52 Weeks to an Organized Home: Create a Morning and Evening Routine (Week 12)

For the 12th week in the 52 Weeks to an Organized Home challenge, the focus is on making a morning and evening routine.

The goal is by implementing routine and schedule challenges, along with the weekly decluttering goals, that ultimately one’s home and life will be organized and running smoothly. As the website said, "Organization is, at its core, about anticipating what needs to get done and doing things proactively, instead of reactively.”

By thinking things through and planning ahead, tasks can be done quicker and more efficiently; and one’s stress level is reduced.

Montague, Cooper, and Bailey.

Morning routine includes letting the dogs out and

feeding the horses.

(Taken February 7, 2013.)

A morning and evening routine includes many aspects:
- things you do to take care of your home,
- things you do to take care of yourself,
- tasks for taking care of your loved ones, and
- tasks for work.

Create A Morning Routine

A morning routine is beneficial rather than being burdensome because once you've established your routine as a habit it makes mornings easier. Even if a person is sleepy, habits are less likely to be forgotten.

There’s a printable that can be used to help plan one’s morning routine. I printed this out and thought about the things that need to be done each day and came up with the following based on the list of items:

• Get up
• Let dogs out
• Empty the dishwasher
• Make hot chocolate
• Check calendar to see what needs to be done
• Take a bath/shower (if going outside the home in the morning/during the day; otherwise this is done at night)
• Read
• Make bed
• Feed horses
• Make/eat breakfast
• Feed dogs and cats
• Get dressed
• Do hair and makeup (if going outside the home)
• Take vitamins
• Meal preparation for dinner (e.g., defrost items, put something in the crockpot)
• Get ready for homeschooling at home, co-op, or 4-H; volunteering; and/or errands

Making welcome baskets at the nursing home.

(July 9, 2016)

52 Weeks to an Organized Home recommends that “if you want to incorporate many new tasks into your daily routine…to go slowly and [give] yourself grace. It is best to add only one new task at a time, and make it a habit before you add another, so you don't get overwhelmed. Too much change all at once makes it nearly impossible to succeed, so slow and steady wins the race!”

Create an Evening Routine

There’s another printable for an evening routine which is helpful in thinking about the tasks to do before bed. It’s basically preparing for the next day which makes life easier.

• Feed horses at dinner and dogs at/after our dinner
• Take a photo of the sunset if it is a colorful one.
• Clean up kitchen - includes putting on the dishwasher and doing any dishes by hand
• Make sure cats have food (upstairs and downstairs)
• Make sure dogs and cats have water
• Finish laundry so there's no clothes in the washer (having the items in the dryer drying is fine)
• Quick tidying of main rooms in the home (e.g., dining room, living room, family room - all on main floor)
• Check calendar for next day's activities
• Mark off what I did during the day in my calendar
• Write any new items that I have to do in my calendar for the next day
• Personal care tasks to get ready for bed
• Let dogs out
• In bed, lights out

Sunset in February 2017.

Make a Daily To Do List

There’s a printable for a to do list that has spots to mark off when the task is completed. Sometimes I have a to-do list – like when I do a lot of errands outside of the home on Tuesdays.

For the most part, however, I simply list what I need to do in my calendar. When I’m done, I highlight that task with a colored pencil. It gives a sense of accomplishment to see the colorful pages. It’s messy, yet effective for me.