Tea with KE: Morning Routine

Hello again everyone!

I know, I know.
You may not be a morning person.
Or you have to get up REALLY early and doing something in the morning seems impossible.
Trust me, I know all about that.
Most days I have to LEAVE by 6 or 6:15.
Even though that’s been my reality for most of the school year for 7 years,
It’s still pretty shocking to me.

I started one earlier this year.
It was pretty simple:

Workout for ten minutes
(this GREAT yoga routine for shoulders, since I carry a lot of stress there)

write for ten minutes
(anything I wanted to write about!)

and read for ten minutes
(a book about business!)

It worked SO well while I was doing it.
The alarm clock went off, I looked at it,
and EVERYDAY I considered going back to sleep.

But here’s the thing.
Going back to sleep meant I was saying to those things,
“You are not important to me. I don’t want to make time for you,”
when really I set up the whole routine so I WOULD have time to do those things!

Now I know what you may argue:
why couldn’t I just do them at night, when I got home?

Night owls would say that because it’s the time that they feel more alive.
I think I might even be a night owl.

But here’s the thing: I need my sleep.
And a more important thing:
I love feeling like I have already done something “for me” at the start of the day.

I get up and do these things,
then hop in my car and drive a bunch to get to work.
I really like my job, but most days are 10 hours long.
I get home and it’s eating, capoeira, spouse time, making stuff.

Some days I get to the end of the day and think, “What did I even do for me today?”
Having the morning routine stops me from asking that because I already know.

I kept this routine up until things got crazy at work,
which is towards the end of the school year.
To be fair, I was also moving, planning a wedding, and pretty much constantly a little bit sick.
I could have used the morning routine more than ever at that point,
but it was better for me at that moment to let it go
and get more sleep so I could get to the summer in one piece.

Once the summer came, it was craziness.
Going to the east coast.
Getting married.
Moving into a new place.
We were all over the place.

I had the goal to get back to the morning routine though.
And I’ve finally done it.

But here’s the thing: It’s a new one this time.
This time it’s 40 minutes.
And this time it’s ALL WRITING.

I know I may have lost you there, but here’s the thing,
you choose what’s important to you
and you set that in place in the morning.
Could be 10 minutes. Could be 30. Could be 5. Whatever you want.

Here’s mine now:

Ten minutes of free writing. I write about whatever I want.
It’s similar to the morning pages that Julia Cameron talks about in The Artist’s Way.
It’s a brain dump basically, but where some of those gems I talked about in the last newsletter come out.

Ten minutes of blog or newsletter writing.
I’ve got this newsletter, and my blog that goes along with it.
Then I’ve got another blog I’ve started, called Great Mail Day, linked to an Instagram account
where I show off more lettering things,
and I have a newsletter over there too.

I spend ten minutes writing stuff out for that.
At the start of the session I take a look at the list of topics I have and decide what to write on.
For instance, today (twelve days ago when you’re reading this!)
I scribbled down Morning Routine and went for it!

Twenty minutes writing and/or revising my manuscripts.
For those of you who don’t know,
I am a children’s book author.
My lovely agent has helped me get one book deal so far,
and we are working on many more books
that will hopefully turn into many more deals.

THIS is one big part of my future career plan,
and I found that I wasn’t working on writing as much as I wanted to during the day.

So now I do.

Sure there are challenges.
A few days this week I woke up and had to be somewhere before I could finish everything.
But the second I got a free moment, I hopped back in to finish up the writing.

So what do you say?
Do you want to start a morning routine?

1. Make a list of the stuff that you’re all about.
If you’re not sure what that is,
then write down everything you want to do
and pick the things you are most excited about.

2. Set a realistic schedule.
I’d say don’t jump into 40 minutes right away.
5 minutes per thing? 10 minutes?
You know what you can feasibly do. Make a plan.

3. Stick to it for a week.
You can stick with it longer too,
but give yourself a bit of grace here.
Make sure you write down how it goes each morning,
and how you feel at the end of the day after you do the morning routine.
After the week you can make adjustments where you see fit.

4. Celebrate!
Celebrate getting through that week. And figuring out what you want to spend that time on.
Deciding that is something to celebrate, truly!

5. Share your routine with someone.
This can be for accountability reasons,
or just to encourage others.
If someone else is doing one, you can be partners in early morning crime!
(not REALLY crime though, ok? I can’t be held responsible for that!)

It’s that easy!
Remember, if you are in bed in the morning and don’t want to get up,
just think that you are telling those things:
“You are not important to me.
I don’t want to make time for you.”
That will keep you honest.

Note: I realize that this is MUCH easier without kids, but I know that people still can do it with kids.
It’s just a bit trickier I suppose. I will still attempt this when I have kids, though I know it won’t be as easy
as it is now.

Let me know what your morning routine looks like if you decide to try it!
I’ll cheer you on for sure!