The Power of An Evening Routine for A Productive Day
It’s the little things that can make a big difference in our lives. Having a daily consistent structure at nighttime helps you get a good night’s sleep and become more productive the following day.
It’s not just children who need a consistent bedtime routine to feel safe and secure, adults do too. For children, it leads to improved memory, attention, alertness, and other cognitive skills. It improves their mood and behavior and results in a happy child and a happy home.
The Power of an Evening Routine For a Productive Day is it helps your body to slow down and get ready for sleep which is part of your natural sleep-wake cycle. Your routine can include turning off screens, meditating, reading a good book, and adjusting your bedroom environment. All in all, it boosts your overall well-being.
Deciding on a consistent sleep schedule that you can follow daily helps you to feel tired, switch off your brain, and prepare for restful sleep. The night routine helps to make the transition from work mode to sleep mode.
The Power of an Evening Routine For a Productive Day
As a busy woman, you need a good skincare routine, a morning routine, and the right evening routine to help you become healthy and productive.
A nighttime routine is a set of activities that you do at night 30-60 minutes before you go to bed. The activities are done in the same order every night. They help you know what to expect and result in a better night’s sleep.
The routine must be set with a fixed start and end time otherwise it might not happen all the time. Haphazard evening routines that are vague lose their power to work and make an impact in your life. It’s about the relaxation time before your head hits that pillow.
5 Reasons Why an Evening Routine is Important
What do you want your evening routine to look like? Do you even want one? Will it help you stay on track with reaching your goals? These are some essential reasons why an evening routine is a good idea.
It leads to better sleep
Poor sleep has a negative effect on your health, memory, well-being, and work life and even strains relationships because it can put you in a bad mood.
The right evening routine leads to a better night’s sleep. It prepares your mind for sleep and rest. This routine has to be part of your overall sleep hygiene. Good sleep hygiene includes both the environment and habits you form to get high-quality sleep and boost your overall health.
It includes following a consistent sleep schedule, a nightly routine, and making sure your bed is comfortable and conducive for rest. Remove clutter, turn off noisy electronics, and opt for blackout curtains.
Activities like lighting up candles and turning off bright lights are a great way to make your bedroom environment ready for healthy sleep.
This is one of those power habits that’s key for your health and helps you be more productive. All this essentially leads to achieving the goals and dreams you’ve set for yourself.
It helps you focus on what’s important
Have you ever woken up with a clear to-do list for the day but many unexpected things happen, and you get pulled in so many different directions you end up achieving very little that you’d set out to do in the first place?
It’s so easy to get lost in the urgent and not have enough time or energy to do what’s important. But what’s important is what sustains us. It could be exercising, running, reading the word of God, spending time with a loved one, or writing in your gratitude journal.
When you incorporate these activities in your morning or evening routine you ensure that the most important things are not forgotten. We can’t control all the things that happen in a long day, but we can control our routines. This gives us a sense of comfort and will keep you grounded.
An Evening Routines Reduces Decision Fatigue
Having many big and small decisions to make in a day can deplete your mental energy. What do you eat? What do you wear today? Should you check your emails or not? Should you exercise today even if it’s so cold? The end result is decision fatigue.
When you make some decisions in your life in advance and make them part of a routine, you operate on auto-pilot and it gives you less to think about. That’s the power of routines whether is an exercise routine, or a skincare routine. They reduce decision fatigue giving you more energy to focus on your important goals.
It helps you achieve your goals
Your nightly routine can set you up for crushing your goals the following day. A productive evening routine leads to deep sleep which helps you prepare mentally and physically for the day ahead. You get to disconnect from work mode and get into relaxation and ultimately sleep mode.
It takes discipline daily to develop an effective evening routine. It is what is going to get us to achieve our vision. A person who is not disciplined is a lazy person. People who choose discipline feed their drive and desire. They feed their purpose. So choose today to become that disciplined person one habit at a time.
“What I do today has a direct relationship with what’s going to happen to me tomorrow.”
— John Maxwell
An Evening Routine Ends the Day Right
Sometimes when you go to bed you can’t sleep because you start to think of all the things you can or should have done. This is very disruptive to your sleep.
“For most of us, it is the mind, rather than the body, that disrupts restorative sleep.”
Professor Meir Kryger, The Mystery of Sleep.
Tim Ferriss, author of a 4-hour work week and a former insomniac encourages not working at night and rather having a “closing ritual” for your mind. This puts your mind at ease and helps you get ready for restorative sleep that energizes you to start the day strong.
Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues discovered that we only remember two things about an event: the emotional peak (whether it was good or bad), and how it ended.
So, by creating your own calming “closing ritual” you’re essentially rewriting each day with a happy ending.
Examples of Good Evening Routines
Journaling is a great way to reflect on the day and maintain good mental health. It could be a daily journal or gratitude journal that’s up to you. It helps to provide clarity on situations, lowers stress levels, and equips you to let go of what’s negative, write ideas down, and gain perspective.
