I want to tell you about some daily habits that changed my life for one reason or another although some of them might not be what you were expecting from me.
I know the title sounds all zen and you might expect some deep and meaningful daily habits to be included in my list but tit’s much more practical than that. These are simple daily habits that I’ve done to make me a happier person and I think they’ll work for most people.
You might notice as you read down the list that all of my daily habits are based around either the morning or bedtime which is deliberate because they’re all about setting yourself up for a good day and ending it in the right way. If your life is anything like mine then all bets are off for the bits in between when chaos usually descends between work, teenagers, dogs and anything else that life throws my way.
1. No more Snooze button
I get up when my alarm goes off these days and feel so much better for it. I used to deliberately set my alarm a little bit earlier so I could have a cheeky snooze because I thought that snoozing would help bring me to wake up better but then I read that using the snooze button had the opposite effect.
Apparently, that extra few minutes you’re giving yourself isn’t long enough for you to get back to sleep properly so if you’re just dozing back off again when your snooze goes off which you’re being woke back up at a time when you’re still transitioning between sleep stages. This means that when you finally do get out of bed, you experience what scientists call ‘sleep inertia’ which basically means that for a period of time, you’ll feel drowsy and not really ready for your day. Sound familiar?
So I’m not saying I wake up refreshed and ready to face the day every day but I definitely feel the difference on a morning when I do this.
2. Do a quick sweep of the bedrooms once the kids leave for school
Yes, they should tidy their own rooms, make their own beds and take any pots and rubbish downstairs and I’ve spent years telling them that and getting annoyed when they don’t do one or all of these things so I made a conscious decision to pick my battles and this isn’t one of them.
I spend two minutes every morning when they’ve gone to school to straighten their beds and have a super quick tidy round. It’s not a full-on tidy, more of a surface clean that just keeps on top of things and makes me feel so much better as I don’t have to nag at them or walk past their rooms to see a mess.
They’re not pampered or spoilt and always did it in their own time but it annoyed me as I do like things tidy so I do that for them and they do other things for me when they get home from school and college.
3. Write a quick daily to-do list
I absolutely love a good to-do list so every morning, I’ll write a to-do list of what I want to get done that day at home. If I’m feeling organised then I’ll write it on one of my printable daily planners and sometimes I’ll write it on Trello but just as often it’s on whatever paper I have close by.
(I have a separate work to-do list that I start the day before as I finish up and then add to the next morning and throughout the day.)
I have this post which you might like about how to remember things I don’t want to forget – there’s lots of things in there that I so that help remind me to do things.
4. Drink a pint of water before I start the day
I’m one of those people who actually likes drinking water but I read a while ago that drinking a pint on a morning is good for you as you start the day being slightly dehydrated with not drinking much, if anything, through the night. So even though, I do drink water throughout the day, I make a real effort to have one big drink in the morning.
5. Exercise
OK, this is probably the one you didn’t expect to see from me but over the last month or so, I’ve jumped on the exercise bike before I’ve properly started my day. I don’t do a huge amount in the morning but a quick 10 minutes listening to some music in my headphones really does give me a good start to the day.
I’ve just checked my phone where I record all of my sessions and I usually average about 6km for my quick morning session which is easily done (even by me) in that 10 minutes.
6. Never go to bed until the sink is shining
This is something I’ve done most nights for years and makes me feel so much better when I do it. I make sure that the kitchen is tidy and everything is away before I go to bed so when I get up in the morning, it looks great and doesn’t need anything doing to it.
Even just five minutes tidying around while the dogs areout enjoying their last wee of the day is enough.
7. Read before going to sleep
I make sure that I give myself enough time in bed to ready before I go to sleep which really helps me to switch off from the day. I like a bit of light bedtime reading so usually it’s a happy ever after romance kind of book – the kind you don’t have to think about. I read that kind of book when I’m in the bath of have some time through the day.
I read on my Kindle usually as that’s so lightweight and easy for bed and with my Kindle Unlimited Subscription, I always have books loaded up ready to go.
Do you have a daily habit that’s changed your life? I’d love to hear about it!
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