How I Formed My Morning Routine

Haiii there friends! Notice anything different around here? I've been practicing digitizing my hand-lettering and I'm working to incorporate it more into my designs. Not to be all egotistical and all, but I think it looks rather smashing. I especially like my new signature (scroll down and see it!).

Anyways, today I want to talk a little bit about morning routines. We all have one, even if it's just rolling out of bed five minutes before you need to be at work. But the interesting thing to me is how I've found that my morning routine--what I do for the first hour or so that I'm awake--shapes my entire day.

On mornings where I sleep late, exhausted after a busy night of work, stumble out of bed at 11 and don't shower for an hour, I find that the rest of my day is similarly unfocused and honestly, wasted. On those days, I never really do anything until I have to get ready for my night at work. But not only am I unproductive, I just feel badly. I know it's been said before that sleeping in late can keep you from being productive, but have you ever noticed the impact of sleeping late on your mood? The way you interact with others? Even the choice of what you wear (and therefore, how you carry and present yourself)? 

In the summers, morning routines are especially hard for me to form. I work nights, until about 11:30 or 12 every night. And I often find that I'm so wound up from talking to customers and being cheerful all night that sometimes it can take me hours to feel "ready" to get to bed. So I've struggled to balance the two sides of my day so that they don't ruin the middle. 

I've found that first, I have to focus on calming my mind so I can sleep as soon as possible at night. In the past, I would start a blog post when I get home, maybe do some cleaning, and before I knew it, it would be three or four in the morning. Now, I choose to quiet my mind, stay away from active technology (meaning no blogging--I just can't say no to my Netflix habit), do some yoga if I need and settle in bed as soon as possible. I like to take my ride home from work as a chance to clear my mind of all things work and transition into planning for sleep.

The other key part is setting an alarm. I know it sounds so terrible not fun, but I'm really a big believer in setting an alarm everyday, even if you set it for noon. I set my alarm to allow me seven and a half hours of sleep, which I have found is my sweet spot of waking up rested but not groggy and lazy. I set a second alarm clock for 30 minutes later. If I wake up with the first alarm and don't feel rested, I'll go back to sleep until the second. But I've found that I don't even use the second alarm most of the time. 

Lastly, I like to make my plan for the day (or at least until lunch) first thing in the morning or right before I go to bed. I like to choose 2-4 big things to get done (weed, write a blog post, exercise, go to the grocery store, etc) and then list a few reminders for smaller things (i.e. reply to a certain email or catch up on my blog feed). I make sure to add at least one item for something I'm looking forward to about my day.

Here's a peek at my morning/night routine:

12:00 am // Get home from work, get ready for bed, watch some Netflix.

1:00 am // Turn off all technology, lights, etc, and go to sleep.

8:30 am // First alarm goes off. Relax in bed or go back to sleep.

9:00 am // Second alarm. Get up. Brush teeth, wash face, etc.

9:15 am // Breakfast. I'm not a huge breakfast person, but even a yogurt reminds me that my day has begun.

9:30 am // Blog or exercise/shower. I mostly alternate days, but some days I get ambitious and do both.

10:30 am // Begin my to-do list.

So even though I don't get up all that early because of working nights, scheduling out my mornings has helped me stay productive all day long.

Now, I want to hear from you! What do your mornings look like? If you want to write your own Morning Diaries post, please leave a link!

Monthly Goals

Helloooo! Happy June! Today's our double day: weekly and monthly wishes! Man, it has been a heck of a week!

I've only talked about it a little bit but I had something big happen this week...I graduated! Yay! Side note: can I just say that graduation caps are officially the ugliest hats ever. Like serioiusly, America, is that the best tradition we can come up with? Other countries have gorgeous tribal or ethnic clothing and meaningful traditions (my family's half-Swedish and I've always loved St. Lucia Day). And while I know the US has other beautiful traditions, wearing flat caps on your head for graduations is pretty embarrassing. 

But aaaaanyways, all the family-and-friends socializing sort of overshadowed my goals this week. But I still didn't do half bad!

Last Week's Goals:

+ Make a to-do list every morning and actually get things done. So I started off great, but come Friday (when graduation festivities started) it was just not happening. My room's a bit of a mess and I've got approximately four thousand and seven thank you notes to write, but whatever. I graduated, homeskillet.

+ Read at least 15 minutes a day. I did great on this...until approximately Wednesday when I forgot I made this goal. Uh, oops. But then I remembered it on Friday and did pretty well the rest of the week so it's all good, guys. Plus, my genetics book = super interesting. I'm a nerd.

This Week's Goals:

+ Have fun in California! I haven't mentioned it in awhile, but my trip to California is this week! I leave tomorrow. As a reminder, in case you've lost your binder full of the details of my life, my family and I are celebrating my graduation by going to CA (I live on the East Coast) and visiting all the National Parks/beaches/aquariums we can fit in 12 days. I'm gonna see big trees. Anyways, this isn't a goal, but more an excuse to talk about my trip. #sorrynotsorry

+ Practice taking pictures! So I officially break the cardinal rule of bloggers: I don't take pictures. I don't even own a camera. Except my phone and a (largely unused) digital camera from approximately 2004. But I'm telling myself that it'll take a lot of skill to screw up pictures of such a gorgeous area. So even if it's on my iPhone, I want to actually take pictures of things for once! Maybe I'll get bold + take out that digital camera ;)

This Month's Goals:

+ Well let's look ahead to what June includes for me. First part of the month, I'll be in California, chilling out with the trees. Then, I'll be in Florida for a few days on some school business. Then (with literally less than 24 hours in between on either end of Florida), I'll head to Michigan for the summer where I work at an ice cream shop and listen to way too much indie pop music on my walks to the beach every afternoon. So it's gonna be crazy in that I have too much vacation planned! Jokes, jokes.

