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This is part 3 in a 4 part series about routines. The next part will be about study routines. the previous two parts are about Habits and Morning Routines. You can find the series here.
So. You always hear about morning routines. About how much you need the perfect morning routine. But, in truth, Evening Routines are almost more important. Well, it is more important. Without it, the morning routine is a lot harder to complete!
Why do we need Evening Routines?
An evening routine is essential if you want to have a healthy and productive lifestyle.
It has many benefits, such as:
- Allowing you to have some relaxation at the end of your day.
- Giving you time to de-stress.
- Gives you time to unwind and clear your head.
- You can develop a regular sleep schedule, which will allow you to sleep better.
Basically, an evening routine will allow you to live a much better life (as well as boosting your mornings by giving you more peace and energy).
Your morning routine will be TEN TIMES EASIER if you have a good evening routine.
How to create an Evening Routine
In my opinion, everything about Evening Routines is harder. From creating it, to sticking to it, to actually loving it, it is harder to get the hang of than morning routines.
In the evening, your family and friends are all awake with you and everyone is normally still quite energised. It’s harder to be relaxed and calm when people are rushing around you trying to do stuff.
Creating an Evening Routine will likely take longer than creating a Morning Routine, because it is harder to fine tune. You have to decide what time you want to go to bed at, and then work backwards from there in order to decide when you will start your Evening Routine.
(See what I mean when I say everything about Evening Routines is harder?)
Lets look at an example of creating an Evening Routine
Okay so, let’s use an example to fully explain the process of creating an Evening Routine. We’re going to take a look at Jill. Jill wants to create her evening routine so that she can sleep better, and wake up earlier. During her routine, she wants to shower, journal, meditate, practise skin care, plan for the next day and read for 30 minutes. Jill wants to go to sleep at 21:00 (9pm).
It takes her 20 minutes to shower, 10 minute stop journal, 10 minutes to meditate, 5 minutes to practise skin care, 10 minutes to plan for the next day, and 30 minutes to read. If you do the maths, her whole routine will be 1 hour and 25 minutes long.
Jill also knows that sometimes it takes her a bit longer to shower, sometimes she wants to journal for longer, and sometimes she will start her routine late, so she adds 10 minutes spare time to her routine. This means her routine is now 1 hour and 35 minutes long.
Working backwards from 9pm, we will find that Jill’s routine will start at 19:25 (7:25pm).
Now all she needs to do is decide what order she wants her habits to go in, and she has a new routine.
Jill decides that she will shower, then practise skin care, journal, meditate, plan the next day, and finally she will read for 30 minutes before going to sleep.
The steps to actually creating your routine
Here are the steps:
- Decide when you want to go to sleep
- Decide on the habits you want to do
- Determine how long it will take you to do all of those habits
- Work backwards from the time you got to sleep to find when your routine will start
- Decide what order you will do your habits in
Something to remember is that you should decide when you want to go to sleep, not when you want to go to bed. This is because you might read, after going to bed, which means you’re not fully understanding when you will go to sleep. If you decide when you will go to sleep, you will have consistent sleep, which will make it easier to get up in the mornings.
Sticking to your routine
Start Your Routine
Starting your evening routine is much harder than starting your morning routine. This is because you may be so caught up in what you are doing that you don’t realise it is time to start your routine. A good way to overcome this test is to set an alarm for the time you want to start your routine, like you would in the morning.
You certainly won’t miss your routine-start-time if you’ve got a loud alarm going off in the background!
Make it fun!
If your routine is dead boring, and it makes you feel like your in the most boring class at school (you know, the ones where all of your friends sit on the other side of the room and your stuck listening to the people around you talking about something that happened at training last week, and the teacher isn’t giving you any work to do so you have nothing to distract from the boredom?), there’s ABSOLUTELY NO WAY you’re going to stick to that for more than a day or two.
Add some sparkles into your routine (okay, maybe not literally), and make it fun! Make it something you look forward to every day!
It doesn’t have to be over the top, but something that you enjoy has got to be in there somewhere!
Give yourself a reward
Take Jill for example. At the very end of her routine, she gets to do two things that she’s probably wanted to do for hours! Reading, and going to sleep! These are her rewards.
If she doesn’t complete the rest of her routine, she will still go to sleep, but she won’t be able to read, because that’s her big reward for completing her routine!
Give yourself some rewards at the very end of your routine, whether that be reading, watching Netflix, or simply going to sleep, something is better than nothing!
Summary
In this post, you will have learnt how to create and stick to an Evenign Routine, as well as why you need one!
Thank you for reading this post! Don’t forget that I post every Wednesday and Sunday at 12:00. Don’t miss out!
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