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How To Create A Mindful Morning Routine (Checklist Included!) [Podcast Ep. 4]

Creating a mindful morning routine is an important aspect of self-care that many bloggers overlook.

And I totally get it.

As entrepreneurs, it’s easy to become obsessed only with the tasks that bring immediate tangible results, like creating opt-ins to grow an email list or launching products; but the truth is, creating a morning routine for yourself can lead to increased productivity, focus and clarity.

Plus, it’s fun!

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Some of the best morning routine rituals to incorporate into your schedule
  • A simple hack for getting your brain working as soon as you wake up
  • One thing you can do before bed to help ensure you don’t wake up stressed
  • The best free apps for helping you create a productive daily routine
  • How planning out even a simple morning routine can benefit your blogging business
  • And more!

How To Create A Mindful Morning Routine For Bloggers – Podcast Episode Audio

Listen to the full episode using this embedded player…

…or click the links below to tune in on your preferred audio platform:

Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts/iTunes

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To help you really jumpstart your blogging success, I’ve added 25+ blogging resources like printables, video tutorials and workbooks into a FREE resource library for travel bloggers.

TRAVEL BLOGGER RESOURCE LIBRARY

The resources in this free library — which you can access here — can really help you start the day right, especially the mindful morning routine checklist and workbook.

 

Mindful Morning Self-Care Routine For Bloggers [Video]

Prefer video?

Watch above!

I had a lot of fun making this short film, as you’ll see in the intro.

Despite the comedy, you’ll learn about a powerful morning routine that can truly change your life.

 
mindful morning routine ritals and habits

Best Morning Rituals For Success For Bloggers – Episode 4 Transcript

Okay, raise your hand if you’re the type of person who looks at their phone and starts checking emails or social media notifications as soon as you wake up.

For years I did this until I realized it was seriously killing my productivity as it ensured I was instantly overwhelmed before I’d even had my coffee.

When you do this, it becomes really difficult to get your important projects done as you put your personal and professional needs to the side and instead put all your energy into everyone else’s.

Personally, the morning is when I’m most focused and productive. By lunch, I’ve usually accomplished at least one big task — if not more — and I owe a lot of this success to my morning routine.

So if you want to learn how you can make simple and fun tweaks to your morning routine that can have a big impact on your business and work life — as well as your blogger mindset — then stay tuned as I share my morning routine.

Now, before we dive into this strategy, I want to direct your attention to the show notes where I’ve shared a link to my free Mindful Morning Routine Checklist + Workbook — which you’ll find inside my free Travel Blogger Resource Library here — that will help you take what you learn in this episode and apply it to your own life.

Plus, it’s a really fun exercise as you dream about how you’d really enjoy spending your morning — and then make it a reality.

Feel free to even pause this episode so you can grab the workbook and fill it out while we’re talking.

You back?

Okay, let’s dive in.

 

How To Plan A Mindful Morning Routine

Now, I’m really excited about this episode because it dives into self-care and how to improve your mindset, which I think is something a lot of bloggers and business owners put to the side.

They really want to focus on tasks that get things done where they can see tangible finished products in front of them, and self-care doesn’t always do that; but it really is so important, not just for your personal well-being but for the health of your blogging business or any business or work that you do.

And while morning routines can be helpful for everyone, for those of us who work for ourselves, it can be really challenging to create structure in our lives, especially when we don’t have someone telling us exactly what needs to get done.

It’s all on you.

And that’s why, in my opinion, a morning routine can help you grow your blog fast. You’ll see how below.

 

Here is what I recommend:

Tip #1: Plan your workday the night before for a stress-free morning routine.

It’s easy to get so busy, busy, busy that you never take a breath to look at the big picture in your business to see if what you’re doing is working and how you can improve.

Taking time to physically plan can really help.

Personally, I use a number of tools to plan out my years, months, weeks, and days.

One of those tools is Asana.

Inside Asana — which is a free online project management tool — I’ve got all of my big projects, including tasks that need to get done to complete these big projects, as well as my daily, weekly, and monthly workflows all fleshed out.

From there, I like to schedule these projects and workflows inside my paper planner. Every evening I look at the following day in my planner and organize my schedule so I know exactly what I want to complete — and when — to feel accomplished.

This means I’m not waking up frantic or wondering what I need to get done first.

Instead, I have a clearly laid out schedule for the day so I’m set up for success.

 

Tip #2: Plan out your morning routine with timeframes.

Just like you planned out your day, you should plan out your morning.

Now, once you get a morning routine, you won’t need to plan it every single day — you’ll likely use the same template each day; but in the beginning, it’s recommended to do this.

The thing that is important here is waking up early enough so that you have enough time for self-care. For many of us, that’s probably 30 to 60 minutes. You want to be pinpointing the best morning rituals for bringing more joy to your days.

I want to pause here to just shout out “The Miracle Morning” (affiliate link), an incredible book by a guy named Hal Elrod.

Just to give a quick summary:

The premise is that you can change your life by incorporating a few key practices for 10 minutes each into your morning. These practices include:

  • exercise,
  • meditation,
  • visualization,
  • journaling,
  • reading,
  • and affirmations.

If you follow Elrod’s suggestion, that would create a 60-minute morning schedule for you that would really emulate the routine of some of the world’s greatest minds.

And I have to say, I’ve tried this before. If you stick with it, it really is powerful.

