This post is part 2 of The Ultimate Guide To Creating An Evening Routine.
If you haven’t already read the previous post, check that out here.
Prepare For Tomorrow
An essential part to any successful morning routine is preparation the night before.
If you win the day by winning the morning, you win the morning by winning the previous evening.
In essence, this is getting everything ready for tomorrow. What you prepare and how you do it is up to you, but there are a few core activities that can help with this.
Listing out activities the night before has several benefits.
The first is that you won’t have to use brainpower and time in the morning to think of tasks to do, and when to do them.
The second is it allows you to get to work as soon as possible, with a clear direction of what to do and where to go.
Finally, it can help you to feel inspired and motivated to get working.
Your approach to task management isn’t as important as actually planning tasks to do. To-Do lists, time blocking, and scheduling are all effective techniques. Whatever your choice, plan this the night before.
Waking up with your tasks planned can also prevent procrastination. When planning for the future, we’re more ambitious. We pile on more tasks than for our future selves than we do for our present selves.
Planning activities in the morning might cause you to list fewer activities for the day. This would mean you don’t have to work as much. Whereas, planning the night before will give you more to do and, as a result, make you more productive.
Preparing Clothes
Part of the reason I’m a minimalist is to minimise daily decisions. This allows me to save brainpower and focus more on the things that matter. I wear a copy of the same t-shirt every day for this reason.
Preparing clothes the night before serves a similar purpose. You’re saving brainpower in the morning by not having to decide what to wear. You’re also saving valuable time, which would be better spent building positive momentum.
Having clothes already prepared when you wake up means you can get to work quicker. This allows you to be productive for a little longer.
Tomorrow’s Events
Are there any activities or events that are happening at a specific time tomorrow? Think about phone calls, meetings, transport, etc.
Take some time to schedule out slots for these activities. Include time for before, during, and after. Set reminders for yourself in advance.
You don’t have to be super strict with this, nor do you have to schedule the whole day around said items. By having a general plan, you’ll have more structure and clarity each day.
Positive and Filler Habits, and Routine Structure
After looking at core activities, we’ll now get more in-depth with your evening routine structure. We’ll also look at particular habits that are worth including.
I won’t talk about how to form habits as I’ve done that before, which you can check out here. For now, know that habits consist of a Cue, Routine, and Reward.
Routines, such as morning or evening routine, are a sequence of habits strung together. Completion of each habit or activity prompts the next habit using ‘habit stacking’.
Sticking with our previous example, noticing the time of 9PM is the start of our evening routine. That’s our Cue.
At this point, you’d wrap up working for the day. You’d set relevant reminders and turn off or put away any technology. This is when your actual evening routine begins.
Filler habits
We can now introduce ‘filler’ habits. These are habits which bulk out your evening routine and provide structure. Filler habits are not as demanding as your core activities, and are often things you’d do anyway.
Some examples of filler habits include:
- Going to the toilet
- Brushing teeth
- Filling water bottle (so you can drink first thing in the morning, allowing you to wake up much quicker. 8 hours of sleep is 8 hours of dehydration, so drink some water when you wake up!)
- Tidying immediate space
- Saying goodnight
- Locking windows and doors
These filler habits fill the gaps between core evening routine activities. Let’s say, for example, that you want your evening routine to comprise of the following:
- Preparing clothes for the following day
- Reflection
- Meditation
- Gratitude
This doesn’t seem like a lot, which means the routine itself doesn’t seem as solid or structured. Instead, we can add in filler activities to bulk it out a bit. It could then become:
- Filling water
- Going to the toilet
- Brushing teeth
- Preparing clothes
- Reflecting on the day
- Tidying immediate space
- Meditation
- Practicing gratitude
See how it looks much more structured? This routine would be much easier to complete than the same without filler habits.
Think of filler habits as a kind of glue that bind your core habits together. By including activities you’d be doing anyway, it makes it easier to integrate desired habits.
The more ordered and structured your evening routine, the more automatic and easier it will become.
Positive Habits
By now, I’ve mentioned many positive habits which you can include in your evening routine. But, for ease of access, here are them all in once place:
- Finish all tasks
- Put technology away
- Reflect on the day / Reflect on your goals
- Practice gratitude or prayer
- Take a warm shower
- Get dressed into comfortable clothes
- Stretch
- Meditate
- Plan tomorrow’s work and schedule
- Prepare clothes for tomorrow
- Schedule events
Reading
There is one powerful habit that I’ve not yet talked about, but is important to my own evening routine and has many benefits. Reading.
Reading a fiction book at the end of my evening routine is the best part about my evening routine. It’s enjoyable and acts as a reward for both the day and the routine.
If you’re going to read as part of your evening routine, choose fiction and not non-fiction. Non-fiction will stimulate your mind and promote thinking, making it difficult to sleep.
Reading gets you away from screens
Reading is a great alternative to using your phone in bed. Rather than absorbing damaging blue light, you’re engaged in a story. If you’re someone that needs mental stimulation before bed, reading a book can be a good solution.
It helps you to relax
Taking 30 minutes to read a book, while snug under the covers in bed, can help you to calm down, relax, and be present. It’s a great way to wind down from the day and temporarily forget about your troubles.
It’s a great motivator
After having read the previous night, I’ll often find myself eager to find out what happens next in the story. But, I usually only find out the following night. The following day, I’m much more motivated to work and to get things done. The sooner I’ve finished working, the sooner I can read.
What I’m referring to here is the Flow state. Flow is the super-productive state where you get loads done and time flys by.
The more often you can enter this state, and the longer you can stay in Flow, the faster the evening will seem to arrive. The faster the evening arrives, the sooner you’ll be able to read again.
Additionally, on days when you’re more productive than normal, reading an extra chapter can be a nice reward. To do so, you could end the day earlier to fit in time for another chapter. You could stay up later and sacrifice some sleep.
Either way, allowing yourself to read more is a healthy way to recognise and reward hard work. It also encourages more hard work in the future!
You’ll be learning
Many good books are a combination of descriptive writing and well-told stories. So by reading, you’ll be learning. Learning how to write better, learning new words, and learning how to tell better stories.
Congratulations, you’ve now reached the end of this ultimate guide. You now have a clear idea of how to plan and create an evening routine.
Thanks for reading.
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If you want to learn more about routines, why not check out our Ultimate Guide To Morning Routines?