When your mornings get crowded

A listener asks how to schedule a multi-part morning routine

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is about what to do when you have
lots of things you'd like to do in the early
morning hours and you're having trouble deciding between them. Long

(00:24):
time listeners know that I think mornings are a great
time for getting stuff done. That's one reason this podcast
is called Before Breakfast. For people with busy lives, doing
great things often means doing great things before most people
are waking up. But of course, for some people, early
morning hours feel a little bit like being a kid

(00:45):
in a candy store. I recently got a letter from
a Before Breakfast listener named Eugene, who asked, what to
do if you find that the early morning hours are
the most productive for reading, writing, and exercising, how do
you get it all in that early? After all? Eugene noted,
all these activities take time. Can the entire day be morning? Well?

(01:10):
Probably not, but I do believe that with a good
morning routine you can make space for a lot of things.
The first thing to ask yourself how much time do
you have available in the morning. Let's be honest here,
consider what time you're willing to wake up consistently and
when you need to be available for your responsibilities, whether

(01:30):
that's work or family or both. You might only be
able to commit to thirty minutes a day, or you
might be able to commit to three hours. Obviously, they
suggest different answers to what can constitute a reasonable morning routine.
This brings us to the second question, are you the
type of person who likes to do all the things
every day? Or are you okay with switching off? This

(01:53):
question may also boil down to how much time you
like to spend on things. If you'd be satisfied with
a five minute journal session and ten minutes of push
ups and sit ups, you can do that every day.
Writing three thousand words in a novel or doing a
ten mile run is a different matter. If you have
multiple things you'd like to do, you might split the

(02:14):
difference by choosing a different one to emphasize each day
while still doing some of both. Our listener, Eugene mentioned writing, reading,
and exercising. Of those, I'd recommend focusing on writing and exercising,
as reading can be a slightly more passive activity and
can fit more easily into bits of time through the day.

(02:35):
You can also make reading your weekend early morning activity
and thus keep the concept of a morning routine while
still making weekends special. So if you had an hour
available to you in the morning, you might decide to
journal for five minutes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and
then go for a run the rest of the time.

(02:55):
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, you do ten minutes of push
ups and sit ups and then use the rest of
the hour to write. On Saturdays and Sundays, you use
the early morning to read and then exercise at some
point later in the day. That tends to be more
possible on weekends, or you flip it around and run
two mornings a week and do the longer writing sessions

(03:17):
three mornings a week. If you've got a longer amount
of time in the morning, like two hours, then feel
free to split it doing an hour on each activity
or forty minutes on three. If you've got a much
shorter time like thirty minutes, you might just pick the
one activity you're most focused on do that five mornings

(03:38):
a week, but with ten minutes devoted to a second
choice two mornings a week. No matter how much time
you have consistency matters more than anything else. Whatever you
do repeatedly during your most productive time will add up.
You don't want to split yourself into too many pieces,

(03:59):
but two to three things can totally fit. In the morning,
just picture your perfect morning, map out what the time
will look like, and you'll feel pretty excited to set
an alarm. If you have a multipart morning routine, I'd
love to hear about it. You can reach me at
Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com. In

(04:22):
the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
to making the most of our time. Hey everybody, I'd
love to hear from you. You can send me your tips,
your questions, or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter,

(04:42):
Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod that's B the
number four, then Breakfast p o D. You can also
shoot me an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i
heeart media dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out
with all the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward
to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of

(05:09):
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
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