It can sometimes take me a good hour to get out of bed in the morning, and that is sometimes after hitting the snooze button 6 or 7 times. I know this isn't healthy, and it's all a matter of willpower - not to mention it drives my husband crazy - but this is the cold hard truth. Now, my nighttime routine is partly to blame for this, but I'll have to get to that later.
To the left is an image of my morning alarm(s), which I just captured from my phone a moment ago. None of the alarms are on right now because I am on vacation, but on a typical work day, 3-4 of these alarms will be set.
...I know. It's whatever.
I'll work backwards.
The 7:30am Alarm:
I am supposed to be at work at 8:00am, so Monday through Friday, I have a 7:30am alarm set. The meaning of this alarm is, in an ideal world, to signal the moment that I should be leaving my house to arrive at work 10 minutes early (or right on time if the traffic is backed up). What happens, in reality, is that this is the moment I realize that I *really* better start getting ready because it will take me 20-25 minutes to do so (doing the bare minimum!), and then I end up getting out the door sometime between 7:50 and 8:05. So, you guessed it; I am usually 5-20 minutes late to work depending on how badly I screwed up my morning. Thankfully, my boss has been lenient with this, because he is often late as well, but one of my goals in the new year is to start arriving to work early either way since it truly is more professional, and I just should.
The 7:20am Alarm:
This, in my ideal world, is supposed to be the alarm that gives me a 10-minute warning for when I should be leaving the house. In reality, I have usually gotten out of bed at this point but am distractedly bumbling around the kitchen drinking coffee and/or checking my social media accounts.
The 6:20am Alarm:
This alarm is supposed to wake me up on a typical day. What happens, in reality, is that this alarm goes off and then I hit my snooze button for 32-48 minutes. Most days I am out of bed by 7, but sometimes I creep toward (and even past) the 7:20 alarm.
The 4:50am Alarm:
This is my "I think I'll get out of bed early and go for a walk and do yoga and meditate and make a nice breakfast"-alarm. In reality, I rarely get up at this time to start my day, but I am often woken up at this hour regardless because this is when my dog is ready to eat breakfast and go outside.
I mean, first of all, who needs this many alarms?! It's ridiculous! I should be able to just set and wake up to my alarm, get up, start my day, etc.
Nope! Not me! Things have to change.
Truly, I need a game plan toward becoming a morning person.
I've calculated the amount of time it would take for me to complete a full morning routine to include the following:
- feed dog, let him outside, give him his medicine
- take my medicine and drink a glass of warm lemon water
- go for a 30 minute walk or do some other kind of 30 minute workout
- do yoga for 15 minutes
- meditate for 5 minutes
- take a shower, get dressed, and put on makeup
- make breakfast and coffee
- drive to work
.... it's two and a half hours! Simple, RIGHT?!
So, basically I need to be waking up NO LATER THAN 5:30AM if I want to do all these things. Really, I need to aim for 5:00am. ...and I really do need to be doing ALL of these things every morning.
I need to do my workouts in the morning because there are too many outside factors in the evenings that can impact my schedule and cause me to eventually break an afternoon workout routine. Plus, I'd like to go to the yoga studio, swim, or bike in the evenings so I want to make sure I've gotten cardio and weight training done first thing in the morning. Not to mention I'd like to stay on top of making healthy meals at home, keeping the house clean, going to class, and doing fun things in the evenings. Also, I'd like to have a really sturdy evening routine and be in bed by 9:00pm most nights if I can. (#oldladystatus)
Where to go from here...?
Since my dog wakes up at 5:00am every day anyway, I should probably just work with that and start there. It's just that when he wakes me up and I pop my eyes open, all I can seem to do is run out to the kitchen, feed him, let him out, and run back to bed. Then, I have to wake up 5 minutes later to let him back inside. Once I fall back asleep I am dead to the world until my 6:20 alarm, and then I start my daily snooze button marathon. So, I need to figure out how to get myself to STAY UP at 5 when my dog gets me up. How can I solve this?
I also need to work on my evening routine and my insomnia, which have a significant impact on my morning issues.
So, I'm going to be working on this. More to come...
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