Money Saving Mom®

I’m very late in getting this posted, but this morning, afternoon, and evening just flew by and I finally have a chance to sit down and get this written! That’s life sometimes, isn’t it? Thanks for your patience as I’m not always the most dependable blogger ever. 🙂

I got up at 5:15 a.m. this morning. And I’m thrilled because today I felt really rested and energized when I got up. I’m hopeful that my body is starting to adjust to me being on an early-to-rise schedule again?

My One Nightly Must-Do: Create Tomorrow’s To-Do List

Today’s assignment is about creating a nightly checklist to encourage you to have better mornings. I love this idea and think it can be key to successful mornings.

I shared my evening routine yesterday — which sort of serves as my checklist. But I wanted to share one thing that has really helped me to wake up, jump into my day, and be more productive.

That one simple thing is to create a to-do list the night before. This one small thing makes a world of difference for my day. And I find that I sleep better, too, because I have mentally gone through the next day, thought through all the must-do’s and activities, and have created a plan for the day.

This simple exercise frees up so much space in my brain and truly relaxes me.

How it usually works is that I consult my Google Calendar (aka my “brain”) and see what is on tap for the next day — whether that’s a writing project that’s due, a phone call that must be made, an interview that is scheduled, an errand I need to run, or an activity one of my children has going on.

Once I’ve looked over my day, I then plan out our routine. We have a basic routine we follow everyday, but it varies based upon what needs to be done and what’s going on. So every evening, I write out my plan for the next day — including time blocks of when I plan to do everything.

This has been crucial for me, because it not only helps me go into the day with a Game Plan, but it also helps me to know if I need to bump some things I’d planned to do to another day or delete something I’d hoped to do altogether. I only have 24 hours in a day and planning accordingly instead of trying to cram in 36 hours’ worth of work into the day and then being frustrated and overwhelmed makes a huge difference!

I always try to include two to three hours of Margin Time — time when I don’t have anything scheduled. This is typically from 6-9 p.m. It doesn’t always end up being completely empty, but it allows wiggle room to finish things or catch up on laundry when inevitable interruptions or unexpected things come up throughout the day. It’s my sanity-saver!

This Morning’s Report

• Got up at 5:15 a.m.
• Read my Bible and devotional books. Prayed over my day.
• Made some coffee, unloaded the dishwasher and reloaded it.
• Started the laundry. Made Trim Healthy Mama Pancakes (My second try turned out beautifully — yay! You can see pictures of my first flop and my second success here.)
• Exercised.
• Finally had a chance to wash my hair. (I usually wash it every three days, but I had gone for six days without washing it. Yikes!)
• Opened the laptop, answered emails, answered comments, scheduled some posts.
• And then it was time to start homeschooling. 🙂

How has your morning been so far? Do you have a Nightly Checklist? If so, what’s on it? If not, what would you LIKE it to look like?

Good morning! How’s your morning going so far today? I “slept in” until 5:30 a.m. this morning.

I was in bed by 9:45 p.m., but when my alarm went off at 4:30 a.m. this morning, I could tell an extra hour of sleep would do my body good. Because I’m trying to do a much better job of giving myself grace these days, I set my alarm for 5:30 a.m. and went back to bed. And it felt so good.

Today’s assignment is about getting better sleep. I typically sleep really well. In fact, my husband jokes that it’s basically impossible to wake me up in the middle of the night if a child needs me and that he’s the one who always takes the night shift if a child is sick… which is somewhat accurate — at least the part about me being hard to wake up! 🙂

Unless I have some big something the following day and am feeling anxious or nervous about it, I sleep like a rock most nights. And I feel blessed that sleep is not an issue that I struggle with most of the time, because I know that many people do struggle with it.

That said, since committing to going to bed earlier, I’ve noticed that I’ve struggled to get to sleep at night. So I like the idea of being intentional about winding down at night in order to encourage restful sleep.

As I thought about it more, I realized that I actually do have a pretty solid Evening Routine/Before Bed Ritual — or whatever you want to call it. 🙂

My Current Bedtime Ritual

Here’s how it typically looks for me (note that I don’t always do all of these things, but I usually do most of these in this order):

::Do a quick clean up the kitchen/main living areas of the home — There’s something about waking up to a clean house in the morning that just feels SO good!

::Consult Google Calendar and write a to-do list for the following day.

::Wash face, take out my contacts, take pills/vitamins.

::Snuggle with my kiddos and send them off to bed. (Confession: I sometimes fall asleep right here — and then Jesse has to send them off to bed!)

::Make a cup of soothing tea and slather some essential oils or lotion on my feet.

::Turn off the electronics.

::Climb into bed. Chat with my hubby. Fall asleep.

The biggest thing for me is to start planning to go to bed at least an hour and a half before I actually plan to get in bed. It seems to take me that long to get everything done without feeling like I’m rushing through!

