of The Mind Your Business podcast, a new podcast by James Wedmore and Phoebe Mroczek, on Tuesday. The episode was about creating your morning routine and I really enjoyed it. I have written in the past about my morning routine as a work from home mom but it changes over time. I still like the following SAVERS acronym from Hal Elrod’s book The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM):
S – Silence (i.e. prayer and meditation)
A – Affirmations
V – Visualization
E – Exercise
R – Reading
S – Scribing (i.e. journal writing)
I don’t follow it exactly though, so this is my current weekday morning routine…
-6:30 a.m. Get up and listen to music for 10 minutes before making breakfast and waking up the boys. (I’m not a “morning person” so music helps me to start the day in a good mood.)
Get the boys’ lunch ready. Get myself ready for the day while the boys are eating breakfast and getting ready for school.
-7:40 a.m. I walk the kids to school. On the walk home, I look at my “Top 10” goals/hopes/prayers (whatever you want to call it) on my phone.
After I walk home, I finish straightening up my home while listening to a podcast. (I don’t function well if there is clutter on surfaces.)
-8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. I have my quiet time (Bible study and prayer). I don’t really eat a lot in the morning, so I usually drink chamomile tea during this time too.
-9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. I check my social media and email. (That’s different. Before, I did this after I worked out. I find that the walk to and from school gives me an initial boost of energy for the day though.)
-10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. I work out (while listening to a podcast) and take a shower. I don’t enjoy working out alone and the gym takes up too much time, so listening to something interesting makes the time go by more quickly.
Then, I do my morning work for the day before going to pick up my kids at 2:00 p.m.
So far, this morning routine is working well for me. I don’t really do the V (visualization) on a daily basis. I’m not really sure that I’m going to add them either. Rather, if something inspirational catches my eye visually, I just take a photo of it and swipe through the photos on my phone on a fairly regular basis. I was inspired by photo images for a while, but lately it’s quotes that stick in my mind visually. My favorite quotes of the moment are “If it were easy, everyone would do it.” (Loki from Thor: The Dark World) and “Simple ain’t easy.” (Snart from Legends of Tomorrow). Obviously, I watch a lot of superhero movies with my husband and sons! 🙂
Anyway, this is the current morning routine that motivates me to have a great rest of the day. Mr. Wedmore’s podcast has some great suggestions regarding things to include in your morning routine. I’d love to hear from other moms though…what part of your morning routine most helps you to have a great day?
