no. 2: morning person, the updated guide

Or, updated tips and tricks from #teamnosnooze, including how I adjusted my routine now that I have a kid, creating a manageable morning routine menu, and my current go-to schedules.

If you’re new around here, I have unfortunate news. I am a morning person. Worse than that, I am the kind of morning person who *firmly* believes that everyone can be a morning person. After a lifetime of oversleeping, hitting snooze and generally being a hot mess in the mornings, I got tired of being tired. I went on a multi-year campaign to teach myself how to be a morning person, and I regret to confirm that it made my life easier, happier and more productive. I built out my tips and recommendations into the original morning person guide, published winter of 2021:

the ultimate guide to becoming a morning person

The tldr? 

• Being a morning person means being realistic about what is going on in the rest of your life, and having different ideas of what success looks like for when you have low, medium and high energy. 

• I do this in a modular fashion, creating a “menu” of things that ladder up to support what I know I need to be successful in a few key areas: experience of waking up, getting dressed & ready, nutrition, and movement / personal wellness.

• I also include tips on how not to hit snooze, dealing with motivation, and managing with a partner who isn’t a morning person. 

That guide was originally published just a few weeks before I found out I was pregnant, and reading it back feels like an entirely different lifetime. Maggie of 2021-2022 was doing the most and I doubt my life will ever look like that again. I had my first child in November of 2022, and returned to full time work in spring of 2023 with an updated hybrid office policy after ~3 years of exclusively working from home. I have spent the months in between then and now reprioritizing, restructuring and relearning how to be a normal person, let alone a person who is good at mornings. When I finally rolled out of the newborn haze, I have spent a lot of time thinking about how operationalize all of this change, especially when it comes to: 

• What I need out of a morning routine in this season of life 

• Planning for and flexing with unpredictability

• Finding the right balance between listening to my body and pushing myself 

• Balancing priorities across home, personal and work 

As you might expect, my day to day is looking a lot different these days. A few details for reference and context before we dig in:

• Our little guy is currently ~11 months old, and has been on a fairly regular 8PM to 8AMish sleep schedule since he was 5-6 months old.

• I primarily work from home (go in to the office 1-2x per week) while my husband commutes every day. 

• We technically have part time childcare, because our work schedules are a little bit staggered: I tend to be on the early side (8:30/9ish to 4:30/5ish) while Mark tends to be later (10 to 6 ish). As such, we divide up when each of us are “on” as follows: 

  • Wake up until our nanny arrives: (minus feeding) - Mark 

  • Afternoons after nanny departs: Me 

  • Evenings: team effort! 

THE 2023 UPDATE:

One of my biggest tips for becoming a morning person has always been focused on having a range of what "success" looks like for you in the morning. if i've said it once i've said it a million times: there is no one size fits all morning routine for everyone, but there also is no one morning routine that is right for every day or every week - especially not once kids or other significant life changes are in the mix!

the point is this: having a few different options for how you start your day takes off the burden of perfection. give yourself the ability to choose what serves your needs while being compassionate to the energy and time that you have.

ESPECIALLY in the first year after having a child: this is truly one of the biggest life changes I have ever experienced, but finding routine and structure that works for us has played a huge part in establishing a sense of normalcy. When we’re good about the routine, everything else feels easier and more fun: working smarter, not harder if you will!

Low Energy:

I think about a low energy routine as a baseline: the absolute bare minimum I personally need to start my day off on the right foot. This routine is a fallback when I haven't gotten enough sleep (looking at you, little bear!) , know I have a taxing day ahead, or when I otherwise need to give myself a break. In the year since LB was born, my low energy routine has gotten a lot more low energy, a lot more forgiving, and are happening a heck of a lot more often. 

To me, the defining element of the low energy routine is self-compassion: this routine is the selection of 1-2 things that are intended to ensure that no matter how the morning started, or what the day has ahead, you’ve taken a few minutes to get your head on straight and put on a clean shirt.

Medium Energy:

Take your low energy options and increase either intensity or frequency - but not necessarily both. I find this to be my optimal style of routine - productive, but can be manageable multiple days a week. Post-baby, my medium energy routines tend to prioritize ability to get movement in before the baby wakes up, and have a much more streamlined “get ready routine” (more bluntly: triangulating the perfect mix of getting as much sleep as possible with the type of workout I can accomplish without having to *also* wash my hair). 

I tend to select movement activities because I tend to find it difficult to get up the energy to exercise in the evening, but have also utilized this routine to prioritize my freelance and creative work (spoiler alert: when do you think I write this newsletter?!)

