During the Go To Bed Early Challenge, I have really been working on winding down earlier and setting up my evenings with a good routine. I believe a productive morning starts the night before.
If you’re following along and working on an evening routine, here are my tips on how to create an amazing evening routine…
1. Make a list of all your ideas.
Write down every single thing you can think of that you would love to do before you go to bed. Brain dumping help me with stress reduction so much!
Just getting everything that’s swirling around in my head out of my head and onto paper makes me feel better almost instantly.
2. Prioritize your list.
Once you have it written down, go through the list and star the most important priorities that will make a huge impact on your life. Keep in mind that you can’t realistically do everything.
Look for what Charles Duhigg calls “keystone habits“. These are habits have a positive trickle down effect on all other areas.
One of my keystone habits is spending one-on-one devotional and conversation time with each of my kids for 10 minutes every night. It’s an opportunity for my kids to know they have my complete attention.
I want to hear my kids’ hearts, know their struggles, and listen to them. This is a keystone habit for me, because I know that it will have a lifelong impact on my children.
It also has a trickle down effect for the next day. It fills up my kids’ love tanks and helps them feel secure, and it affects so many areas of their lives.
Another habit I really want to focus on is taking my vitamins before bed. So many times, I get tired and want to skip this. When I make it a priority, though, I sleep better and feel so much better on a daily basis.
These are my top two priorities. Secondary priorities for me include a quick pick-up of the house, cleaning up the kitchen, and laying out my clothes for the next day.
3. Pick two to five things to do every night.
Decide which priorities you will choose to do in the same order every night. Make sure you put them in order of priority. Right now, I am focusing on taking my vitamins and doing devotionals with the kids every single night. If I have time and energy after that, I do the secondary priorities.
If it helps you, time blocks might even be a really good idea to make sure you stick to it and get in bed at the same time each night. Figure out your bed time, and work backwards to figure out what time you realistically need to start your wind-down and evening routine.
4. Commit to stick with it for 21 days.
When you stick with something for three weeks, it’s much more likely that it will become habit. It becomes a part of your life and something you don’t even have to think about!
What priorities are you planning to stick with for the next 21 days? Tell me in the comments, so that we can encourage each other in public accountability!
Want some practical help with setting up your day for success? It all starts the night before! Be sure to grab a copy of my brand-new online course, Make Over Your Evenings.
This 14-day online course includes videos, a workbook, and step-by-step projects and is designed to help you maximize your evenings in order to experience more success in your life, more order in your home, and more joy in your soul.
It’s time to stop sleep-walking through life and wake up to the amazing excitement and fulfillment that comes when you follow my simple plan to Make Over Your Evenings.
These are awesome Crystal! I love brain dumping every evening because it helps me sleep better too! Also, another thing that’s really worked well for me is diffusing some essential oils and reviewing what’s on my list for the next day in my planner. 🙂 Calms me down and centres me as well 🙂
Crystal, Do you go through a devotional book with each child before bed? Is it a structured time or a talk about how they are doing/feeling?
I shared more about it here: https://katch.me/MoneySavingMom/v/a6873bc2-7cca-38b5-860b-6423c14479cf — (fast-forward to around minute 18).
Hmm…I love how disciplined you are! I have a long way to go in that regard. (not trying to compare, just saying) I really love both sides of the day-both the early morning and evening. That can really get me into trouble. As the saying goes, “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
Doing a brain dump each night really helps me sleep much better! When a nagging thought pops into my head, I just think to myself “That’s on the list and I’ll ponder it tomorrow.”
I love that you devote 10 minutes of one on one time to each child! We kinda sorta do this with reading time, but it could be so much more intentional and fruitful. Thanks for sharing that!
You are so welcome! I’m glad it inspired you!
Per your encouragement, I’ve been going to bed earlier and getting up earlier (and it feels SO good when I do!).
Love your suggestion of making priorities of how to spend that evening time. For a good while, I got sucked into watching TV show after TV show when the kiddos went to bed. Now that I’m going to bed much earlier, I don’t want to spend my entire evening in front of the TV.
I’m fine unwinding and watching a show with my husband here and there, but it’s made me consider how I want to visit with my husband, read and maybe get the laundry put away so it’s not lurking over my head the following day. 😉
Yay! This makes me so happy!
Thanks for sharing about the keystone habits book. Looks very interesting. I think the concept is a very important one, and I wonder to what extent I have already figured out that is the “key” for me, and what more we could learn about it from the book?
I started doing something I call “pre-tasking” where I set up stuff to cue me for my goals/priorities, so that when I see them lying out I will be reminded and go ahead and do it (eg, vitamins and face-washing stuff on the bathroom sink before I go put the kids to bed, broom left leaning against the table before I leave to put the baby to nap… that way when I come back I am reminded to do what I *really* want to do because it’s easier “I already got all the stuff out to do it…” and not get distracted…
Brain dumping is key for me! Last night I listened to a great business podcast close to bedtime. (A bad idea, I know!) It got me so excited and filled with all kinds of ideas to apply to my blog. I knew I would have a hard time sleeping if I didn’t do something about it then. So, I spent five minutes writing down everything I thought I would like to implement based on the speaker’s advice. After that I was able to fall asleep pretty quickly!
I love the concept (and image!) of the “brain dump!”
It’s so easy to be wound up with your brain going a million miles a minute while you’re trying to lie in bed and go to sleep! For me, it’s usually the list of things I need to do the next day that’s stuck in my head. I agree . . . the solution is to write it down. I make sure I dump” everything in my brain into my planner. Plus, if I’ve crossed off everything on my to-do list for the day, I know I truly haven’t forgotten anything.
Then my noggin can rest easy, knowing that I don’t NEED to remember things . . . or wonder what I forgot. 🙂