How to Create the Best Morning Routine for Moms

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The best morning routine for moms is so easy to create and follow through with.

Until that alarm goes off, and then you forget about the time you promised you were going to start working out.

Put simply, a morning routine for moms is putting together a list of things you will get done as soon as you wake up. Ideally, you'll make a plan so you know exactly what you need each morning. It can be as simple as get up, make coffee, and get the kids out the door. It could also be as elaborate as down to the minute planning. One thing is for sure, with the right plan set in place, you're going to see your productivity go through the roof. Keep reading to see the steps I took to create my perfect morning.

When your alarm is a curly-headed three-year-old, almost silently whispering “can I cuddle wif you?” and you sleepily open up your blankets and they cuddle right into your arms . . . well you know you're not getting your morning done as planned. This is when you get the best morning routine for moms.

I’ll work out tomorrow. For sure. 

What can you do when this happens every day, and each day you're faced with challenges that prevent you from having a successful morning?

How Can a Stay at Home Mom Have a Productive Day?

I used to think productivity as a mom was a fairy tale.

A myth made up to make us normal moms feel like shit.

Then I realized I could put some of the time management skills I learned in high school and college to work now. In my real life.

So how do you do it? Here are a few tips.

Create Routines for Yourself

Routines reduce your need for willpower, and you only get so much will power a day.

Each time you create and solidify a routine in your life you're taking away a decision you need to make.

For example, if you're a coffee drinker, you don't think “am I going to drink coffee today?” you just do. It's a routine you have every morning to drink that cup of joe.

Declutter Your Home

For me, this is most important for the countertop where we make coffee.

Have I mentioned I love coffee?

Once I have the counter clean, I feel like I can achieve anything for the day. Some people like to have a clean sink or all the dishes put away.

It’s up to you.

Make sure you have a spot where you NEED to be clean, and you clean it every morning. 

Wake up before the kids.

I can’t stress this enough.

Those little tiny life suckers will keep you in bed all morning, or they start whining immediately and wreck your productivity.

So make sure you get up about 30 minutes before them. 

Get dressed.

It doesn’t seem like much, but it changes your whole day when you get out of those sweatpants and get ready for your day.

Put some make-up on, and do your hair.

It might seem like too big of a deal to do for yourself, but putting the time in for yourself now will help you in the long run.

Self-care is not selfish. 

Work out.

What is it about getting a good sweat in first thing in the morning?
The happy endorphins?
The feeling like you accomplished something wonderful?

Maybe it's just the guarantee that if you do nothing else for the rest of your day, you still worked out this morning.

Even if you just get a little workout in with Fit.on, a free app, you're still miles ahead of the people still on the couch. GO YOU!

Write Everything Down.

You might think here, no, I'm young. I don't need to write everything down. I can remember things.

What was that thing you said last night you needed to remember to do this morning?
Yeah, I don't remember either.

But don't worry. I'm here for you. I made a great printable daily schedule you can use so you won't forget your mom morning routine anymore.

I'm the mom who has a thousand papers taped to the wall around a totally full calendar. Schedules, flyers for things to remember for weeks to come, I even have the requirements for the “Star of the Week” and my kid won't have to worry about this until March.

When people tell you that three kids are more stressful than two kids what they mean is the brainpower required to remember everyone's schedule at all times is impossible.

You can't do it because none of us can do it. So get a planner. I love this planner from InkWell, click to see it.

When it’s just two of you or three of you to take care of, you can remember things.

When you have three kids and you need to take care of yourself as well as the three children, something falls through the cracks. Especially when they're all in school.

This is why you have to write it down.

Everything.
 

Plan your meals.

As I said. There are only so many decisions you can make a day.

Take those decisions away from yourself by making a habit of certain breakfasts, we have eggs every day, or a meal plan to follow for the week. 

Put your phone down to maximize your productivity.

I get it. I love those stupid iPhone games too.

