If there is one area that I’ve struggled with for years, it’s been keeping a steady nighttime routine and morning routine.
Over the years, there were times when I could not manage a stickler routine. In college I overextended myself to the point that there were days I didn’t sleep. Then in my vocation I had jobs that required a bit of “flexibility” for travel to meet different clients. Then there was a time I went back to school while working. Also, I worked two jobs for a while which also kept me busy. During these times, routines didn’t make sense to me because there was no way to manage my overload.
But now that I’m in my thirties and needing a routine, I’ve had to make my routine a priority. I’ve had the habit of prioritizing everything else but myself. I feel as a black woman, this thought and feeling is so common for us to have. It’s almost like nature for black women to exclude ourselves from self-care. It’s like we’re programmed not to care about ourselves. This is why empowerment is so important, especially black women empowerment.
Mary VS Martha
Luke 10:38-42
Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
Many Christians think that practicing self-care is selfish, and I just might create an article dedicated to that topic alone, but self-care is needed for anyone to serve. Part of self-care is holding yourself accountable and being disciplined. Not practicing self-care is like trying to help someone lose weight while you allow yourself to remain overweight and unhealthy.
Adulting
Having a nighttime routine is necessary for me at this point and is part of “adulting”.
Adulting – the practice of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult, especially the accomplishment of mundane but necessary tasks.
Adulting was common in the world, that is until the millennial generation came to be (which happens to be my generation). It seems adults knew how to be adults for a while and then something happened. They (our parents and teachers and random people on the internet) told us we could be anything we wanted to be. “Chase your dreams!” they said. “You only live once!” is what many shouted on many platforms.
The only problem was that while many of us millennials were chasing our dreams – failing and starting over again, trying and then changing our mind, job hopping, buying the next $1200 course on how to work from anywhere and make a million dollars – our assets were not being invested in. We maxed out our credit cards “chasing the dream” because we’ve heard of so many success stories. We didn’t buy the house because we just couldn’t afford it given the market and our desires for more than we can afford.
Television has played a major role in warping out minds to see success as easy and millionaire status as everyone’s right.
Chasing the dream
Many of us approach our 30s and see that chasing things, or having parents that baby us, didn’t necessarily set us up for a great future. At least, not in the present conditions we live in.
Nevertheless, we must grow up!
My nighttime routine
So, now that I’m all grown up, what is my nighttime routine?
Well, a part of it is NOT staying up watching YouTube videos that may or may not help my quality of life. It IS getting to bed around 10PM. Previously, going to bed at 2 or 3 AM was a normal thing, because I needed to get work done, or I needed to finish a paper or finish my hair.
I take about an hour to an hour and a half to destress and set myself up for the next day. It’s simple, but it’s certainly helpful to make the next day go smoothly. Here are the things I do.
Tidy up/ Clean up my space
Having an organized space is so important for mental health. The last thing I want to see in the morning is a mess!
There are studies that show just how important having a tidy space is to the mind. In my article Decluttering and Organization: How a Clean Space Helps Your Mental Health And 6 Ways To Start Now, I explain how having order in your surroundings helps produce a healthy mindset. Here is a snippet of what Dr. Renn says about decluttering and contentment from the article:
“I do think that we are hardwired as humans to look for patterns in our environment and to find comfort in predictable patterns and occurrences,” Renn says. “That may be the underpinning of where this interest in decluttering is coming from. If we can make our home environments these predictable environments, it might support our mental health.”
So, this is the first step for me before going to bed.
Check emails
I realize that this is a turn off for a lot of people, but checking emails helps calm my anxiety for the day ahead. I don’t do this first thing in the morning, so checking emails at night helps me feel like I am keeping up with my responsibilities. I do not go into checking emails extensively; I just pop my head in and kind of “declutter” again. I get rid the fluff and I leave the necessary things for me to deal with for the next day.
I think this is the responsible thing to do, especially if a person is an entrepreneur. So, having this in place keeps my “head above water”. I do not take more then 10 minutes doing this step.
I think it’s important to remind myself everyday that no matter how much I get done, there is still more to be done. In that respect, I don’t drive myself crazy trying to get everything done in a day. I prioritize and organize and it makes life much easier.
Check social media accounts
I do not have any personal social media accounts, so this is strictly for engagement purposes. I wouldn’t do this just for personal consumption reasons as it would send me down a hole of watching video after video after video…
While building a blog or a brand, it’s important to have engagement with those who have decided to follow the brand or blog. I also like to see what is going on in the world so I can comment on it.
I’m using a social media management tool called Buffer that is helping me push out content, but even with this management tool it can still be difficult to engage. For me, I set aside time on Sunday to batch content to go out. And I pop online and engage during the week. This seems to work for me.
Revise to-do list
As mentioned earlier, there is always something that needs to get done. Even if you make breakfast one day, you’ll need to eat breakfast the next day. So, it all about efficiency.
I use a priority map to help me understand what I need to do, not just for the day, but for the week and in the upcoming months. This is not just for the blog, but in my personal life as well.
Maybe you’ve heard of the Urgency/Important priority framework. It’s a quad chart that allows you to place your tasks in four categories: 1. Urgent and important, 2. Important not urgent, 3. Urgent not important, and 4. Not important and not urgent.
Depending on where the task falls on the chart, you would either: 1. Do it now, 2. Decide when to do it/Schedule it, 3. Delegate, or 4. Dump it/Eliminate.
The purpose of this is to organize, but also to help keep moving in a direction and not just continuously have the same tasks scheduled to do.
So, I revise the list and re-do my chart as necessary to help keep up with all the things I want to achieve.
This would take no longer than about five minutes.
Prep clothes to wear for the next day
I’m really someone who likes to dress depending on the weather, so prepping my clothes is not something I enjoy batching at the beginning of the week.
I lay out my clothes for the following day, including any under garments (because it’s easy to forget a slip for that dress). Whether I am going to the gym, work or just out and about, prepping my clothes just makes the day so much easier.
Do my hair
This step is imperative if I’m wearing my hair in a natural style. Currently, I’ve been blow drying my hair with the RevAir dryer and then rolling up the then ends with flexirods. This seems to work well for me while wearing my hair naturally. Even though it’s been a little rainy where I am, the style still works as I can usually stretch it into a ponytail and wear it up. The hair has got to be done.
Brush teeth
Since I’m wearing aligners at the present time, I brush my teeth 10 times a day. Brushing at night is super important because I am wearing aligners which could trap bacteria in overnight. So, it gets its own place in my nighttime routine.
Shower
Nothing like a good shower to end the long day! Enough said.
Stretch
This is something I just started doing to help me wind down from all the stress that goes on throughout the day. As it stands right now, I’m in a tough predicament and things are not how I need them to be but including this step does help.
Read
For this I mean reading the Bible. I read a Psalm at night and a couple chapters from the New Testament, wherever I happen to be. This helps me keep Bible reading in rotation and keeps my faith up.
Pray
Psalms are like prayers for me because to be honest I have a hard time praying. I pray about the same things, the same people, over governments, over the poor and needy, over my working conditions. I feel like I pray all the time, but sometimes getting into prayer can be hard when I’m constantly going through things. Sometimes I just cannot find the words and I don’t want to say the same things over again. I just get tired. So, I pray the Book of Psalm and it helps.
I hope you got something from this. I’ll be posting my morning routine soon. Please keep your girl in prayer, I need it. I’ll do the same. 😊
What are some steps in your nighttime routine? Is it hard to manage? Let me hear from you!