Do you have time?

Planning
Written By Samantha Anderson
 

Everyone talks about that idealistic morning routine - meditate, workout, walk the dog, coffee, water your 5 million house plants, read your book, journal, wash your hair, etc. Sounds lovely in theory, but…

What do you actually have time for?!

Have you ever really given it a thought or do you just feel bad every time you don’t do the things you say you’re going to do? This goes for mornings, lunch breaks, evenings, whenever. But we’ll use the mornings as our example. 

To figure out what you have time for, write out all the things you think you want to fit into your morning routine. 

Morning routine 

  • Wake up 

  • Workout

  • Get ready

  • Breakfast 

  • Meditate

  • Take care of the animals + plants

  • Commute to work

  • Work

Now, what is actually realistic? Break it down into time. Heck, actually set a timer and time the tasks for a few days to get a more realistic answer. Don’t forget the seemingly small moments in between. You don’t go straight from working out to magically in the shower. Do you lay there for another 5 minutes after your workout trying to catch your breath? 

Morning routine example 

  • Wake up (5:20 - 5:40)

    • 5:20 - 5:35 - Slowly roll around in bed, check your phone, use the bathroom, brush your teeth, wonder what happened to your hair, get workout clothes on

    • 5:35 - 5:40 -  Accept the fact you’re awake now 

  • Workout (5:40 - 6:20)

    • 5:40 - 5:45 - Grab your water, push play on your streaming workout or go outside

    • 5:45 - 6:15 - Workout

    • 6:15 - 6:20 -  Lay on the floor trying to stop sweating

  • Get ready (6:20 - 6:50)

    • Are you washing your hair today - you know that’s going to add some time 

  • Breakfast (6:50 - 7:20)

    • 6:50 - 6:55 - Figure out what to eat 

    • 6:55 - 7:05 - Frying up some eggs or just pouring cereal 

    • 7:05 - 7:15 - Actually eat

    • 7:15 - 7:20 - Clean up 

  • Meditate (7:20 - 7:40)

    • 7:20 - 7:30 - Fumbling on phone to figure out what meditation you want to do, restarting only a few minutes in because you weren’t paying attention

    • 7:30 - 7:40 - Actually meditate

  • Take care of the animals + plants (7:40 - 8:20)

    • 7:40 - 7:50 - Water plants

    • 7:50 - 8:20 - Walk dog 

  • Commute to work (8:20 - 9:00)

    •  via car, subway, walk into whatever room you wfh in

  • Work ( 9:00 - 5:00 )

  • * Add 5 minutes to all the above if you can. I know, I know, how?! But the aim is to be realistic, not stressed and late. 

Most of you are going to think I’m insane for breaking out the above. But, if you take the time to break it out, you’ll know what you can realistically accomplish in the mornings. Then you can stop beating yourself up over not accomplishing everything. If you didn’t give yourself enough time to do it, of course it’s not going to get done. 

If you don’t have enough time to do everything that you want to do - what do you do? 

  • Cut something or move it to a different time of day. You don’t need to do everything and you definitely don’t have to do it in the morning

  • Rotate - some days you meditate and some days you work out 

  • Wake up earlier. Don’t do this if you absolutely hate the mornings. You do NOT have to be a morning person. Stay up later or do it whenever it works for you 

  • Eat a quicker breakfast with no clean up

  • Any other creative solve 

There are seasons in your life.  

You may have time to workout everyday for the next 6 months, and then the following 2 months you might only get to workout 3 times a week because you are taking a new course and you have to study. Leave room to grow and evolve. 

The main point is to acknowledge what you can realistically achieve in a period of time. Things take time and you only have so much of it. 

 
Samantha Anderson
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