In order to deal with the whirlwind that is the day of a physician, the morning routine is crucial to make sure that I’m doing everything I can to prepare. Without the routine, I was feeling so haphazard and forgetting things, feeling exhausted, and then would go into my day already stressed. With the routine in place, it helped me a lot with my stress before getting to work.
Now that I’m done with training, in order for me to keep my mornings on the right track, I have a new routine that I follow.
- Plan the night before
This is really the key. This includes making sure my coffee is programmed to go off at the right time- smelling coffee in the morning is one of the unwritten parts of my routine. The smell of coffee actually helps me want to get out of my bed in the morning.
I set my alarm, I set out my clothes. If I’m on call the night before, then I have the clothes for the night as well as my work out in the morning and my day the next day.
I mentally prepare for getting up in the morning- I get to sleep on time (or try to at least) and then remind myself of why I am getting up the next day.
See my nighttime routine here.
2. Wake up
For me, this is the hardest part. If I can get myself up in the morning, the routine flows naturally from there.
If I am working out the next day, in order to make sure I have enough time in the word as well as with my workout, I wake up around 4 am.
The habits compound here. If I am consistently snoozing my alarm and getting back in bed, it’s really hard for me to wake up the next time I am doing this. If I am being disciplined and actually waking up, it makes it easier to do this repeatedly.
I try and replicate the environment/behaviors that allowed me to wake up on time the day before in order to increase my success rate for waking up later. For instance, if I know that having my clothes already out and ready for me helped me wake up before, I do that again the next day.
3. Coffee
The smell of coffee makes me want to get up in the morning because I adore coffee and dream about it at night as I said above in point 1.
My coffee machines have a programmable feature that allows the coffee to brew in the morning and I time it about 5 minutes before I am planned to wake up so that I can smell it when my alarm goes off.
4. Journaling/Quiet Time
This is one of the most important parts of my day and is part of my regular self care. I have talked many many times about the way that bible study in the mornings and quiet time in the mornings have helped me.
Even if I am doing different bible studies, this has stayed with me through the years and I find myself craving this time, especially if I have missed it (ahem not waking up in time to do this).
It has changed over the years- obviously different when I had a newborn to now, when I have a toddler/ small child.
5. Exercise
I alternate between weight training and cardio in the morning and get this in after I have spent my quiet time in the word.
This helps me have energy, honestly even more than getting 8.5 hours of sleep. This took YEARS for me to realize about myself.
Exercising in the morning also helped me with my depression along with therapy. I try to remember that for me, this is like medication.
6. Finish getting ready for work
After my workout, I grab a shower, wash my face, and put on my clothes for the day.
I’m really not cool enough to have a skincare routine, I literally just wash my face and put some lotion on it. I do 3 minutes of makeup and then escape.
7. Prepping water/Breakfast
I always have a water bottle on me at work. This is the time that I am preparing all of that and eating my breakfast, which is now some yogurt and granola.
8. Getting baby girl ready
My small person wakes up around this time and wants snuggles from her mama before we get her dressed for her day as well.
Extra: Stay focused- sometimes in the mornings when I have my day stretched out ahead of me, I get distracted by the things I know I will need to do. Those little thoughts zip into my mind and really distract me.
I try to keep a little notecard or sticky note pad on hand to be able to write down what is going on in my head in order to keep these from disrupting me.
Hope this helps!
Lise