Benjamin Franklin was an extraordinarily disciplined person. He woke up each morning and asked himself, “What good shall I do today?” and every night before bed, he asked, “What good have I done today?”
He was intentional in all that he did and wanted to make sure that his days were productive and worthwhile. I challenge you, before you go to bed, take some time to reflect and honestly ask yourself, “What good have I done today?”
Reading books is a good evening ritual to have. It’s one of the habits of most successful people. Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates is an avid reader, spending an hour each night before bed reading.
Research shows that reading for as little as six minutes a day can reduce stress levels. It’s a more relaxing way to wind down than extending screen time.
Taking a warm bath is another great way to make you feel tired, relaxed, and ready for sleep. And taking your favorite herbal teas is a great idea before you sleep. You also need to remember to make your bedroom conducive to rest. Remove clutter, turn off noisy electronics, and opt for blackout curtains.
I collaborated with another blogger and YouTuber to give you an insider’s look into a couple of different evening routines because I know having a routine is essential. Her name is Marta Tancula, and her YouTube channel is called Imperfect Life Balance.
She covers topics related to productivity, time management, and effectiveness to help moms find their own work-life balance. Make sure you check out Marta’s Evening Routine!
My Evening Routine
I’m going to share little ideas from my own evening routine. You may have your own special elements that you like to include in your evening ritual and that’s okay. These are just a guide.
Ditch screen time before bed
Scrolling social media or watching your favorite show on Netflix after a long day at work may seem relaxing but it’s actually not.
Electronic devices emit blue light which tricks and confuses your brain into thinking it’s nighttime when it’s daytime. Your brain then works to stay awake which leads to a decrease in sleep quality and quantity. This can also lead to eye strain and headaches.
If you check the news as well on social media, this may increase your anxiety and stress levels which negatively affects your sleep. That’s why l limit screen time at night and put away my electronics as soon as l start my bedtime routine. It’s a powerful way to help me unwind.
Plan ahead
An effective evening routine for me begins with planning for the next day. I set my outfits out, both my workout and running clothes and daily outfits.
That way they are ready to go, and I don’t have to deal with it the next morning. It’s already set there in front of me, no decisions are necessary. It makes for an easier transition from my warm bed.
I then write in my planner. I jot down my to-do-list or any most important tasks that I need to complete the next day. Sunday evenings I tend to plan out my entire week and make sure I know what I have going on.
Still, as part of my daily routine at night I like to take a look at the calendar for the following day and ensure I know my responsibilities and can formulate a plan as to when and how I’ll get everything done that I need to. I rank the most important with a star, or sometimes I number them, and I work down the list from there. I also mark what can wait if necessary.
Clean the Sink
Part of my evening routine includes setting aside time to go into the kitchen and empty the sink. If I have any clean dishes drying, I put them away. If there are dirty dishes, I load them in the dishwasher. I like having a clean sink at the end of the day because it causes less stress. It is more sanitary and tends to make the house smell better too.
Sometimes I do this task throughout the day, but most of the time I wait until the evening and do it all at once. But, if I make it a daily habit, the sink doesn’t overpower my kitchen, and it automatically feels cleaner.
You have to daily make the choice to be disciplined, and discipline is what is going to get you to achieve your ultimate goals and dreams.
One thing I don’t usually do at the end of the night is to read a good book. I try to find a little time to write or journal before I go to sleep, but I’ve found that reading for me happens best as part of my morning routine because I just want to fall asleep when I hop in bed.
Because I’ve worn myself out from a full day, I tend to lose track of where I’m at or what I’m reading if I save it for the evening.
Go to Bed Early
Getting enough sleep is important to me, and I know it is necessary in the season I’m in. A good night’s sleep helps me stay productive. I have a consistent sleep and wake-up time.
I go to bed early. Some days I need to stay up late, but when I do, it seems to throw me off the following morning. I have a consistent sleep schedule and if I’m up later than 10:30, the next day is a drag. I just feel it.
For seasons, sometimes it’s okay and even necessary, but I know that I am a crabby bear, I’m not a good mom and I’m not a good wife when I don’t get my sleep.
So there you have it. Those are some of the routines I find important for my evenings, and maybe yours will look a little different.
Maybe you’re a night owl, and you can do much of your daily discipline at night and sleep in a little bit, and you’ll still be productive through the day. That’s OK! I’m just not that person, and I’m not going to try to be.
Do you prefer the morning or the evening to get in the chunk of your daily discipline? Think about what you want your daily habits to be and start creating them.
Start with one good thing and get in the habit of that, and then add something else and continue that cycle until you’ve created the routines that you desire for yourself.
A nighttime routine is a set of activities you do in the same order each night before your sleep. This consistent structure improves your sleep quality and makes you productive the following day which ensures you accomplish your goals.
It could include reading a good book, taking a warm bath, journaling, doing the dishes, and turning off screens. It makes the transition from work mode to sleep mode more effective.
The Power of an Evening Routine is it reduces your stress levels, reduces decision fatigue, focuses on what’s important, and ends the day right. Overall it leads to success and better health.
Remember, you are a winner. Just run YOUR race!
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