As you know, I like getting up pretty early and I LOVE my morning routine time. But there is one thing that annoys me sometimes when I listen to podcasts/ read articles about starting or improving a morning routine.
I feel like oftentimes people seem to completely forget about these little things called “transitions“.
For example: I read an article once that said something about the “perfect morning routine” including 20 minutes of self-reflection, 20 minutes of reading and 20 minutes of exercise. Sounds good, right? Ok.
It then continued on to talk about how if you need to leave for work at 7 am, you could adopt the following schedule by just getting up at 6 am:
- 6:00-6:20 journal/meditate/self-reflection with coffee
- 6:20-6:40 read non-fiction
- 6:40-7:00 exercise
- 7:00 work
Hmmm. Ok, first red flag…If I am WAKING UP at 6:00 (like, alarm goes off at 6:00), I cannot possibly be anywhere writing in a journal or meditating at 6:00. I guess maybe if you are single/have no one else in your bedroom and literally open your eyes, grab a pen and sit in your bed in your PJs, this could work. For me, I need at least 5-10 minutes after alarm time to brush my teeth, put my contacts in, go to the bathroom!, put some clothes on… Then you’d probably need to leave your bedroom and either make or pour your coffee/tea, turn some lights on, etc. too.
So now we’re down to like 10 minutes of this “self-reflection time”, if you’re lucky.
The reading part seemed okay, as that’s an easy enough transition from journaling.
But then apparently you close your book at 6:40 and you are immediately outside, running shoes on, headphones on, music fired up to go on your morning run by 6:40? What if you need to put on a jacket/ hat/ gloves? That “20 minute” workout would probably be 15, if you’re lucky. (And you’d better not be planning to run very far- or you’d better be very fast. At a 6 min/mile (ha!), you’d be lucky to get 3 miles in.)
And then I guess when you jog up your driveway, you then just jump in your car and teleport to your office, in your workout clothes, to get started by 7:00 sharp. Hahaha.
I’m being sarcastic, obviously…but I just don’t feel like this kind of article or advice is totally helpful or realistic, especially to people who are new to early mornings and first want to get started on a morning routine.
It’s one of those things that sounds good on paper, but in practice is kind of useless in some ways. Obviously, people would need to adapt a schedule to meet their own needs, but there have just been many times that I’ve heard or seen advice similar to the above. I think it could be frustrating for newbies when they realize you can’t fit everything you might want to do in the day into a 1 hour early morning block.
Might be better to just focus on 1-2 short, small items to start with and go from there- and realize that if you really do need to be to work at 7 am, you’re going to have to get up a lot earlier than 6:00 if you think you want to meditate, read AND do a full workout before then. 🙂
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for dried chiles!! We buy them by the bag and they are great for cooking our Mexican dishes with- love the heat. 🙂
GRATEFUL KAE 
Totally agree with this! Add in kids and you need way more time for transitions! Pre kids I could workout before work but since having kids that hasn’t been realistic. I am sure it will be more manageable down the road when our kids are older. But I not enough of a morning person to work out before wrangling kids/getting ready/eating breakfast. I would have to get up so early and that is nothing palatable to me. That’s why I am really excited that my company is open to letting us WFH part time when the office reopens. It will be much easier to fit in a lunch time run or mid morning workout when I have downtime! That wasn’t possible when I worked in the office as I didn’t have the time to shower and get ready again. But when I am home, no one cares if I have showered or not! I mean I would not jump on a client call after a run but I don’t have those every day and most of my work can be done in an unshowered state 😉
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I agree, I like those advises to give options but tell you exactly what to do at what time. each one has different ways to do things, some people needs more transition time and i don’t like to be rushed when I’m blogging/journaling/meditation/exercising. So I usually have an intention to do certain things and fit as much as I can at my pace within the time I have.
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Yes, that is so annoying! It’s not an instantaneous thing to go from bed to running path (or bike).
The other thing I dislike is the idea that one routine fits all people, like Coco. Um, just because *I* like to exercise first thing does not mean other people will! So these blanket recommendations for things like “wake up and exercise to get it done!” or “always meditate for 10 minutes before you get out of bed” drive me bonkers. 🙂
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