This Morning’s Report

• Got up at 5:30 a.m.
• Read my Bible and devotional books. Prayed over my day.
• Made some coffee, opened my laptop and answered emails & comments.
• Scheduled some posts — including this one asking for your input on my book.
• Jesse came back from the gym and got Kathrynne up. They made breakfast together, and then she started on her independent work. We decided to let Silas & Kaitlynn sleep in this morning as they both seemed like they could use the extra sleep. 🙂
• Finished this post.
• And now I’m off exercise and shower, start the laundry, make some breakfast for myself (I’m going to try the Trim Healthy Mama Pancakes this morning), and help the kids with their chores and start in on our homeschooling for the day. We’re getting a later start because I “slept in” but we have a quieter day today so I think it will work out. And here’s to hoping I get in bed by my actual bedtime of 9:00 p.m. tonight!

How has your morning been so far? Do you have a bedtime routine of sorts? If so, what does it look like? If not, what would you LIKE it to look like?

Good morning… er, not so quite morning. 🙂

I know I’m much later in getting this Rise & Shine Challenge post published than I’d planned to… but I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to my inbox literally exploding with emails from the Grocery University Blowout Sale today. And I’ve just been trying to keep afloat all morning between the emails, texts, and details surrounding that sale.

We had expected the sale to be a success, but you have (once again) far exceeded what we could have ever imagined. You all truly know how to show up in force for a bargain. 🙂

Thank you for spreading the word and sharing in our excitement! You all are the best!

In between all the emails, texts from my team, taking care of the details of the sale, my morning blogging work, laundry, homeschooling Silas, and taking care of the most important priorities who live at my house (!), I haven’t gotten that much else done today. I did get in my morning devotions and a quick exercise session and a shower. But that was about it.

However, I truly cannot envision how chaotic my morning would have been had I not gotten up at 4:30 a.m. Just another reason I need to make this getting up early thing a regular discipline again!

I’m also so grateful for my amazing team — some who got very little sleep last night to make sure everything was in place for the sale this morning (I’m looking at you, Joy!). They’ve worked tirelessly to answer countless emails, fix glitches, and take care of all the little behind-the-scenes things that have to be taken care of to pull off a sale like this with thousands and thousands of orders.

And I’m incredible grateful for my wonderful husband. This morning, after we realized that this sale was going to take a lot more time than we had initial thought (a completely great “problem” to have!), my husband offered to take over the homeschooling of the girls this morning so I could stay “tethered” to my phone and computer for awhile. Yes, that man is the best. He also made me bacon and eggs for breakfast. For the win, I tell you! 🙂

At any rate, I have to say that I LOVED all your comments on yesterday’s Rise & Shine post. You all are so inspirational!

And I wanted to answer each comment individually with a long reply. I still might get a chance to do so… but if I don’t get a chance today, know that I appreciate each one of you so much.

{Want to know the truth? Yesterday flew by between our first day of homeschooling, prepping for the Grocery University sale today, and working on blog/business stuff. We spent the evening with dear friends and didn’t get home until around 8:30 p.m.

After we got home, I was really, really tempted to jump online and spend an hour just responding personally to all of your comments on this post. But then I realized that would be a little counter-productive… you know, to stay up late responding to all your comments on getting up early. Yeah, not so smart.

So instead, I was a good girl and went to bed. Aren’t you proud of me?!? ;)}

Today’s Rise & Shine Challenge Assignment

Today’s assignment is to consider your family’s sleep cycles and see how you can do better.

This is an area we’re really committed to working on, because we developed some not-so-great habits while we were on a few weeks of summer break. And I was the worst culprit of said habits.

So I’m really committed to training my body to start going to bed much earlier. I sleep so much better when I go to bed early. I feel more rested. And I wake up feeling so energized.

This, in turn, makes me much more energetic and productive. Plus, I just feel happier all around.

To help us make going to bed a priority, one thing we did was to set up our fall schedule so all work, school, cleaning, projects, etc. would be wrapped up by 6 p.m. This way, the evenings are free to just be together, hang out with friends, and — most importantly — wind down.

I love the idea of coming up with nightly bedtime rituals that the Rise & Shine Challenge talks about today. What rituals does your family have to help everyone go to sleep earlier and to encourage everyone to sleep well? I’d love to hear any and all your ideas!

This Morning’s Report

• Got up at 4:30 a.m.
• Checked my phone to find that the Grocery University sale had blown up while I was sleeping!
• Answered some urgent emails. Started to read my Bible and devotional books, got an urgent text from Joy on my team asking me to call her. We got that urgent issue taken care of and then I went back to finishing up my Bible reading, reading some devotionals, and praying over my day.
• Made some coffee, answered a lot of emails and comments. Did some more urgent blogging work.
• Exercised, showered, dressed. Hung out with my family for a bit, handed over my morning homeschooling responsibilities to Jesse since my inbox continued to blow up and he suggested it’d probably be the best option for the day (and he was so right!)
• Answered more emails.
• Switched the laundry and took the big pile of clean laundry out to the living room couch to fold later today. (I’m still playing catch-up from our 12-day vacation!)
• Cleaned out my inbox again. Scheduled some posts.
• Taught Silas kindergarten.
• Answered more emails and finally finished this post. 🙂

How was your morning? What do you want to change about your family’s sleep cycles (if anything)? What are some of your bedtime rituals?