Amy BoughnerI need better mornings. I’ve always been bad at them. I stay up late and have trouble waking up, the bed is warm and outside the bed is cold. I rarely eat breakfast – even when my mother would pour out the bowl of cereal and leave it in the kitchen with a spoon I wouldn’t. (It took years for a dietician to actually tell me it was okay if it took an hour or two to be ready to eat).
All of these life hacks that talk about waking up at 4 am or just waking up 15 minutes earlier. I love sleep. Sleeping in is one of the great pleasures of life. Napping too. I don’t want to go to bed at 7 pm, I like my evenings, and I like quiet time after everyone else has gone to sleep.
When I do wake up in the morning I generally do it all wrong. Sometimes I do the right things. I read or I journal first thing. Most days I pick up my phone and start scrolling, like all the experts say you should not do.
I say that I won’t looking at work until X time, and then I see the alerts and I go to look at them, and then something makes me get my computer out and I’m sucked into working before I’ve done the things I need to do for me to have a better day.
Just like I don’t step away from my desk at all during the day to eat lunch or go for a walk. Then it wears me down and it gets harder and slower to do everything, which means I’m working later, which means I’m not cleaning or cooking or putting away laundry and my whole environment gets messy.
While I was on leave I was journalling every day. I would wake up, go downstairs and do my word puzzles and the NY Times crossword first thing while I drank coffee. These are the habits I need to build back into my life.
I’m working with a nutritionist who is going to help me eat regularly – and better – which is something I’m not at all good at, and never have been. Maybe I am a person who needs to put all of these things in my calendar, because putting together a google tasks list is not working right now.
I don’t just need a morning routine, I need a life routine. Or a general layout that can be adjusted when things go haywire, which they will.
