Improve Your College Morning Routine

A good morning routine is a great way to start your day. It refreshes your mind, makes you feel much more energetic and also enhances your general productivity throughout the day. However, waking up in the morning can be extremely difficult for college students. Between pulling all-nighter study session and getting to your early morning classes, it seems like there’s just never enough time in the morning. Instead of struggling, try these few tips to help you jump-start your day.

 

Start Small and Track Your Progress

When it comes to building a morning routine that you can keep up, start small – even just ten minutes – and build onto it. You don’t just magically increase your willpower or build habits overnight. These things take time. Pick a few habits that are meaningful to you and stretch a bit beyond your comfort zone consistently over time.

Tracking your progress will essentially give you a chain of successes and you’re not going to want that chain to break. When you look back on it, you will be motivated to keep up your morning routine in the future.

Structure and Test Your A.M. Routine

Without a schedule, it’s extremely easy to forget the things you want to do in your mind. Try writing a list or set a simple reminder telling yourself to actually do your morning rituals and put it somewhere obvious like sticking it to your wall. You may also want to consider apps such as Habitica or Todoit to help remind yourself what you need to do in the morning, and keep track of your progress.

Try timing your current morning routine, from the moment you wake up until the moment you leave. There’s a good chance you’ve given yourself an arbitrary time span, like an hour, rather than see what your morning actually requires. Consider setting your alarm to an earlier time. Or think of some ways to make your morning routine more efficient – such as showering or packing your lunch at night.

Move Your Phone

Seriously, move it away from your bed, especially if your phone doubles as your alarm clock. Instead of constantly hitting the snooze button, keeping your phone/alarm clock at walking distance turns waking up into getting up.

Another benefit of having your phone far away, is that you won’t be checking your email and social media until 2 a.m. (and first thing in the morning!). You should make checking your laptop or phone the last part of your morning routine, allowing you the time you need to complete more important and necessary tasks.

Start Your Day Off Healthy

It’s also extremely important that your body is fueled with food first thing in the morning. Food provides energy and gets the mind and body ready for the day.  If you’re one of the many college students who skips breakfast, chances are you’re hungry for most of the day.

Try making a smoothie, eating a breakfast bar, muffins, yogurt, cereal and milk, munch on veggies, fresh fruit, trail mix or even a fast peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You should also be drinking lots of water (adding lemon can give you a real boost), taking multivitamins, and getting in a short workout or meditation routine if you can.

Study

This isn’t for everyone, but you should give this a try to see if it’s possible because there are so many benefits. Studying in the morning mean less people at the library and less stress. Getting your work done early will free up the rest of your day giving you more time to relax and enjoy your evening. If you’re short on time, just review your notes of the classes you are going to have that day.

Evening Routine

If you want a successful morning routine, you need to consider your evening routine as well. Lack of sleep and lack of organization will derail your morning preparation. In the hour before going to bed, think of the items that you’ll need for the next day and then spend five minutes putting them together so when you wake up in the morning, it will be easier for you to get out the door.

You need to have enough sleep to wake up at the time you want. The obvious solution to combat sleepiness is to get more rest at night. Usually, 6-8 hours of sleep is the recommended amount of slumber you need, but everyone is slightly different on this.