6 Tips for Cultivating the Ideal Morning Routine

If you’re a morning person, you jump out of bed every day, excited to get moving and tackle the hours ahead.

If you’re not a morning person, well, the whole process is more of a drag.

Regardless of the camp you fall in, though, the way you approach those morning hours can set the tone for the rest of your day — and just because you’re a morning person doesn’t mean that you have the perfect routine dialed in already. After all, there are plenty of morning people who have no problem getting out of bed, but then waste the first of their waking hours watching Netflix or zoning out on social media. See? We can all use a little help with our morning routines.

There are many successful people who claim these routines as the key to their accomplishments, and while everyone’s ideal morning is different, we can offer you a few tips to help you figure out what’s going to work best for you. Keep scrolling for all the details and prepare to greet the day!

1. Be consistent. We’re not suggesting that there can’t be wiggle room in your daily schedule, but our bodies do thrive on consistency, and establishing a fairly regular routine for bedtime and waking up will help you optimize your mornings. Get in the habit of cozying up in bed at roughly the same time every night so you can, in turn, practice getting up at the same time, too. Your body will thank you for prioritizing a standard window for overnight rest, you’ll feel less inclined to hit the snooze button, and you’ll feel freed up to establish other morning practices.

2. Get your phone out of the bedroom. Nothing will put an end to a healthy morning routine faster than the temptation to grab your phone as soon as you open your eyes. Before you know it, you’ll find that you’ve spent the majority of your available time scrolling through Instagram or getting frustrated by emails that don’t really need your attention for a few more hours. Set yourself up for morning success by charging your phone overnight in another room — or, at the very least, far away from your bed. Order a cheap old school alarm clock so you’re not reliant on your phone to wake up.

3. Prepare the night before. If you want to make early morning journaling or reading part of your morning routine, make sure your book or writing materials are on your nightstand before you go to sleep. If you want to start prioritizing exercise before work, put your running shoes and workout clothes by your bed. If you think that healthier breakfasts would transform your mornings, prep oatmeal or chop veggies for an egg white omelet after dinner so they’re waiting for you in the refrigerator when it’s time for the most important meal of the day.

4. Take baby steps. You’re likely getting all kinds of suggestions for ideal morning practices from across the Internet and social media, not to mention the actual humans in your life. We’re glad to hear you’re enthusiastic about cultivating a new routine, but don’t commit to trying all of these habits all at once. Choose three to four simple practices — stretching, making your bed, going for a run, drinking a glass of water, taking vitamins, gratitude journaling — and start with those. From there, you can determine which habits you want to continue to focus on and figure out if there’s time in your morning to add more.

5. Make it meaningful. According to Fast Company, willpower is highest in the morning, so we urge you to make those early hours count! Consider adding tasks that you often struggle finding motivation for — exercising, reading the news, tackling the clutter of snail mail on the kitchen counter — to your morning schedule. You may find that you can actually get those things accomplished at that time, which will motivate you to keep up with your morning productivity! Plus, if you get big, important tasks checked off the list early on, the rest of the day will feel easy.

6. Reward yourself! Making the most of the morning isn’t always easy, especially if you’re a night owl. If you’re working hard to optimize those early routines, create incentives for consistency. If, for example, you stick to your rituals Monday through Thursday, maybe you get to treat yourself to coffee or five extra minutes of reading in bed on Fridays.

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Featured image: Danielle MacInnes/Unsplash; Sunrise image: Hide Obara/Unsplash