Simplify the Morning and Evening

The quality of our lives often depends on the quality of our habits. -James Clear

Have your mornings ever looked like a baby on your hip at 6:45 a.m., spilled milk and a Cheerio littered floor at 7:00 a.m. and someone complaining about another someone at 7:01 a.m.? #allthehandsareraised Or maybe it’s just me?

Or how about your evenings? Has your evening ever looked like dirty dishes in the sink, two kids in the bathtub and bedtime was 10 minutes ago? Me too.

I don’t know about you, but mornings and evenings seem to be some of the toughest parts of the day. The transition from sleep to awake and from awake to sleep are complicated.

One way I have found to make the beginnings and endings to our days a bit smoother and a bit more enjoyable is to simplify them with a morning and evening routine; both for me and the kids. What is contained within these routines have changed more times than I can count due to our ever changing season of life. But one thing I have learned:

It doesn’t matter what is in the routine, it just matters it is there.

I’m (slowly) coming out of the newborn stage. My youngest son is (almost) 7 months old and I am inching my way towards a morning routine that includes things for me.

Why routine?

In the Harvard Business Review, Sarah Green Carmichael wrote an article on the importance of routine. She referenced the book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work and cited the geniuses in the book all had routines that were essential to their work. If Jane Austen and Beethoven believe routines to be necessary, I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt the rest of us.

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation…We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. -Aristotle

Kids thrive in repetition and routine and we do, too. We free up brain space when routines become automatic and we don’t have to think about what to do next after we pour our first cup of coffee. Thinking through and automating a morning and evening routine allows us to get the things done we want to and frees up brain space in the process.

What do you want?

The first thing to figure out is what needs to get done every morning and every evening. List writers will enjoy this part. Begin with the morning and make a list of everything that needs to be done either for you or your kids and then do the same for the evening. You can combine these, but I suggest doing one for you and one for the kids. Below you can find my lists.

MORNING

For myself:

1. Workout
2. Shower and get ready for the day
3. Devotion and Prayer
4. Read
5. Write
6. Drink 2 big cups of water

In an ideal morning, I would like to complete all these things before my babes rise for the day.

For my kids:

1. Eat breakfast
2. Get dressed and brush teeth
3. Complete one chore
4. Begin schoolwork

EVENING

For myself:

1. Wash face and brush teeth
2. Kitchen and living room at ground zero (picked up and clean)
3. Laundry out of the washing machine

For my kids:

1. Baths and pajamas
2. Toys and books picked up
3. Read books
4. Devotion and good night

Work Backwards

Using the lists we made, we are going to work backwards to see when we need to begin. Next to each morning and evening routine, I am going to list about how many minutes each task takes. Mine are below.

My Morning Routine

1. Workout: 10-20 minutes
2. Shower and get ready for the day: 30 minutes
3. Devotion and Prayer: 10 minutes
4. Read: 15 minutes
5. Write: 15 minutes
6. Drink 2 big cups of water: Done while doing the above

My morning routine takes about 90 minutes to complete. If my kids wake at 6:45-7:00 and I want these to be done before they wake, I need to be up at 5:15-5:30 to begin my routine.

My Kids’ Morning Routine

1. Eat breakfast: 30 minutes
2. Get dressed and brush teeth: 5 minutes
3. Complete one chore: 10 minutes
4. Begin schoolwork: Ideally at 8:00

My kids’ morning routine adds up to 45 minutes. If I want my oldest to begin school at 8:00, he needs to be up by 7:15.

My Evening Routine

1. Wash face and brush teeth: 5 minutes
2. Kitchen and living room at ground zero (picked up and clean): 15 minutes **If you want to simplify your living space check out this post.
3. Laundry out of the washing machine: 5 minutes

My evening routine takes 25 minutes. I like to have these things done before we start the kids’ bedtime routine. As you will see below, ideally we would start the kids’ bedtime routine at 7:10. I would need to start my evening routine at 6:50 to be ready to help with the kids at 7:10.

My Kids’ Evening Routine

1. Baths and pajamas: 30 minutes
2. Toys and books picked up: 10 minutes
3. Read books: 15 minutes
4. Devotion and good night: 10 minutes

The total time for the kids’ evening routine is 65 minutes. Yikes. This is why we are always late getting to bed. If we want them in bed at 8:15, we need to start the routine at 7:10.

This task of working backwards helps me visually see when I need to begin our morning and evening routines and completely takes the guesswork out of it. This exercise clearly shows I need to begin the kids’ evening routine at 7:10 and currently we start whenever, sometimes at 7:00, sometimes at 7:30, sometimes right before 8:00, which is probably why we are always late getting the kids down. This will (hopefully) help us moving forward so we aren’t rushing around at the end of the day.

I believe this small tweak of simplifying the morning and evening can create amazing results if we prioritize them and discipline ourselves to be consistent. Tell me: What is in your morning and evening routines?