High Energy:

I know this is the thing people think of when they think of morning routines, but I firmly believe this is the exception, not the rule. High energy routines are awesome for busy, hectic days where you have places to go and things to do, but often they don’t make sense more than a few days a week unless you have a supernatural ability for time management and self-discipline.

the sunday edition: day in my life

Days like this can be so fun (see: my most recent DIML post. So many fun things!) but also tend to really shine when you’re able to utilize this energy expenditure in a way that is energizing to you. Think: prioritizing social connection, arts and culture, and other things that add value, rather than only adding work!

TIPS FOR SUCCESS: PREPARING FOR UNCERTAINTY

No matter how well I plan my day, the only certainty is uncertainty. Our kiddo is on a fairly consistent routine, but if I get up and go to the sweatiest workout class imaginable at 5 am and the baby wakes up hollering to eat at 6:45 am while I’m in the middle of the shower, we’re going to need to make it work.  Accomplishing a high energy morning routine requires a capitol P plan, AND  it also requires the mental flexibility & emotional non-attachment to scrap that plan and come up with a new one on the fly. 

For me, this usually looks like: 

• Significantly pairing back the “get ready” portion of my morning: Streamlined hair, skincare and beauty to > 5 minutes (usually slicked back bun and minimalist makeup) and a handful of go to “uniform” style outfits that work for WFH or office 

• Prioritizing the rest of the morning around baby time: this usually entails multitasking nutrition and coffee, like drinking my coffee while I get ready, or sharing my breakfast with the baby while we sit at the table.

• Communicating and improvising with your partner: Mark and I have a pretty set routine, but when times shift, or one of us is running behind, sometimes you just have to improvise. A few things we always keep in our back pocket: 

  • Utilizing independent play: Finishing getting dressed or doing makeup while he entertains himself in my line of sight sometimes requires a little bit of redirection, but can be a game changer. (Recent win: providing a wooden spoon and a mental bowl so he could “help” me cook while I prepared some things for dinner. Worked like a charm!) 

  • Carrier time! Our kiddo is pretty mobile at this point, so if he’s on a path of destruction and can’t be redirected, we can just pop him in a carrier to finish things like breakfast, makeup, or other things around the house. 

WEEKLY EXAMPLES

Being a morning person isn’t just being a morning person once a week - it’s about building up a structure that is accessible and sustainable long term. I emphasize the need to have a few options for what success looks like because I know from experience how easy it is to burn yourself out trying to crush 6 am HIIT classes five days a week. Here are a few snapshots of how a weekly schedule can flex up and down:

My normal weekly schedule is feels really even keeled to me: I start slow-ish and ramp to a high point in the week before taking it a little slower going in to the weekend. This contrasts with a more high energy week:

QUESTIONS & TIPS ON BEING A MORNING PERSON: 

How to stay motivated / disciplined to get out of bed for a morning workout: 

• Start slow and work your way up! If you currently wake up at 8 am, don’t expect yourself to start waking up every day at 5 am and crushing boot camp every week. Target one day a week for a few weeks, and then either push that time earlier, or add in another day until you get to the time and frequency that you want. 

• Find some accountability: I personally love a workout class late cancel fee as a good excuse not to hit snooze, but meeting a friend somewhere is also a great option. Regardless: sometimes peer pressure can be helpful! 

• Sometimes you just need a little treat: I’m not above bribery, y’all. I have been known to promise myself a nice coffee if I get up and do the early workout. I’ve also set longer term goals for myself and if I checked all / most of them off I’d go for a larger purchase I’ve been saving for. 

Tips for getting up before baby: I will be extremely honest with you and tell you it truly just depends. My attempts to get up early were chaos until our kiddo was around six months old. Now, he is on a fairly consistent 8 PM to 8 am schedule which works for us for a MULTITUDE of reasons. If he got up earlier, I certainly would not be trying to beat him to it to fit in a workout, and this would be an entirely different guide. My only tips here: 

• Getting up before the baby only makes sense if it makes sense, and it’s okay if it doesn’t!

• If you have an early riser, but still want to move in the morning, consider options that you can do with your little one – on low energy routine days, I’ll often take LB and minnie out to talk around a lake by our house, or I’ll do an at home barre workout video while he plays independently in his room. I get some movement in and he thinks we’re playing! win win.

How to adjust routine during winter?Ugh this one is TOUGH. I also struggle to run in the dark, and personally have a VERY tough time with sad seasons. Keep an eye out for my updated issue about managing seasonal depression (#sadszn, iykyk) – coming to early bird soon - but in the mean time, a few things I try to prioritize: 

• I utilize my happy light *every dang day*.  

• I tend to adjusting my winter workouts for cozy season: heated and hot yoga, or higher intensity classes (like a barry’s).

• I also am not a huge fan of running / walking the dog and kid in the dark, so I try to get outside when the sun is out, even if that means I’m logging off from work early and coming back to it at night.

Okay! that’s all for my updated morning person (new mom edition) guide! would so love to hear from you: what resonates, what doesn’t, where are you stuck?? here to be helpful if I can. xx,