But think about how productive you’d be if you didn’t get stuck on your phone watching ANOTHER video.

Screens are addictive, that’s why we are addicted to screens just like our children are. Put your phone down and see the difference it makes in your life. 

Time yourself when you perform tasks.

Silly idea, right?

Time yourself so you can know how long it takes you to do them.

This is for your brain.

We often convince ourselves out of doing things because we think those tasks take too long.

If you think it takes forever to do dishes, but then time yourself and realize it just takes 23 minutes . . . you have 23 minutes in your day. You'll stop procrastinating dishes when you have to be someplace in an hour and do them.

Have a laundry system.

Writing everything down will change your life.
After you do that, do this with me. Change your life with laundry.

Figure out what loads always need to be done.

For us, it’s shirts, jeans, daddy things, towels, and bedding. We pick a day for each category and stick to it.

Once we decided this, it was easy to do laundry because we knew it would get done that day.

Added bonus, everyone who can read can help. Monday is always shirts. So every Monday we wash shirts, or someone does. Every Monday.

If you let your laundry pile up, which I am soooo known for, then you’ll spend all day doing laundry and just keep falling behind. 

When something takes that long, you're going to procrastinate, because you want to avoid the pain of spending ALL DAY doing something with little progress.

Here is a great laundry routine post, it comes with a printable laundry weekly routine, to take that decision out of your hands, so you know exactly when you should do what laundry.

Laundry Routine Printable

Have a prep day.

For us this is Sunday.

We prep for meals for the week and put together outfits for the children to make sure they have enough pants and socks.

This might look different for you.

Our main goal on Sunday is to reduce our overwhelm for the rest of the week.

Have a Morning Routine Kit

When I posted about a Self-Care Kit, a reader commented about how she thought it would be a great addition to a morning routine.

What a great idea!

Some ideas for additions to your morning routine kit could be a motivating article you read recently, some weights for a quick workout, a pen and paper for ideas you want to jot down, and a copy of the morning routine for moms worksheet I created for you.

Scroll to the bottom of this post to find it!

Get out of your house every day.

Those days you stay home all day, you’re miserable.

The kids are miserable.
Don’t do this to yourself.

Get outside, even if it’s taking a walk around the block every day. I try to take my doggy for a walk every day so

Have a hobby.

Easier said than done, I know it.

Sit down and make a list of twenty things you enjoy, or you would like to try, and do three of them right now.

My hobbies include writing for this blog, painting, and photography.

I didn’t know I loved painting until I was 30. THIRTY.

So it’s never too late to learn something new and decide you enjoy it. What can you try today?

Find ways to earn a little cash.

You can do like me, and blog.

Or you can join someone’s business if you enjoy the product, or you can sell things on Mercari that you don’t need anymore. 

Adding some or all of these things to your morning will help you start finding productivity every single day. Wouldn’t that be a dream?

So what should your morning look like?

Mom Morning Routine Schedule:

Rule 1:
Wake up before your children.

If this is 6 am, then good for you! I’m jealous.

I have to get up before 5:30 to beat my children.
Here are some ideas for an average routine you can try.

Typical Mom Routine With School-Aged Children

5 am – 6 am

Get Ready – Brush teeth, wash face, get dressed and do your hair.

Coffee– Coffee before talkee. 

Quiet Time – I enjoy the hell out of my hot coffee by myself (or with my husband if I allow him) and usually play on my phone or start making breakfast. 

6 am – 7 am

Kids wake up and go potty. 

Eat breakfast, eat breakfast, eat breakfast, ask 50,000 more times. 

Brush their teeth, do hair, and find those elusive socks. 

Younger kids can do an easy activity, play independently, or help with chores (each day is different depending on my kid’s mood. As he gets older he will help more with the chores) while older kids get ready for school.

7:30 take kids to drop off.

8 am – 9 am

Get the youngest ready and dressed. Find his socks.

WHERE DO THEY KEEP GOING?

