A Habit Filled Day
So, I hit a wall around 3 PM every.single.day! How about you?? It get’s harder and harder to make decisions, and my brain goes into fog mode. I am just too tired to do anything but drive myself home, which is a milestone in of itself…I live 11 miles from work but it takes me 35-40 minutes to get home, every day. I am exhausted just from my commute.
The “Whats for dinner- food dread” hits about the same time as the brain fog, which isn’t a good combo at all. I have learned by trial and error that making my most important decisions earlier in the day when I am fresh in the head, have more energy and less stress helps immensely! I also have learned that pre-planning some things in my life on the weekends are a MUST.Have you noticed that it gets harder and harder to make decisions toward the end of the day? Pre-planning and setting up new routines for myself is a lifesaver.
I have found that setting up routines for various things actually helps relieve my stress and the dreaded brain fog that goes along with it. By implementing new habits, such as meal planning on Sundays, Scheduling my week, placing my grocery order, etc… I can free myself up for more creative pursuits and a lot less stress.
Chances are you already have a morning routine. You get up, get your coffee or tea, read the paper or have Alexa read you the latest news. I love my 2 Echo Dots! You might take a moment to check email and fix a healthy breakfast before heading into the shower. Here’s a thought, how about setting out your breakfast the night before. AND, setting the coffee maker. And before reading the paper (phone) or emails, I like to hit the pause button, wake up gently and slowly with that steaming mug of coffee (or tea), allowing myself to adjust to my morning and awaken fully. Recently I have been pulling out my High Performance Daily Planner and going over very quickly and briefly my upcoming day. My goals, hopes, and objectives. This gives me focus to my morning. These habits put me in the drivers seat of my day.
Now off to the shower we go, on my way I like to do a little stretching to get the body moving. The shower wakes me up, with the addition of Essential Oils of course!! If you create a “uniform” of clothes for yourself, you don’t even have to think about what to wear. You just grab a pair of pants and a shirt, or a skirt, tights and sweater and off you go. I always lay out my clothes the night before, all the way down to my socks and jewelry.
Implement some routines into your workday too wherever possible. There are various times in my work day that I have to go and collect things, so I make an entire circuit of my work and get my walking steps in. Meal planning helps you figure out what meals to fix and eat. Do you order your groceries? This has been a real time and stress saver for me. I spend 1 hour on Sundays making my menu for the week, and ordering online. I schedule for Monday after work, swing by and pick my groceries up. I use Walmart which doesn’t charge me a dime for this amazing service. And their customer service and food selection is quite good.
A cleaning schedule makes sure you stay on track with your household chores without you having to spend any valuable decision making skills in the process. I wish I could afford a made, but alas…that is not in the cards for me. So, I have created a very simple cleaning schedule that I do every Saturday. There is the mandatory laundry, sweeping and vacuuming (wish list for someday is the Roomba-just sayin), and then I alternate weekends with heavy duty bathroom or Kitchen cleaning.
Wrap your day up with a bedtime routine that not only helps when you’re too tired to make smart choices, it also helps you fall asleep more easily. Do you shut off your technology? You should, at least 30 minutes prior to sleeping. It calms the brain people. Calm brain equals deep sleep. My routine includes shutting down my phone and TV. Lower the lights, calm music or none at all. Herbal tea, usually Chamomile with a good book for about 20 minutes. Earlier in the night I have turned down the lights in the bedroom and prepped the bed covers, warmed the room just right and got into jammies. Right before bed I take my supplements including Serenity from doTERRA, and lotion my feet with lavender essential oil.
So I encourage you to sit down with a pen and piece of paper and think about what parts of your day and week you can turn into routines. Write the down and create daily to-do lists for yourself until you’ve established these new habits and routines. Remember to give yourself time to develop these habits, it usually take at least 3 weeks – or 21 short days.
Spending a little bit of time creating routines and habits will make your day run a lot smoother. You might just find yourself less stressed and get more done during your productive hours. And that’s a beautiful thing. It allows you to save plenty of decision making for the fun stuff, like figuring out what park to go to, what movies to watch with the family or plan that date night with your better half!
Here’s to your habit filled day!
[optin-cat id=”2288″]
I'm married to an amazing man, we have 4 crazy kids, and 4 crazy cats.Pull up a seat, grab a glass of sweet tea and stay awhile!
- Monthly Gardening Guide – August - July 28, 2024
- Beat the Heat – Shade Cloth for your Vegetable Garden - July 25, 2024
- Monthly Gardening Guide – November - November 4, 2022
Leave a Reply