Everyone deserves to wake up ready to tackle their day.
To feel like they have a good plan for their future and the motivation to achieve their goals.
But, as a working mom, we simply don’t always wake up ready to tackle our day.
We have lunches to make, toys to pick up, getting everyone up and out the door with minimal meltdowns and somewhere in between, us full time working moms would love to be able to spend some time on ourselves.
Shortly after my second child was born, I took a stance: enough was enough!
No more feeling like I had no time for things, feeling like I was constantly doing something but feeling constantly behind.
I went back to the drawing board and came up with my daily routine that allows me to show up and be all in with my career, have time to build my side business and the things any mother daily routine would need to have.
Seriously, there is hope for all of us busy moms out there.
We can run our careers and our households.
Yes, it will take some work.
Yes, things are going to need to look different than they do today.
Yes, I am going to share all the details of my daily routine so you can balance all the things that your life is wanting you to, and you can do them free of mom guilt and stress.
Why You Need a Daily Routine
Think about your day for a minute, describe your daily routine-
Does it feel calm and coordinated, or chaotic?
What is your daily morning routine?
Are you rushing to daycare drop off and praying you have time to grab coffee before you need to be at work?
Are you Amazon priming things all day every day because that’s your solution to not being able to keep track of all the things you are responsible for getting and doing in any given week?
How many times in the last month have you said “if I had time I would…” or “I wish I had more time”.
Want to find time to build a small business?
Want to fit time in to hit that yoga class you’ve been telling yourself you would go to for the last 7 weeks?
Want to find time to start a profitable blog?
I have put into practice these daily habits of successful women which has given me a good foundation for having such a productive routine in the season of life that I am in!
To help give you a jumpstart on your own routine I’m going to share with you my daily routine below. If you are ready to jump in and make the steps you need to make in order to gain time back in your day, make sure and hop on over to the Time Management Transformation Course for more details.
My Daily Routine
Productive Morning Routine
this is my daily routine for the weekends
5:20 am: Wake up
At some point we are all going to have to stop fighting the urge to stay up late and binge Netflix and trade it in for an earlier wake up call!
Waking up an hour earlier for me was like finding hidden treasure, except it’s been hidden right under my feet this whole time!
There are so many benefits to waking up early but for me, the biggest benefit is that it has given me my greatest advantage to being able to build a small business in addition to being a full time working mom!
If you are serious about leveling up in life and achieving the goals that are on your heart, that success will be found in the morning.
5:20- 5:50 am: Cold Shower, Brush Teeth, Get Ready
I do in fact take a cold shower every day.
And I don’t mean I take a little bit less warm of a shower.
At the end of my shower, I crank the temperature handle all the way over to the coldest it can go.
And then I stand there for about a minute or two, letting the cold water pour of my body.
The first time I did this, I couldn’t believe I was able to do it because I thought for sure I would freeze to death in there and no one would find me for hours.
Turns out, it is kind of addicting!
Now when we run into challenging things, my husband and I will say to each other “is it harder than a cold shower?”.
Believe it or not, that simple question helps shift my mind a bit and I realize I am capable of doing hard things, like take cold showers!
5:50 -6:10 am: Daily Intentions
In the stillness of the morning I have worked hard to develop the self-discipline to NOT look at my phone.
No more scrolling through social media for 18 minutes and then wondering why I feel so rushed to get out the door in time.
Instead, I use a portion of my morning to work on myself and strengthening my relationship with God.
I complete my daily gratitude and daily devotion time through prayer journaling. I will often be working on getting rid of bad habits so once I’m done with my devotion time I shift to personal development.
This can include reading a chapter of a book, writing a goal down 100 times as if it is already happened or spending the time revaluating where I’m at and where I want to go.
6:10-7:00 am: Focus on Building a Small Business
As long as my sweet little ones stay sleeping like they are supposed to… I use this last hour to work on my business.
For me, I do best waking up and tackling the things that I used to put off (because who wants to do hard stuff, right?!).
Putting it 20at the front of the line, instead of at the back when I’ve worked a full day and feel less energetic, has helped me with a few things:
-I actually get the tasks done because the time is already carved out to do it!
-I can’t convince myself that I’m too tired to focus on it!
-It has helped me productivity level and helped me maintain a positive attitude throughout the entire day!
I always get the most important tasks done during this period of the day.
These are things that are going to help move my business a step forward: This means no checking emails, no turning on the TV and no logging into social media until I’m done with this work hour.
Being able to build a small business while being a full time working mom means I have to know where I’m going.