Learning/Reading, usually dinosaur books, because rawr. 

If he is great and eats all of his food, we usually play outside if the weather is nice. My dude loves riding his bicycle.

8:45 – Son drop off

I'll be honest here.

When I drop him off I wander around the school and get all my social time in.
I take my sweet time getting out of there and rarely make it out before 9.

9 am – 11 am 

Grocery shopping, usually. 

Sometimes picking on those odds and ends we need for the house. Like when my son needs veggie straws for a craft at school.

11 am– 1 pm

Get home, eat lunch and spend time with the husband if he comes home. If not, take the dog for a walk. 

1 pm – 2 pm

Blogging, writing, writing, blogging. 

2 pm – 3 pm

Picking up children from all their different schools. 

This is when I get small things done, like brainstorming for my blog or making lists. I have a great post about list-making and why I find them useful. Check it out here: The Ultimate List of Lists for When You're Overwhelmed.

3 pm and beyond

Making dinner, playing outside, dinner, bath night, and BED.

Your morning routine for moms will look different.

Not everyone has three children going to two schools across town from each other, but you can use some of this mom routine for yourself.

My youngest only attends school three times a week, so twice a week when he’s home we spend more time together reading, or taking the dog for a walk.

We still come home around lunchtime, and then he plays independently or sometimes passes out while I blog from 1-2. 

Time Blocking for Stay at Home Moms

It’s a little different when they’re school-aged, but routine is still important. 

When I don’t have a schedule for everyone with plans for the day, they all tend to lose their minds, myself included.

Weekends are always chaos because we sometimes have plans, and other times just wing it. The latter is awful. I don’t recommend it to anyone. 

I didn't realize how insanely important having a schedule was for my children until they started school, and I wish I decided to start structuring our days sooner.

The Best Morning Routine for Moms Tips:

Here are a few ways you can be successful with your morning routine, even if you've never had a structured morning routine before in your life.

Be flexible –

Sometimes you’re going to get sick, and you’re going to need to sleep in, or someone else in the house will get sick and you’ll need to skip drop off.

You can push around all your deadlines. Everything is shiftable.

Isn't that the reason we become stay at home moms? So we can be available when our family needs us. You don't have to sacrifice that for a morning routine.

Be firm –

There are some things that are non-negotiable.

Is there something in your life you want to excel at? Now is the time to decide it's non-negotiable. I give you permission to put yourself first.

Recently I did this for myself and my blog. I took it into my own hands and decided it's not just going to be a hobby anymore.

Gone are the days of “writing when I feel like it”, and putting the time in when I'm in the mood. I'm going to start making a difference in people's lives.

Do You –

This morning routine for moms works great for me, but I know now what works and what doesn’t for my family.

This post is meant to give you tips for creating a personalized morning routine for your family. 

Maybe you can do chores in the morning, or you can get your children to do chores.

I can not.
I can not get my children to do a single thing in their lives besides eat their breakfast in the morning.

During the summer this is obviously different, but with the morning deadline of going to school, they have to have limited responsibilities. 

If you are a morning chore type of person, you can:

Do dishes

Empty the dishwasher

Clean up toys

Quick clean up a room

Make the beds

Move laundry

Again, I am not able to do all of that in my morning! Good for you.

I am proud when I get to my coffee before it gets cold. 

Start Where You Are –

You know your life.

If you can’t get out of bed before 6 am because you’re up all night with a newborn, put this whole post away.

It’s not for you.

Girl. Go take a nap. 

If you’re able to do it, just do it. 

I get it. I’m overwhelmed and understaffed almost all of the time too. 

Don’t expect to wake up and feel motivated. You have to decide right now that you’re doing this. You’re worth this, and you want this. 

Morning routines won’t work if you aren’t all in. Decide that you’re doing it, and you’ll be successful. 

Action brings motivation to continue. 

I have some action steps for you.

Now that you've read this post, fill in your information below and get this printable and reinvent mornings with me.

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