Now that you have a pretty good idea of what you want to do in the morning, what you don’t want to or need to do, and where to find the extra time needed, it’s time to put it all together in a new morning game plan. 

Start with the good stuff

The best place to start is with the new set of tasks that are most important to you. Figure out a preliminary time during which you want to get them accomplished. If your goal is to go for a run in the morning, you may decide to do that first thing before getting a shower and having breakfast. If your goal is to meditate each morning, you may decide it would work best after you’ve had a cup of coffee. If your goal is to find some time for reading or your favorite hobby in the morning, you could carve out some time before everyone else gets up and while you enjoy that first coffee. The same goes for wanting time in the morning to work on your business or learn something new. 

Then, work the rest of your morning chores around these new plans. It may take some shuffling around and mixing up your current routine, but with a little creative thinking and a bit of flexibility, I’m sure you can come up with a working plan. 

Write down your plan

Making over your morning and turning it into a new routine isn’t something that comes naturally to most of us. It takes a little while to get into the groove of things. We’ll look at this in a little more detail next week. For right now, my suggestion is that you write your new morning game plan down. It’s easy to forget what you’re planning to do. Writing your new daily routine down will not only give you a reference to refer back to, but also solidify your new plan in your mind.  

If you’d like, you could use my planning pages to help brainstorm the best way to organize your morning schedule. I recommend using the “Morning Planner” page to help prioritize what’s important and the “Morning Schedule” page to organize your plan. Each day, start with fresh pages and think over what went well and what you need to change. The more you refine and perfect, the closer you can get to that perfect morning.

Set yourself up for success, but be flexible

Put the journal pages or notebook where you jotted down your new plan on your night table or somewhere else where you’ll see it first thing in the morning. It will serve as a reminder of what you’re intending to do and do differently in the morning now.  

Even though you’ve written your plan down, it’s important to realize it’s not written in stone. The well-laid-out plans don’t always work when put into action. Adjust it and make changes as needed until you come up with a new morning game plan that works well for you and the rest of your family. Once you have that, it’s time to make it the new routine… something we’ll talk more about next week.