7 Easy Steps to a More Minimalist Morning Routine
7 steps to a more minimalist morning routine can help set the tone for the rest of the day. You can get yourself off to a solid start even if you aren’t a morning person. Maybe you have a current morning routine, but adding or removing a few simple steps could make it more productive and help you take better care of yourself.
1. Prepare the Night Before
With any new habit, you need to remove the obstacles for success. With that in mind, your journey to the perfect minimalist morning routine begins the night before with a little bit of preparation.
Review your to-do list for the morning and set out the things you will need so you don’t need to scramble to find them. If you will be going for a run, set out your workout clothes and leave your running shoes by the door. Pack your gym bag if you’ll be going there. It’s a lot harder to make excuses when everything is ready to go! This also goes for your regular clothes and having a capsule wardrobe can simplify this process even further.
If your morning routine includes a cup of coffee, set up as much as you can the night before, including a timer on your coffee maker, if you have one.
Maybe you need to mix up your overnight oats. Do the prep as part of your evening routine. Those are a few less decisions to make in the morning.
One of the great benefits of a minimalist routine is that, once you figure out how to make it work for you, you can follow the steps and don’t have to make decisions. You will already know what to do.
2. Get Enough Sleep
If you don’t get a good night’s sleep, you are reaching for the snooze button on your alarm clock and are behind before you even get your day started. Having a consistent bedtime and wake up time enables better sleep and may even help condition you to wake up without an alarm.
The Science of Sleep Article by John Hopkins
If you are tired, your energy levels will be poor and everything takes longer to do. Get enough sleep that you can get up and have the time to do the important things to get your day off to a good start.
3. Welcome Natural Light for a More Minimalist Morning Routine
In the morning routine, start your day off on the right foot with natural light. When you get out of bed, open your curtains or blinds to let in the morning light. Bright morning light has a big impact on our circadian rhythms, influencing our hormone production, sleep, appetite & digestion and helping reset our biological clock to align it with the natural light-dark cycle.
Get outside as soon as you can after you wake up. On a sunny morning, you only need 5 to 10 minutes of sun while on a cloudier day, you will need to stretch that to at least 15 to 20 minutes but you will still get the positive effects.
Glasses and contacts are fine, but leave your sunglasses inside as you won’t get the full benefits of light. You won’t get the same effect from a window as the glass filters out some of the needed wavelengths from the sun.
In the winter when there is less light or maybe no natural light during your morning routine, you might use a light box. These are more commonly known to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder, a depression some people experience in the winter. They provide an exposure of up to 10,000 Lux of light and provide very little UV light.
4. Get Your Body Moving
You know you should be exercising. Habit stacking some movement into your morning routine will help you stick with it.
In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about using habit stacking to build new routines by taking advantage of old ones. It’s a great way to make it an automatic thing you do and not a decision you have to make every day.
This is a boost for both your physical and mental health. Physical activity in the morning makes you more alert, increases your energy and improves focus and concentration. It’s also often a time with fewer distractions. It doesn’t have to be a marathon session. Even 10 minutes is enough to make a difference; go for a short walk or run, hit the yoga mat for a short session, do some simple stretching, figure out what you like.
You can find ten minutes for yourself. It’s not a huge commitment in your everyday life. Make your health a priority!
The satisfaction of having that workout done before you even head out the door for work and distractions start coming at you from every direction is pretty great! Studies also suggest that when you work out in the morning, you tend to make better decisions around food in the hours following. You’ll choose a better mid-morning snack or lunch.
5. Make Time for Mindfulness in your Minimalist Morning Routine
Everyone has their daily rituals. Before your day gets crazy, focus on the things that are important to you and be mindful of not letting the stress of the world in too early. This is not the time to jump on social media. Don’t pick up your phone just yet. Another option is to put or leave it on airplane mode, if you need to use it for certain things, but don’t want to get distracted.
There are many ways to practice mindfulness in your morning routine. Are you a writer who starts the day with morning pages? Are you a Mom who practices gratitude or meditation in those precious minutes before the kids are awake? Maybe you like journaling or doing some deep breathing to bring you into the moment. You can define this quiet time any way you like. Keep it simple.
Attitude counts for a lot. This mindfulness can set a positive tone for the rest of your day. When you feel positive, challenges are more manageable and stress levels are lower.
6. Hydrate & Eat a Proper Breakfast
Yes, the order matters here. Your body absorbs more water when your stomach is empty. Drink water when you get up to rehydrate. (You could even take that glass of water outside to drink it to get that natural light!)
You know that you shouldn’t skip breakfast, but do you really understand why? When you wake up, your blood sugar is usually low and needs a healthy breakfast to kickstart your metabolism. Studies have linked breakfast to better memory and concentration, lower levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol and reduced the chances of diabetes, heart disease and being overweight.
You wouldn’t let your younger children skip breakfast so hold yourself to the same standard. You’re important too! You can’t take care of anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself.
Focus on a breakfast that includes fibre, protein and fats in order to avoid that mid-morning energy slump. When you’ve had a breakfast high in simple carbohydrates, that sugar spike triggers your pancreas to flood your bloodstream with insulin to handle that spike and that causes the sugar crash, leading you to reach for a snack that might just continue the cycle. Choose complex carbs with fibre like whole grains, fresh vegetables and legumes to keep your energy levels stable longer.
You don’t have to make big changes and have a huge breakfast the first day. Instead, take tiny steps towards a healthier routine. Substitute in better choices and add breakfast into your meal plan if it hasn’t been part of it up to now. A good morning routine takes time to set up.
7. Build Some Extra Minutes into Your Daily Morning Minimalist Routines
Life doesn’t always go according to plan so it doesn’t make sense to plan your new routine without allowing time for the unexpected things. Whether it’s your youngest child coming down with the flu and throwing your whole schedule for the day out the window or a water leak under the fridge, you need some flexibility and time to take care of the curve balls that life will inevitably throw at you. Being rushed is not fun; it’s stressful and raises your cortisol levels (stress hormone).
On a quiet morning without any catastrophes, you can use this extra time to review your personal goals for the day or check your to-do list for anything that’s slipped your mind. Maybe it’s a few minutes to declutter that growing pile of paper on the end of the kitchen counter! Or maybe it’s just a good time to take a deep breath and relax for a few extra minutes.
Creating a consistent morning routine isn’t always easy. There will be some trial and error as you figure out what works best for you and, if applicable, for the rest of your family members. If it doesn’t work, try again for the next morning.
The most important thing in your minimalist morning routine is to keep it simple and keep trying. (Hint: you don’t need to try all of these steps this week!) A strong morning routine can become a habit as long as you adjust it intentionally and gradually.