I use the Power of 3 each night so when my feet hit the floor in the morning, I have clarity on what I need to accomplish before I head to work at 7:15 am
7:00-7:15am Wrap Up the Morning
I tidy anything up that needs tidy, pack my lunch, start to get the kids ready for the day if they are awake etc.
Then, I head to my day job and work a full day! I always make sure and have a podcast ready to listen to for the commute to and from work.
My drive isn’t long but you would be surprised how much information you can consume in 15 minute chunks throughout your week!
Don’t miss the next edition of Someday Sunday!
Evening Routine
5:00-6:00pm: Quality Time With Kids
One day I realized I kept wishing for more time with my kids… well turns out I wasn’t maximizing the time I did have so why did I deserve more time?
Since then, that thought has transferred over into changing my actions, because that is what personal development is about! Putting the learnings in to action.
So for this it meant to cell phone activity for 1 whole hour.
No text messages, no pulling out my phone to google something, no picture taking.
I won’t lie to you.
This was harder than I thought it would be.
I had to make steps into the 1 hour time frame. I started with 20 minutes, checked my messages and then put it back away.
Then I moved it to 45 minutes.
Then I hit the full hour and have been able to keep this habit!
6:00-7:00pm Make Dinner and Clean Up
Since we are both balancing careers and parenting, my husband and I share a lot of the duties.
This means, we cook and clean together. We always find the time to have meals together. This might be more challenging for you if your children are older than mine, but even on the 1 night a week we have a sports class, we prioritize our time so we can eat together.
This gives us pretty much the first 2 hours home together focused on quality family time.
7-7:30pm: Get Moving!
As you can tell by now, I haven’t mentioned anything about a strict workout routine yet. You might have that as one of your top self-care items and I would encourage you to put that at the first hour of your day if it is!
For me, I’ve been focused on getting out and pushing 80+lbs of a double stroller up the massive hills in my neighborhood and that has been pretty sufficient.
Trust me, I have the sweaty forehead and high heartrate to prove it!
Sometimes I will go for a run or do a quick free yoga class on youtube during this time if I’m feeling up to it.
But for the most part, the walks are fun because everyone gets out of the house and that 30 minutes of focused adult conversation with my husband is like a mini mid-week date!
7:30pm-8:00pm: Mom Duties
Bath time, get ready for bed and set clothes out for the next day.
8:00-9:00pm Variety Hour
At the end of the day, my daily routine has a variety hour.
Sometimes the kids are down earlier and asleep so this time shifts to me doing the last minute items around the house or getting to focus on things I want to do for me.
I always try and communicate with my husband that I would appreciate taking 15min during this time frame to work on my business. I use this time to complete any tasks I didn’t complete in the morning time or a small task that can be completed within the 15minute time frame.
9pm: Bedtime
Yes, I am a 30 something that goes to be as close as humanly possible to 9pm.
And I have zero regrets.
I have found that in order to be successful in the morning, I have to be successful in the evening and that means an adequate bedtime.
Adequate sleep is hands down a non-negotiable for me. I need at least 7 solid hours or I don’t function as well the next day at to be honest, that working mom schedule of mine just doesn’t tolerate me not functioning!
How to Make A Daily Routine of Your Own
The first option to creating your own productive daily routine is to just take my daily routine listed above and copy it or modify it to meet your timing needs.
And for a lot of women that are ready to make progress towards creating daily habits LINK, a simple copy and paste will do!
For the rest of you who have challenges in your day that are different than mine, here are 4 tips for getting started with creating your very own productive daily routine:
1: Know what your top priorities are for your week and work to remove all of the things that are wasting your time on each day!
2: Figure out where you have 30 and/or 60 min windows of opportunities free. You might be using these time frames to watch TV right now, sleep in on a Saturday etc.
It might not feel like you have time, but trust me, as someone who truly believed that statement, you do have time.
You just have to look for it!
3: Talk with your significant other about helping to hold one another accountable to not having the cell phones out for at least the first 20 minutes you walk into the door. It is astounding (!) how much time slowly seeps away when you have constant access to your phone.
4: Make your Power of 3 visual so you can keep referring back to it when you have a free moment, instead of wasting away those moments trying to think of what you could do to be productive.
Summary…
Alright, so just to recap the great things we’ve covered today:
-You need a daily routine in your life!
-My daily routine is listed above in pretty good detail so you can totally try and adopt it for yourself!
-Success is on the other end of a productive daily routine!
So… what are you waiting for?
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