Last week, I wrote about how I was trying to reboot my morning routine. I had gotten out of the habit of some activities that I really enjoy, and that I know are good for my health and well being.
In particular, I was hoping to add the following activities back into my morning:
- Walking at least two miles on my treadmill
- Journaling my three pages of morning pages
- Practicing yoga for 20 minutes
- Meditating for 10 minutes
Altogether, these routines add up to about 90 minutes of activities that I needed to make room for each morning.
So far, so good. I’ve been able to do all four things each morning for about a week. One adjustment is that I’m not always meeting the timing or metrics that I noted above. For example, sometimes I walk for 20 minutes and don’t hit 2 miles. Or I’ll practice yoga for 10 minutes instead of 20 minutes.
This is definitely an area where I feel like some progress is good progress.
I’m glad to get back to doing these activities at all and I’m not going to be too picky or engage in self-judgment if it’s not happening in exactly the ways that I thought it might.
Of each of the activities listed above, the journaling is making the biggest difference. It’s been so nice to have a space to reflect on a more regular basis, and to do that first thing each morning.
The tool that’s helping me track these habits is the Streaks app, which I had purchased several years ago and revived for this project. The app allows you to identify the kinds of routines or tasks that you want to track and to decide the frequency with which you want to track them.
It’s been great to document my progress on these tasks each morning and to leave the house with each item checked off my list.
Heading into week two of this new morning routine, I’m feeling very optimistic!