Last week we talked about how a killer morning routine will make or break your productivity levels. What if I told you that what you’re doing the night before could be making it almost impossible to have that coveted morning routine?
Here are three things you need to watch out for when getting ready for bed.
1. Grabbing a late night snack right before hopping into bed.
Foods affect the way we sleep, how fast we fall asleep, and even how
long we stay asleep. It’s best to eat a nutritious dinner a few hours before bed and then wind down with a hot beverage.
2. Go straight to bed, do not pass go.
I know I know, after a long day it’s tempting to jump into bed with a full face of makeup on and a day’s worth of dishes in the sink. I do this more often than I care to count, but it’s so counterproductive!! Schedule thirty minutes each night to wash your face, change in to real pjs, not yesterday’s yoga pants, and do a quick clean on your house.
This serves a couple purposes. The first one being you’ll feel relaxed as you get under the covers knowing that you’re surrounded by order; there’s nothing left undone, you’re ready for a good night’s sleep. The second purpose is on the off chance you do oversleep in the morning because again, we’re all human, you won’t be starting your day behind and there will be no Barbie shoes (read the morning routine from last Friday if you don’t get this) to tempt you to take all your kids’ toys, stuff them into a big black garbage bag, and put them on the curb.
3. You have no plan
The goal is to wake up tomorrow and hit the ground running. Well…how can you do that if you don’t know where you’re going? The best way to have a killer morning routine is to set yourself up for success 
the night before: set your gym clothes/shoes out, look over tomorrow’s schedule, have lunches packed and kids’ clothes laid out if applicable, etc. Do as much as you can now to allow your body to go into autopilot when the alarm goes off because trust me, you wont want to be up doing all the things, so it’s best to be out the door and on the way to the gym before your brain realizes what’s going on.
4. Inviting strangers to come to bed with you
Ok that sub-title may be a little extreme, but it’s basically what we’re doing when we bring our phones to bed. Leave them on the night 
stand, or better yet, invest in a real alarm and leave the phone in the kitchen. How many times have you said you were going to scroll for “just five minutes” and then three hours later finally shut the phone off. It’s just not worth it. In order to have a good morning routine, you HAVE to get a good night’s sleep. Living a productive life doesn’t mean sacrificing your snooze time, it’s just means prioritizing your waking hours.
Just like with the morning routine, this will be a trial and error, so give yourself grace. When you fall off routine, simply start again the next night. It just takes practice!
