My Monday Morning Routine, 7 Tips

I don’t know about you but my Monday Morning Routine is what sets my entire week up. If I start my Mondays off sluggish it is more than likely that my entire week will be a direct repetition of continuous sluggish behaviour. I wanted to keep this monthly blog to the point and give you some of my quick tricks to starting my Mondays and weeks off on the right foot… literally.

1. Wake Up When alarm goes off:

   The toughest part of the morning is simply getting out of bed. An alarm across the room is an old trick, but I don’t want to wake up my husband in the process. So I have my iPhone next to my bed with a soft alarm that I can turn off quickly.

   To keep myself from falling back asleep in the morning brain-fog, I have another alarm across the room set for a few minutes later, usually my ipad.

   It’s extremely loud and will jolt my husband awake if I don’t walk across the room and turn it off first. Even my foggy mind understands that, and the fear of a startled and cranky husband drives me to take those first few steps out of bed.

2. Eat a healthy nutritious breakfast:

   For years, nutrition experts have said that a healthy breakfast is a key start to the day. Not only do we think and perform better on the job, they tell us, it supports our well-being in many other ways.

3. Catch up and organize emails.

   Checking your email regularly during the day can be an effective way to keep your inbox at manageable levels. However, the constant interruption and distraction  that comes from multitasking  in this way can dramatically lower your productivity, and disrupt your ability to enter a state of flow  when working on high value projects.

   One strategy you can use is to check email only at set points during the day. For instance, you may decide that you'll only check your email first thing in the morning, before lunch, and at the end of the day.

   Here, it helps to set your email software to "receive" messages only at certain times, so that you're not distracted  by incoming messages. If you can't do this, at least make sure that you turn off audible and visual alerts.

   You can also reserve time to read and respond to email after a long period of focused work, or at the time of day when your energy and creativity are at their lowest (this means that you can do higher value work at other times).

4. Organize and set alerts in my schedule.

   It’s easy to experience a steady stream of interruptions, requests and other time-bending encounters throughout the day that can quickly derail you from being on time. Whether in the office or at home, your grasp of effective time management will improve your overall life and will have a positive effect on your relationships. Today’s technology can easily act as a personal assistant and help keep you on time and on task. Use technology to your advantage and hold yourself accountable to the tools at your disposal to manage your time. 

   For example, every smartphone, tablet and desktop computer has an alarm system to alert you to upcoming meetings or important scheduled events. Set your technology alarms to chime or pop-up in some way to alert you to an upcoming meeting. The key with this tip is to use the alarm. 

5. Organize workouts for the week.

   If you are able to exercise three days a week, there are two primary ways to organize your workouts: The first is to organize your workouts so that each workout is done on non-consecutive days with at least one day, but no more than two days, of rest between them.

6. Set my intentions for the week.

   Setting intentions: I find it helpful to divide my intentions into 3 categories, Essential Task Intentions, Healthy Habit Intentions, and Fun & Happiness Intentions. I’ll explain them more below.

   Essential Task Intentions are the things that need doing this week, tasks that you can’t compromise on like going to work or paying bills. Sadly, these take priority over the more enjoyable intentions below.

   Healthy Habit Intentions are routines or lifestyle changes you would like to create. These can take time to develop but if you schedule them into your daily routine you can make lasting change in your life. These are things like exercise, reading daily or eating healthier.

   Fun & Happiness Intentions are the things you would like to do more often like spend time with family, get out in nature or take up a new hobby.

7. Read my daily horoscope.

   Because we all need to know what kind of positivity or craziness that will enter our lives throughout the day.