If you’re really strapped for time or maybe you want to dip your toes into this, I’ve also seen Elrod recommend a six-minute “miracle morning” where you do each thing for just one minute.

I’ve done this, too, and my one big tip is to plan each practice out beforehand so you’re not wasting time searching for a meditation or something to read.

The major takeaway I want you to get here:

Choose self-care activities that bring you joy and schedule them so you know exactly what you’ll do and when.

It could even be something not on this list, such as sitting in a sunny space with your morning Cappuccino, taking a walk in the park, or spending 30 minutes on creative writing.

 

Tip #3: Set an alarm for your morning rituals and give yourself extra time for self-care.

I know it sounds crazy if you’re already someone struggling to not hit snooze; but trust me, once you do it a few times, it becomes a habit and gets much, much easier.

For the other travel bloggers out there — or just those of you who travel — take advantage of those trips where the time zone is ahead.

You know when I got back home to New York from Nepal, which is about 9.5 hours ahead of New York time, I was waking up at 5:00 AM naturally. Try to stick with it.

Otherwise, try downloading an app — like Alarmy – Wake Up Alarm Clock — where you need to do something like complete a math problem or shake your phone 50 times to turn it off.

It makes it much more challenging to hit snooze, and it also helps wake up your brain when you do this.

 

Tip #4: Spend a few minutes getting a morning pep talk.

I’m a huge fan of the free Shine App (affiliate link), which delivers a morning self-care pep talk in the form of a short blog post to your phone at the desired time you set.

Topics range from progress over perfection to downsizing your to-do list to creating a bad day life raft for yourself.

There’s even a community aspect to the app where you can discuss the day’s topic with other Shine users.

 

Tip #5: Take 10 minutes to journal for a mindful morning.

To be honest, my journaling habit is all over the place.

Some mornings I’ll dive deeper into the morning pep talk from Shine to try to apply it to myself, while other days I’ll reflect on the previous day to consider what I’m grateful for, what I accomplished and how I can improve.

One of my favorite journaling styles is doing a brain dump, which entails getting all of the clutter in your mind out and onto a piece of paper.

You can create categories such as personal errands, work, and family, or even segment further to create categories based on specific work projects.

From there, write down all the tasks you want to get done.

I’ll often take these tasks and add them to my schedule or put them into a list I have in Asana where I put my “maybe one day” tasks; things that sound interesting, but I’m not sure are realistic or if they’re just a part of my “shiny object syndrome”.

 

Tip #6: Create movement in your morning routine.

You don’t need to go for a run — though, you certainly can.

For me, going for a walk as the city wakes up or doing a short yoga session are really therapeutic for my mind and body.

Interestingly, for my entire life, I associated exercise with weight loss and physical health; but until I started adding it to my morning routine, I never realized the extreme mental benefits, as well, from enhanced focused and clarity to avoiding that midday slump.

 

Tip #7: Meditate for a more mindful morning.

There is a reason some of the world’s most innovative and insightful minds meditate.

It enhances self-awareness, reduces stress and anxiety, and can help increase your focus and attention span — all incredible benefits for anyone, particularly bloggers and business owners.

Now I realize meditating isn’t easy for everyone, myself definitely included, which is why I love the free Insight Timer app.

You can browse guided meditations of various lengths by focus, on topics like coping with anxiety, managing stress, improving your sleep, and improving your relationships.

They even have short one-minute meditations, which can be really helpful.

For those who aren’t into apps, you might also enjoy these meditation tips for beginners.

 

Tip #8: Enjoy your breakfast without tech distractions.

I spent years being someone who scarfed down my food and coffee while hunched over my laptop.

I don’t even think I tasted anything, I was so distracted and stressed; but in my opinion, if you can start the day with being mindful and intentional — including eating a meal — this can help you create some mental muscle memory for being mindful and intentional for the rest of the day.

And to really drive home how beneficial this is, let me share two versions of the same scenario.

Let’s say you have an afternoon phone call to interview someone for a blog post that you know will really benefit your audience.

Scenario #1:

You wake up late, get sucked into emails, realize you don’t have enough time to fully prepare your questions, call your interviewee 10 minutes late as you try to come up with something creative to ask while also answering Instagram DMs, and then distractedly conduct your interview.

Then there’s Scenario #2:

You wake up early, decide not to check your email or social media until after your interview, enjoy a mindful morning routine, enjoy your breakfast while sitting outside, spend an hour coming up with questions to ask on pen and paper — because that inspires you more than screen time — call your interviewee on time and have a conversation where you’re both so present, you’re able to come up with additional questions organically for a great interview and a meaningful connection in the process.

I think we can all agree that Scenario #2 is the preferred one here.

 

All right, now I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you feel inspired and empowered to go create your own mindful morning routine.

Don’t forget to grab the free checklist and workbook that pairs with this episode. It’s inside my free Travel Blogger Resource Library, which you can access right here.

I promise it’ll be a lot of fun to fill out.

And make sure to subscribe for future episodes so you don’t miss a single profitable blogging strategy.

Happy blogging!

 

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How do you go about creating a mindful morning routine?

What is your favorite morning ritual for success?

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Hi, I’m Jessie on a journey!

I'm a conscious solo traveler on a mission to take you beyond the guidebook to inspire you to live your best life through travel. Come join me!

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1 Comment

  1. Marie Leon on at 7:40 pm

    I agree that self-care is important. The better you feel, the more you get accomplished. These tips are very helpful. Thanks for sharing.