I like to pride myself on my ability to fit so many tasks into a 24 hour period while still giving my kids, dogs and hubby quality time but by the end of the day I am exhausted! I look and wonder how does an Oprah make time for meditation and dinner by 6 then I figured it out! She is never confused! I rise in the morning trying to figure out what the day holds for me, then I try to figure out what to wear and what I should do first have my coffee or meditate. By the time I try to figure all of this out I look up and I have no time for any of it. Thats when I realized, the happiest people have life figured out. Not the big stuff but all of the little annoying stuff like coffee or dogs.

Since I came to this conclusion I decided it would be a good time to have a morning routine and an evening routine and everything in between can be what I figure out. Now mindlessly I wake up and get going with no thought and after a day of hard work and keeping my family happy and business thriving I come home to the mindless task of my evening routine. Mindless is the new way to be mindful lol!!

To give you and example of how I’ve managed to go mindless my schedule is below.

• rise and shine
• take the dogs out and feed them (with 4 dogs this is pretty important)
• drink 4 glasses of water
• have my morning meditation time
• have my morning coffee
• write my to to do list which in the summer spans from 9-6pm and school year 8-245pm
• get breakfast going for the kids and myself and eat
• get me and the kiddos dressed after breakfast
• take the dogs out while packing my car cooler
• pack the car with snacks and things we need like backpacks during the school year
• put fresh water out for the pups and give them a snack
• Hit the road!! workouts fit into the hit the road hours

So morning goes so smoothly because there is no guess works and the kids and dogs are in sync with the routine. So from 9am to 6pm I am running around checking off my to do list or sitting at my laptop. I stop at noon and give myself a maximum of 2 hours for lunch but no less than 1 hour. We need time to decompress so we have to take time out to recalibrate during the day. I know this may be a luxury of the self employed or stay at home parent but even if you are an hourly employee and you get 30 minutes, take them and just eat and enjoy the sensation of your meal. I have been guilty of working past 6pm but I’ve come to find that I am worthless the next day. So that one or two extra hours I go over six, my kids miss out on time with me, I am cranky , tired, my husband gets snapped at, my dogs play time goes from 30 minutes of run and play to 5 minutes of rushed restroom time lol. So I then realized if I shut down at 6pm, I get more quality, family time and I am excited about the next day because my mind gets a break. At 6pm my mind shuts down and I go into auto pilot. In my to do list I have already chosen the dinner meal and during my day I have made sure I have all of the ingredients therefore making auto pilot awesome.

My evening auto pilot routine is below.

• Stop all work related items at 6pm at the latest (preferably 5)
• prepare dinner (this is homework time during the school year)
• feed pups
• laugh joke and play over dinner
• take dogs out
• clean up and put the kiddos in the bath
• lay clothes out for kids and myself for the morning
• get kids out of the bath and have cuddle time
• put the kids in bed and kiss them goodnight
• spend time catching up with Hubby watching a show or something
• drink 4 glasses of water
• shower
• skin routine for face and hands and braid hair
• journal, pray and give thanks for the best parts of the day and read a chapter from my novel
• get to sleep no later than 10:30 pm to wake up at 6:30 am

Each of us have our own hours but I think a rough outline is always a good way to help jumpstart the new year new you! A new year and a new you doesn’t just have to be reserved for January first!

Happy Planning In Lisa’s Lane