Routines We Could All Use :: 4 Evening Routine Hacks for Easier Tomorrows

Behind every great Morning Routine is likely, a great Evening Routine.

In a recent Inc.com article, several top entrepreneurs were interviewed about key habits. Common among all of them is a solid morning routine. A solid morning routine has certainly transformed my daily experience. (I write about my own experiments with Morning Routines here and here).

In support of the Morning Routine, I’d like to suggest the importance of the Evening Routine as well! If you grew up with a strong evening routine – know that you were taught an invaluable lesson (and try to understand those of us who seem to struggle with something so basic to you!). Whether you were a child of the 70s (like me; my peers joke about being left to to figure everything out on our own) – or maybe just juggling way too much as an adult – it’s never too late to take on a couple new habits!

If your morning includes a series of mishaps that ever has you cursing and/or unable to get to work on time, here are a few new *Evening  Routine* tactics you could try. For me, it’s all about the fact that:

1. My brain is still warming up in the wee hours of the morning, so the more I can do the evening before when I seem to have more neuro-power, the better
2. It’s early – I want as much sleep as possible, so I don’t want to have to allow a ton of buffer/extra time for ‘just-in-cases’

Here are 4 hacks you might/could add to the Evening Routine

Afternoon Review – take some time late afternoon to look over your calendar for the next day. Are there any parts that you could prepare this evening in order to make the early part of tomorrow flow a little better?

• example – tomorrow I plan to hit the dry cleaner; tonight I will gather all dry cleaning clothes and put them in the car
• example – tomorrow I have an evening networking event that will make grabbing a decent dinner a challenge; tonight I will put a small snack together so I don’t embarrass myself making a meal out of the crudite

Outfit / Clothes Readiment – assess tomorrow’s weather and calendar to inform your outfit decisions. I describe a formula for creating cute outfits here (my formula takes some of the PITA factors out of the process.)

• gather ALL pieces of clothing, including undergarments
• if a new outfit (you’ve never put those specific pieces together), TRY IT ON (save yourself the agony of having to figure something else out tomorrow!)
• choose everything – even ACCESSORIES!

Food Prep – if you happen to exist in some nirvana like place where healthy meals you want to eat are available to you at a price you’re willing to pay, you are golden. I prepare most of my own at-work meals… it’s actually EASIER in many ways for me to have already gotten together HB eggs, breakfast parfaits, my afternoon snack, etc.! While I am discussing this in context of the evening routine, there is much more to meal planning – I suggest some strategies here.

• review the weekly meal plan to inform what needs packing
• attempt to make more than one day’s worth at a time; on Sunday night, I might make 3 parfaits
• consider hyper-organization of your refrigerator; one woman I know has 5 baskets in the fridge, representing each day of the week. The beauty here is that she is only spending the brain energy ‘once’ – she can simply dump the contents of her basket into her lunch bag and be off!

Clean-Up +/or Declutter – we’ve all worked long, hard days, so I am not suggesting a major cleaning party, but I would suggest any combination of the following:

• spend 10 minutes cleaning the kitchen (or another spot for which you are responsible); if the timer goes off and you are 95% there, go ahead and finish. If you are not even close to being finished, leave it
• spend 5-10 minutes putting away 5-10 items; if *stuff* doesn’t have a proper place:
  • consider if it can be tossed or donated (if you haven’t used it in 6-12 months, LET IT GO!)
  • let this experience inform the next time you procure *stuff* for the sake of procuring it; weigh whether dealing with it (does it have a home, or make your home feel like a mess) makes its value worth it

With either decluttering strategy, you will eventually see progress, and you’ll likely get better about putting things away as you use them. (<- no judgement here – this is ALL from my own experience!)

Finally

• if you choose to try any of the suggestions here, do a total time estimate. and start the PM routine with a sense of when you want to finish it/get into bed!
• after the 1st or 2nd try, assess whether your time estimate was accurate, and adjust!

What is one thing you do – no matter what – every evening before bedtime? Does it help you wind down, help you prepare for tomorrow, or both?

Linda Stacy, Productivity Speaker, Writer, and Coach, inspires her clients to achieve increased fulfillment, engagement, and success by way of energy management and the *brass tacks* of healthy, efficient productivity and time management.

<Image is book cover mock-up; VERY exciting!>