develop a daily morning routine

So I’ve actually started using Rememberthemilk.com to set up a daily check list of things I’d like to accomplish. It hasn’t really made my morning routine easier but perhaps just my overall daily checklist easier to follow. I’m still not getting up as early as I’d like and thats compounded by the cold weather. Who wants to get out of bed when its 55 degrees in your bedroom? ha.

I’m thinking I now just need to change this goal to getting up at a certain hour. I think the routine will follow. If I get up early I get more accomplished before feeling like my day is a bust. So I’m going to mark this as accomplished and ad a new goal of getting up by 8 AM latest.

I guess I still really dont know what I want from this goal and thus its been sort of a thorn in my side as to getting on track with it. I know I want more structure from my day but I am sort of floundering about what that actually means. I guess it would be good to start with some things I find would be important to accomplish daily. Some of these things are

Get up around 8 AM every morning or earlier.

exercise. (I just checked out a 10 min exercise DVD from my library and have been doing it for the last 2 days.)

see my horse. (my problem is that a trip to the barn is never less then 1 hour it takes a significant part of my day and thus hard to want to do daily)

play with my dog or take her on a walk (If I took the short walk around the block it shouldn’t take more then 10-15 min)

Check job boards or actively advertise my company.

Study my German for 15 min or more

Work on something business related (job search, study, development) for at least an hour even if I’m not busy at all with work on a particular day.

I think these things are just a start. Not all completely feasible everyday but worth aiming toward. I wish there was a function on this/or another website that had a daily checklist I could go through. Something that would renew everyday and track what I have and have not been accomplishing.

SO I got a phone call at 130 am on tues morning and never made it back to sleep I got up at 5 once gave up on getting back to bed. So THIS morning… BING!... 5 on the dot i was awake again. bah. I knew I could keep up my normal schedule without getting enough sleep so I laid in bed until about 645 and then got up. SO this morning I:

-exercised
-goofed around on the net to get it out of my system (well mostly I am typing here)
-saw my horse and got him out
-went to the store (for a few items)

So its a bit later then normal 1120 and I’m ready to start working. I got tons done work wise yesterday which I’d even go as far as saying put me ahead. I’d not complain if I knew I wouldn’t be ready for a nap at 4 and barely functioning. If I can keep this up but switch that 5 am to 7 am. I dont think i’d have a problem.

Well today I’m probably going to start having house guest for at least a few weeks while a friend attempts to find an apt after moving out here. Having extra people in my house always messes my rhythm up. Not that I’ve got a great one to begin with but extra people milling about never helps. I hope that they aren’t super intrusive. I hate to say it but I know myself and I dont do well with room mates. Thats why I haven’t had one since I was about 20. (boyfriend excluded)

Not sure if any excersizing will get done at all while they are here. :( perhaps my insomnia is a good thing. if i can get on an earlier schedule perhaps everyone will be sleeping through my routine. I think that would be good.

I’ve realized a lot of work anxiety I have is due to procrastination. When I get up and not goof off for the first part of the morning I feel so much better as the day goes on. That and I’m still trying to stick to a better excersize routine. My arms are STILL shaking from this morning. I feel good today. :)

over this the other day. She’s been going to the gym religiously for the last few months and is trying to both tone up and lose weight. As part of my routine I’d love to develop includes a 20 min workout, She said to me that I’m in a much better position to try and tone up. I ONLY need 20 min a day or even 3 times a week. She said to me that she needs an hour to accomplish what shes trying to do. As I left she kept saying to me.. its ONLY 20 min! And its soo true. I mean its ridiculous. I can waste 20 min in the most unuseful ways so why dont I send 20 min doing something better for myself, something that will make me feel better. SO, as I’ve sort of stagnated on all my goals of late I made a commitment last week to get up and do a 20 min workout. I’ve got a bunch saved on my Tivo so I have no excuse. I’m feeling better from some health issues and its time ot just make it happen. Since our meeting I’ve only missed 2 days. Sat and Mon. I’d say thats a GREAT improvement. I just need to stat getting up earlier now.

is so much less fulfilling and less focused when I dont have a specific time to get going and started in the morning. I think I need to start making daily lists of things to accomplish. developing a morning routine is something I’ve struggled with as long as I can remember so I’m not surprised at how difficult this has been for me. Its easy to lay in bed and say to myself that I’m too tired or I dont feel good or the dog can wait to eat and go outside. I dont know. I need someone with a cattle prod on my ass in the morning. It doesn’t make it any easier that my husband is one of the laziest ppl I know. He is absolutely no inspiration. I need some suggestions of tools to make this happen for myself i think.

ideas?

So I’ve been reevaluating many things in my life of late. Its been a bad financial year so far and thats taken a lot of budgeting to get back to the upswing we are on. Its hard because of the business. It seems when one of us isn’t working both of us arent working. THat with the tax hit we have from last year, it was a bad few months. Now with health issues added to that Its going to be rough unless some serious work starts rolling in here. But I’m swinging off subject. Because of my health issues I’ve been thinking a lot of Germany.

When I was in Germany I was eating crap. I was on the beer and bread tour. Most of my meals were cheese and tomato pizzas with beer. But I was walking about 3-5 miles a day. It got me thinking because when I was in Germany I had no health issues. I dont know what to chalk it up to. The air there was cleaner. I was getting some serious exercise, I had no stress and the Eu is serious about thier food quality. There are no GMO’s there, Probaly less pesticides/herbacides on the food too. I dont know what combination of things was working in my favor but I’m giving the exercise a lot of consideration.

SO this morning I got up and took the dog for a 45 min walk. It wasn’t really strenuous and a far cry from the hikes we took around Essen. But I think its a start. I think this with the new diet changes I’m making I may be moving to better things. I have to think that to stay positive. I want to make the walk a habit though if I can get out every morning it would be great. perhaps mix in seeing my horse in there too. The day is always better when I see pete. So we’ll see how it goes.

this is probably one of the hardest things on my list aside from limiting my computer time.

I have every intention every evening of gettin up early and getting a jump on the day. THEN morning comes and i’m much too tired and make all sorts of excuses as to why I shouldnt get up. I looked last night and the excersize show I like comes on at 7:30. PERFECT. tomorrow I must get up and do this. then spend 20 min studying German or I will disable my web browser tomorrow. ouch!

pinky swear.

When my Dobie alarm goes off.

Erste is so consistant about getting up around the same time everyday. I get up to let her outside and feed her and then do my zombie walk back to bed. I actually got up once this week after feeding her and I get so much done. SO I need to make this a priority. Get up, circuit train, head to barn, shower, 20 min tops fooling around on the net then be productive the rest of the day.

Thats the ideal. I need to make it happen.