Last week, I was in a discussion about wake up times. Upon hearing mine (five a.m.) my friends asked a valid question “why would you do that???” It’s a good question. As someone who loves sleep, sees the need for getting enough sleep and would sleep in every day if you let her, I never thought I would enjoy getting up at five.

But as I reflected on last week, with the busyness of the real estate business, my desire to build a new business, and you know, keep my sanity, I realized that a big part of why I can fit everything in is waking up early.

My morning routine has changed a little bit over the last six months. I’ve added things in and cut things out. Here’s a snapshot of my current morning.

5:00-5:10 – get up, entreat Bret to start the coffee, whether through verbally asking or by sending him a GIF of someone pressing a button. Once I started prepping the coffee the night before, it made getting up so much easier since all I have to do is press a button.

5:10-5:30/6:00 – have coffee with Bret while he stretches. He used to stretch at other times, but changing things up and combining our coffee date with his stretching has really helped us to maximize our time.

5:30/6-9:00ish – the timing of this section changes depending on what we have going on and how late the coffee date went.

Devotions – I’m systematically going through the Ask Pastor John podcasts. I’m also doing the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan to read the bible in a year.

Journal – This is one of those things I keep telling myself I HAVE to do because I do look back on what I’ve written. I love being able to see what I was going through a year ago and how much I’ve changed…or still need to change. I’ve started to track this on my highlighted checklist and have had a streak of eight days.

Morning reads – I work through three different books at a time. These tend to be more about my work life. I’m currently reading a book about real estate investing, a book about profit, and a book about creativity. I love that even if I can’t read later in the day, I’ve got some reading in.

January Letter/Contract – I read my January Letter and my contract with myself about my new blog out loud, every day. Hearing myself say these things has been very important. I’ve also made some modifications as the year has progressed. Where once it read “I commit to not say ‘I can’t afford it,’ ‘I should just quit,’ or ‘I can’t make money’.” It now says “I say ‘I can afford it,’ ‘I won’t quit,’ and ‘I make money’.”

Courses – I’m working through Pinterest Traffic Avalanche and Make Money Blogging For Beginners by Create & Go (check out my post about my experiences with their first course if you have any interest in starting a blog). I also added a travel hacking course into this portion of the day.

Writing inspiration – While we were traveling to Boston, I had a realization about what my inspiration is for sharing about travel. I wrote that out and read it while listening to a song that really touches my soul about travel. Sometimes I’ll watch a video I put together of us traveling to really get into the mood.

Write for TJFZ – After I find myself in that mood, I start writing. As I’ve been adjusting my workday for all the new things I have to do, I realized I had too full of a schedule on my new blog. So I’m reverse engineering it a bit. I’m seeing how long it takes me to do everything I need to do for a post, from writing, to posting, to creating other social media content. Then I’ll have a better idea of what’s a good time frame/schedule for where I am now with other commitments.

Write a post for 365 – I have to say, showing up every day for this blog has made such a profound impact on my life in countless ways. I’m so thankful for EVERY one of you who read my posts, whether every day, every few weeks or just once. Knowing that I have an audience for what I say is just amazing.

Workout/shower – If I’m lucky, I can squeeze in a run before Bret leaves. Sometimes it’s a workout done in the apartment.

On a good day, I’m done all of this by 8:30 a.m. What’s great about that is I’m able to mentally turn off any thoughts of “Oh, I should work on my blogs, oh, I still need to work out, etc.” I’ve taken care of things that are important to me – my spiritual growth, my personal growth, my health, and my businesses. I’m able to jump into my work day knowing these important things are done. I’m thankful I’ve cultivated a strict morning routine for so long because now that I’m adding in so much, I can still fit it all in. It was a huge deal once the real estate workload increased.

I am now SO happy to get up at 5 a.m. and am so thankful for what I can do because of it. I never thought I’d say it, but I don’t snooze anymore and I actually get up pretty excited.

What time do you get up?

Editor’s note: This photo was taken when I forgot to post a few years ago. This is not an actual representation of us when we wake up. 😀

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