+ Form an actual morning routine. During summer (aka when I don't have 8am classes), I'm terrible at actually forming a good sleep/morning routine. Most days I get up between 8-9, but some days it's 7am and others it's not till 10 (which is actually embarrassing). This month, I'll form a morning routine that will involve a consistent but reasonable waking up time (with an alarm as back up!), exercise at least a few days a week, stretching, being productive, designing, etc. 

+ Work on my super secret project! How annoying is it to you guys when bloggers announce a project, but title is something like 'the super secret project'? Like why am I telling you about it if it's a secret? Mostly because it's not a sure thing + it's my way of knocking on wood. I hope to share more about it with you soon...if I can get enough of it prepared first!

What are your goals for the week + month?!

Weekly Wishes #5

Hey all. Once again, I'm linking up with The Nectar Collective for Weekly Wishes. The Weekly Wishes is where we all can share our posts about goals, challenges, and wishes for the week! Last week, my goal was to watch a TEDTalk every night! Some nights I watched a couple talks but other nights I didn't watch any so it kind of evened out. But it's definitely a habit I'd like to keep up with. Tomorrow I'll post a list of my favorite talks and I can't wait to share some with you!


Now, for this week's wish:


I had been doing pretty well on preparing for my half-marathon but unfortunately I skipped like a week and a half when I started nannying and my mornings were crazy busy. On this past Saturday, my town hosted a fun run and I participated in that on the spur of the moment and that's inspired me to pick back up where I left off. This week, my runs are three, four, three and six miles and that last one will be a doozy. But I'm publicly committing to doing the whole six mile run, even if I have to walk a little. Guys, make me do it!

Now head on over to The Nectar Collective and join the Weekly Wish link up.

Wake Up, Allie [playlist]

So unfortunately, I am not a morning person, as much as I'd like to be. I'm also not a night person. I just like my sleep. Ideally, I'd sleep from ten till ten in the morning. However, getting up that late tends to mean I don't get really going until eleven or so, and then half my day is gone. That's why I made my weekly wish this week to try setting a morning routine. I didn't do so hot this morning, as I got up at about 9:35 when I realized I had work at 10. Such is life. Anyways, I made a little playlist to motivate me to wake up and run in the morning. Listen to it in this order; it starts slow and will get you up and at 'em. Warning though--it is way eclectic. Incubus to Yo-Yo Ma to Led Zeppelin to Needtobreathe. But I think it's awesome! Listen on 8tracks.

1. Aqueous Transmission//Incubus


2. C'est Ma Terre//Christopher Mae


3. Rise to the Sun (Live on KEXP)//Alabama Shakes


4. Separate Ways (One for the Road)//The River and the Road


5. 123 Stop//The Postelles


6. Girl Named Tennessee//Needtobreathe


7. Movin' Right Along//Alkaline Trio


8. Hope the Good Things Never End//Northcote


9. This Too Shall Pass//OK Go


10. Houses of the Holy//Led Zeppelin


11. Attaboy//Yo Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile


12. The Southern Wild//Eliza & the Bear


13. Don't Upset the Rhythm (Go Baby Go)//The Noisettes


14. Dolores//The Mavericks


15. Lemon Parade//Tonic

So we'll see if a good playlist is enough to get me going in the morning! Tune in tomorrow for a new collection of things that are Catching My Eye.

Weekly Wishes #2

 

Hey all.Once again, I'm linking up with The Nectar Collective for Weekly Wishes. The Weekly Wishes is where we all can share our posts about goals, challenges, and wishes for the week! Last week, my goal was to read for an hour every day! Some days I was great! Some days...not so much.

Monday: Day 1: In the morning, I read about thirty minutes and finished my AP European History book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization. Woo hoo! So happy to be done... In the afternoon, I had a long wait at Costco while my tires were being rotated and I read about a 75 minutes of Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. One hour and 45 minutes.

Tuesday: Big day! Between the boy's softball game & making cheesecake all day, I forgot to read. When I got in bed I read Catching Fire before falling asleep. One hour.

Wednesday: Finished Catching Fire! It's a reread so I got through it quickly. One hour and thirty minutes.

Thursday: My last day in Charlotte so I was busy! I started a new dystopian book called Wool early in the morning and read some before going out to lunch with a friend and dinner with the boy. Thirty minutes.

Friday: In the car on the way to Michigan! Read Me Talk Pretty One Day. Two hours.

Saturday:  Finished Me Talk Pretty One Day! Thirty minutes.

Sunday: none.

So I didn't do so hot there at the end on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, but I felt good about the time I spent reading this week. It felt really good to spend my vacation intentionally, reading instead of noodling around on the internet all the time. I highly recommend setting a reading goal, even if it's only half an hour a week.

Now, for this week's wish:


In the summer, I am soo bad about this. If I don't have something specific to get up for, I'll get up around 8 or 9 and not be productive for awhile. This week, I plan to get up at 8:30 and run (if it's a running day) and condition (if it's a conditioning day) and work on something right off the bat, even if it's something simple like reading or blogging. We'll see how I do!

Now head on over to The Nectar Collective and join the Weekly Wish link up.